The Point of Fantasy

The other day a teacher brought a class into the library requiring that each student check out a book. Most students just wandered up and down the shelves waiting for something to catch their eye. One such group skipped the Fiction section altogether with several comments along the lines of "fiction is dumb" and "what is the point" (phrased much more vulgarly and less articulately).

Mentally I immediately objected and began formulating a defense of fiction, which for me centered on fantasy, the most fictiony of fiction and what I am sure was the actual focus of their objection. "Fantasy isn't suppose to have a point--it is something above quantifiable practicality, like hope or freedom or chocolate. As Terry Pratchett said 'Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.'"

I, after mulling it over for several days, no longer am of this opinion. While that might be the point of most fantasy I do not think it is what the goal of fantasy should be or what good fantasy achieves. Fairy stories, like those by the Brothers Grimm, are meant to teach us how to view the world. That there is good and evil in the world, that people's fate and success are not necessarily tied to their virtue, and that there is a transformative power in the world (grace or a fairy godmother) are all lessons learned in fairy tales. As Chesterton said in Orthodoxy (and Chesterton usually puts things best): ".. the chivalrous lesson of 'Jack the Giant Killer'; that giants should be killed because they are gigantic. It is a manly mutiny against pride as such. For the rebel is older than all the kingdoms, and the Jacobin has more tradition than the Jacobite. There is the lesson of 'Cinderella', which is the same as that of the Magnificat - exaltavit humiles. There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast'; that a thing must be loved before it is lovable. There is the terrible allegory of 'Sleeping Beauty,' which tells how the human creature was blessed with all birthday gifts, yet cursed with death; and how death also may perhaps be softened to a sleep."

That does not mean that fantasy must than be allegorical or meant to teach a specific moral like Aesop's fables. Instead, it takes the world and puts it in a new light, thereby illuminating some truths that might get blurred in day to day life. Good fantasy and fairy tales help mold a persons imagination and to provides them with a framework to interpret the world. It does more than tone the muscles of the mind, it provides a road map and guide book for the created world.