The Trickster as Liminal Agent: Gaps, Disruption, and Narrative Dynamics in Neil Gaiman’s Corpus

Abstract

This paper proposes a narratological framework for analyzing the trickster figure as a liminal agent in fiction. Drawing on Turner’s liminality, Iser’s Leerstellen, Mendlesohn’s liminal fantasy, Eco’s open work, and Greimas’s semiotic square, it develops a triple semiotic square model that maps the trickster’s ethical positioning, action categories, and narrative dynamics. The framework is applied to Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, American Gods, and Anansi Boys, demonstrating how trickster figures such as Loki and Anansi operate through narrative gaps – omissions, disruptions, and deliberate withholdings that force both characters and readers to reconstruct meaning. The analysis reveals the trickster as a structural engine of narrative progression, uniquely positioned at the threshold between creation and destruction, order and change, functioning both as the generator of narrative indeterminacy and as the catalyst of its resolution.