Why Fantasy Matters Too Much

I thought that today would be pretty ordinary and boring, wake up, go to the gym, get ready, go to campus to do research, blah, blah, blah. It was pretty ordinary and boring up to that point, doing some research on campus, because it just so happens that I'm doing research for my senior English paper and the subject matter must have something to do with fairy tales. My class is actually called, "The Fairy Tale," so I'm not kidding.

I'm in one of those predicaments where I feel like I've been writing too many papers, and my creative energy feels like it's draining fast. In this class, which I enjoy more than any other, why is it that I can't think of a good paper topic? Everything about this class is fascinating and interesting, and in all of the everything, it's so hard to settle down on a specific something. But my fancy was struck the other day by a particular retelling of the "Hansel and Gretel" story, but this one was set in modern Italy.

Perfect, right? I guess, for those who don't know me very well, I lived in Italy for a year and a half, and I love love love most Italian things. This fairy tale was particularly interesting, though. Unlike most of the fairy tales we read in class, this one read just like a middle-grade novel, except it was only six or seven pages. I knew that some of the fairy tales were not originally meant for children, but the fact that I have not yet read a fairy tale in that class where the child was the hero (until "Nino and Nina" by Gianni Rodari) made me wonder if, in fact, most fairy tales were actually intended for adults.

I began looking for the origins of the middle-grade novel. When exactly did people start writing for kids, and were fairy tales an influence in that? It may not sound like a paper topic yet, but I'm working off of this idea. And, getting back to when I was starting my research in the library, I stumbled across an article called, "Why Fantasy Matters Too Much," by Jack Zipes, a well-known name in the field of folklore. I don't have too much time to summarize the article, but I'll share some of my favorite quotes from there:

"It is through fantasy that we have always sought to make sense of the world, not through reason. Reason matters, but fantasy matters more" (78).

"In fact, much of what we call fantasy is predictable schlock and tritely conventional because it lacks critical reflection and self-reflection and appeals to market conditions and audience delusions" (81).

"If fantasy can be subversive and resistant to existing social conditions, then it wants to undermine what passes for normality, to expose the contradictions of civil society, and to right the world out-of-joint-in the name of humanity" (82).

"It's effect [the effect of the fantastic] cannot be totally predetermined or determined, except to say that a reader and viewer will always be impelled by the dynamics of the fantastic to reflect seriously and imaginatively about the customary ways she or he engages with the world" (83).

"Hope for change can only be created if the fantastic illuminates and exposes delusion" (83).

Of course, he uses the term fantasy in a broad sense, with many different meanings, but it does make me pause and consider the literature that we read and print. To what end does it serve? Do we, as individuals, use fantasy to be deluded or enlightened?