Transformation and Restoration: Boyhood Masculinity in Michael Ende's The Neverending Story

Michael Ende’s 1979 novel, The Neverending Story (Die unendliche Geschichte in its original German), follows Bastian Balthazar Bux, a young boy plagued by bullies, as he steals a book called The Neverending Story and runs away from home to read it. As Bastian reads, however, the book references himself—and he is eventually sucked into the land of Fantastica that he has been reading about. Throughout his time in Fantastica, Bastian’s ability to make endless wishes leads him to change everything about himself, from his physical appearance to his mental attributes. In doing so, Bastian tries to make himself into the most traditionally masculine version of himself possible; however, he becomes a worse person because of these transformations and a shell of his former self. The novel’s stance on masculinity is not entirely negative, however, as shown by its portrayal of Atreyu, a character whom Bastian reads about and who later becomes his best friend. Though the novel has generated international scholarship, critical literature available in English does not address the ways in which Bastian and Atreyu embody and are affected by standards of masculinity, despite the centrality of Bastian’s insecurities to the novel. I argue that The Neverending Story rejects both toxic masculinity and the traditional transformation plot by returning Bastian to his true self at the end and vilifying his transformation in the first place. Instead, Bastian’s creativity, a non-gendered trait that he has possessed all along, becomes the source of his confidence by the novel’s end.