Inkheart by Cornelia Funke is a wonderful story within a story that is a delightful blend of fantasy and reality revolving around the adventures of a little girl Meggie and her father, Mo who has a special gift of bringing alive the characters he reads out of novels. This power invites the attention of villainous Capricorn, who plans to use Mo to bring to life both evil characters and great riches from books like Treasure Island and The Arabian Nights. When Meggie finds all about Capricorn and his evil things, she finds her dad missing, taken by Capricorn. Dustfinger, a character read from Inkheart by her father, betrays them and goes with her and her aunt Elinor to rescue her father. Inkheart unfolds several themes with which readers can relate. But the most important underlying theme of the book is the dilemma of good over evil. A balance between good and evil is the main theme of this story with its focus on character development, both within the characters of the larger text as well as with Fenoglio and the characters of his novel and three incidents that can be used to analyze the balancing of good and evil in characters are conflicted between Meggie and Mo, representing good face the ultimate evil in the character of Capricorn; inner conflict within Dustfinger who desires to go back into the book at any cost and also does not want to leave Mo and Meggie in danger; and the confrontation between the good Fenoglio and evil Capricorn and Busta towards the end of the story.
One day when Mo was reading Inkheart, Teresa and two family cats disappeared at the exact moment Capricorn, Dusterfinger, and Capricorn’s henchman, Basta, appeared. This was due to the magical power of Mo, who could bring transfer characters from fiction to reality and vice versa. Mo desperately attempted to bring Teresa back out of the book, but to no avail. In his despair, Mo decided there would be no more attempts to bring Teresa back because he was simply too frightened of what else might come out of the book. So he locked away his copy of Inkheart. The new villain out of the book, Capricorn sent his henchmen to collect all of the copies of the book in existence so he could control both his former and his current worlds and also wants to find Mo. Capricorn has his unique personality and Fenoglio, the author of “Inkheart”, calls him “the unapproachable,” and says that his heart “is a stone… a black stone with about as much human sympathy as a lump of coal.” Ever since his fifteenth year, Capricorn has worked hard to get rid of weaknesses in his character such as compassion and love. Having achieved that goal, he lived a self-centered life, full of hatred, power-hungry, and having no capacity to love, be kind, or happy. Capricorn is merciless and Mo, in contrast, is the personification of goodness and kindness. He tries to protect his daughter from the harsh realities of life and often risks his life for Meggie. He accepts responsibility for the tragic situation of Dustfinger and tries to send him back where he belongs. Even in the face of danger, Mo does not hesitate in doing what is right. Capricorn says to an imprisoned Meggie, “[Mo will] come here even though he knows I won’t let him go again, any more than I will let his daughter go. He’ll come all the same”. Capricorn and Mo, along with Meggie are depicted as polar opposite personalities. The clash of good and evil is well etched through the conflicts among these characters. Mo and Meggie try to get the help of Fenoglio, the author of the book “Inkheart”. Eager to help them, mainly because he is excited at the prospect of meeting his creations, Fenoglio joins them. Together, they outwit Capricorn and his minions and thereby show that good wins over evil.
In this book, Dustfinger is shown more as a victim of circumstances created by Mo. One evening, as Mo was reading Inkheart, Teresa and two family cats disappeared at the exact moment Capricorn, Dusterfinger, and Capricorn’s henchman, Basta, appeared. Mo desperately attempted to bring his wife, Teresa back out of the book, but to no avail. In his despair, Mo decided there would be no more attempts to bring Teresa back because he was simply too frightened of what else might come out of the book. So he locked away his copy of Inkheart. Dustfinger is a reluctant entry into reality from the book “Inkheart” and one who is desperate to get back home into the book. He is a kindly fire-eater/juggler who misses the fairies and his friends among trolls. Capricorn uses Dustfinger to lure Mo and Meggie to his hideout village; there Meggie sees a demonstration of her father’s reading skill when he brings gold treasure out of Treasure Island and a young Arab boy out of the Arabian Nights. When Dustfinger learns Capricorn’s true plans to exploit the powers of Mo to his advantage, Dustfinger decides to help Mo, Meggie, and Elinor escape over the hills. Dustfinger is torn apart by conflicting emotions: he desperately wants to return to his story and the life he always knew and finds the task of betraying Meggie to be much harder than he expected. However, even as his guilty conscience stirs, he “[pushes] the tiresome feeling away” and convinces himself that “the girl [has] nothing to do with him… [and] he [has] no reason to feel like a miserable double-dealing villain.” Despite this reassurance, however, Dustfinger still feels guilty for his actions, and he constantly struggles with himself throughout the story. This is an inner conflict between the goodness in him and the evil in him.
Fenoglio is the author of the book “Inkheart”. Meggie confronts him and blames him for creating Capricorn and not destroying him in his book. While he is initially proud of Capricorn, understands the destruction he is causing to Mo and Meggie, Fenoglio decides to help Mo. Fenoglio on the side of good fights both Busta and Capricorn with his intelligent ways. He escapes Busta by giving him magical charms for three days. Within that time, he experiments an idea of Meggie. He makes Meggie call to life the tin soldier from “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Fenoglio then rewrites the original, sad ending of “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” and then tells Meggie to read it aloud. The tin soldier returns to the book and has a happy ending. After this, he decides to apply the same idea to destroy Capricorn. He rewrites Inkheart’s ending so that the Shadow, instead of helping Capricorn with his evil plans will destroy him. This plan succeeds. Meggie reads this new ending aloud, the book’s author disappears into his creation, and Capricorn falls dead. Thus, in this particular instance of conflict between good and evil, we find that Fenoglio makes the supreme sacrifice of going into his creation and destroying the monster he has created.
Cornelia Funke’s “Inkheart” has the theme of good over evil running as a subtle undercurrent beneath its main plot and its subplots as well. Capricorn is the main villain personifying evil in the main plot. Both Mo and Meggie are shown as good people. But in this conflict between good and evil, the other characters such as Dustfinger, Basta, Elinor, Fenoglio, and Farid take sides and there is confrontation depending on the side they take. Thus the book deals with the balancing of good and evil in every conflict and can be discussed in the context of three main situations – in the case of Mo and Capricorn, the inner conflict of Dustfinger, and between Fenoglio and Capricorn.
Bibliography:
Funke, Cornelia (2005). Inkheart. Thorndike Press.