Fantasy Question :)

[MichelleDB]

Hey everyone I am trying to start this essay for my Fantasy class but I'm having a hard time thinking of what to write about.. I was hoping to post the topic and see if I can get any ideas from you guys to build on my work.

1. Consider any two of the following novels: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, A Wrinkle in Time, The Hobbit and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Why do children (or the childlike) provide the means of salvation in so many works of fantasy?

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Michelle

[cranberry]

Heheheheh I'd go about harry potter cuz you can write alot about it and because it's full of fantasy and things which was never imagined by any other person but this great auther and you might express alot of things>>>
hope ya do well in this essay of your choice and wish ya the best and do tell us what you did :) waiting to hear from you :) best luck :)

[JCamilo]

In Narnia and Harry Potter simple because the targeted audience is the Children. No other reason.
The Hobbit there is no childlike savior - for Tolkien Hobbits are more bumpkins than children. And the eagerness for travel that Bilbo and Frodo share are the typical eargness for travels of the many fantasy heroes. They are more near to teenagers turning addults than children.
(Anyways, XIX century, the raise of age of reason, Realism!, and the century of the development of the children literature. Those people considered that Fantasy may not be something addult. So, fantasy started to be related and created for children. They are wrong, but it was what happened and lead us to a market for children related to fantasy in the XX century).

[Charles Darnay]

Heheheheh I'd go about harry potter cuz you can write alot about it and because it's full of fantasy and things which was never imagined by any other person but this great auther


I'm sorry, but...........WHAT? Look, as a person who likes his fantasy novels, I enjoy Harry Potter: it's entertaining and addictive. But if there is one thing that cannot be said about Harry Potter is that it is original! The closest I can think of is Quiddich....Quiddich is a pretty good invention, but even that.....

[cranberry]

thats why ---he made a good choice by asking alot of people have opinions
and two brains are better than one.

[cows]

In Narnia and Harry Potter simple because the targeted audience is the Children. No other reason.

Well, there is more to it than that. Think about E.T.A. Hoffman's The Nutcracker ( i feel like I’ve used this before ). The notion that an adult would be willing or able to be immersed in the fantasy world is unreal to most authors. The authors tend to pin the child's imagination and the adult-like "reality" against each other (Harry's Family!).

Fantasy stories have stemmed from a mix between Hoffman-like fictional arguments that the imagination is pure, whether good or bad things exist in it, and mythology. Check out Jorge Luis Borges' Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, it has a similar argument - his argues that realism and an imaginative idealism are the ingredients to creation.

Altogether, children symbolize innocence, purity, and the most active imagination. Writers long for their ability to create. Fantasy is the children's realm.

[Unbeliever]

I greatly enjoyed A Wrinkle in Time when I read it decades ago. I think it was the first sci-fi/fantasy I ever read, and I've been addicted to both ever since.

Fantasy stories all tend to have similar storylines: problem, group trek to find/acquire solution, all live happily ever after. Pretty simple.

[symphony]

I guess children, or the childlike, mostly tend to lean on the utopian world where everything is perfect and life is nothing but a joyous celebration, except for occasional hindrances which again add to the delicate delights of adventure! Thats where fantasy works, its never-before-imagined imageries grip the tender minds and the adventurous storylines follow suit.

[applepie]

There is an innocence in children that make them our salvation. As we age we learn to be distrustful and not take things as they seem. We exchange trust of our instincts for trust in reasoning. Children have the ability to view a situation without bias that is lost in the grown. Their innocence, which both aids and cripples, gives a different outlook on a situation. They can judge on what is present and act accordingly without the influence of others. They are free of societies constraints because of their youth and it makes it possible for them to judge solely on their impressions.

[Shurtugal]

There is an innocence in children that make them our salvation. As we age we learn to be distrustful and not take things as they seem. We exchange trust of our instincts for trust in reasoning. Children have the ability to view a situation without bias that is lost in the grown. Their innocence, which both aids and cripples, gives a different outlook on a situation. They can judge on what is present and act accordingly without the influence of others. They are free of societies constraints because of their youth and it makes it possible for them to judge solely on their impressions.

yes, yes, yes, yes! no truer words spoken! it is the innocence of a child that captivates the mind. children have no thought of true evil, and when they see it they are abhored by it. hurt and disgusted. yes they do sin, of course. when you start going to your teens you can't help thinking bad thoughts. you might not like it, but you still think it. children, young and innocent, don't know many things of this world so they can not think it. that is what is the problem of telling kids of young age things that need not to know. by the way i can't agree more with you hockenberrry. i can't agree more. you to symphony

p.s. peter pan is one of the best fantisy along side narnai, eldest and eragon. you might want to read these for more help.

[Mortis Anarchy]

I think its because children are very insightful, they can see into people for the most part, and innate...but the innocence and probably the fact that kids have big imaginations...not saying that older kids and adults don't...

[JCamilo]

Well, there is more to it than that. Think about E.T.A. Hoffman's The Nutcracker ( i feel like I’ve used this before ). The notion that an adult would be willing or able to be immersed in the fantasy world is unreal to most authors. The authors tend to pin the child's imagination and the adult-like "reality" against each other (Harry's Family!).

Fantasy stories have stemmed from a mix between Hoffman-like fictional arguments that the imagination is pure, whether good or bad things exist in it, and mythology. Check out Jorge Luis Borges' Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, it has a similar argument - his argues that realism and an imaginative idealism are the ingredients to creation.

Altogether, children symbolize innocence, purity, and the most active imagination. Writers long for their ability to create. Fantasy is the children's realm.


Yes, Children are symbols of purity and inocence but that is not the reason behind Harry Potter and Narnia - Kids live the heroes because Kids will identify themselves with the main characters.
When Hoffman wrote the children literature (His works are not children literature) didn't existed, or at beast, existed just as a very elementar genre - The very developers of the genre - The Grimms, Lewis Carroll, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Roberto Louis Stevenson are yet to set the rules for the XX century's genre. Alice is a girl because the story is made for a girl, she does not symbolize innocence.
Also, when Hoffman wrote, there was not this awkward view that Addults would not work with fantasy - The major themes of Romanticism , which Hoffman is a top name, included fantasies specially influencied by the Celtic revival, the 1001 nights and the Gothic literature coming from Germany. This awkwardness is much more caused by scientifism and the Realism genre that dominated the second half of the XIX century, and the fantasy was seen as childish (obviously a silly notion as Kafka and Borges proved) and disguised itself in the science fiction and horror genres.
As Borges, the nature of his argument is born from the philosopher Berkley and deals with "what we call reality is actually something we imagined".

[the silent x]

i think it's because children are innocent, frail, and untamed. they can defy the laws because they don't know those laws, you can't hit them because you would then be killed on the spot for harming an innocent and harmless thing. and also, have you ever looked in a kids eyes when they have the puppy face on in full power, (the cute ones that you don't know, it doesn't work on those that know them) whoever they asked will melt in the palm of the innocent child's devilish hands

[katie9trent]

I think that children are so good and pure like a bell. Can provide the means of salvation to fantasy. And real life too.

[JBI]

The same way the Greeks loved Homer's Epics. With Homer you see a work that upholds the ideals of Arete. Achilles, and Odysseus, as well as others, portray the idealistic character. This character represents exactly what the readers want to see in their protagonist.

This was also expanded with Virgil's Aeneid. Virgil imbues the ideals that the Romans loved.

The same thing works with those fantasy stories. The children of the Narnia books represent what the kids want themselves to be like. Lucy and Peter, and perhaps Susan being the ideal characters, smart, resourceful, noble, and then expanded later with Edmund after he reconciles with the group.

Harry Potter relates to children similarly. They like their hero, because he is emotional, like them, powerful, like they want to be, has friends, like they perhaps want to have, has cool adventures, inwhich they try to imagine themselves having, or try to have along with him, and represents what they imagine themselves being. Ron relates to the losers, who come from lower end families and are constantly in the shadow of their siblings, or are seen as inferior people to others around them. Hermione calls on the nerdy girl. The nerdy girl who is disliked by all the popular pretty girls, who is smart, who is resourceful, and who likes to read. Believe it or not, there are plenty of girls who relate to her on at least some level.

[blazeofglory]

Hey everyone I am trying to start this essay for my Fantasy class but I'm having a hard time thinking of what to write about.. I was hoping to post the topic and see if I can get any ideas from you guys to build on my work.

1. Consider any two of the following novels: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, A Wrinkle in Time, The Hobbit and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Why do children (or the childlike) provide the means of salvation in so many works of fantasy?

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Michelle

It sounds interesting

[blazeofglory]

I guess children, or the childlike, mostly tend to lean on the utopian world where everything is perfect and life is nothing but a joyous celebration, except for occasional hindrances which again add to the delicate delights of adventure! Thats where fantasy works, its never-before-imagined imageries grip the tender minds and the adventurous storylines follow suit.

Fantasies appeal to all, to you and to me, no the least bit. Everyone under the sun takes flights on the wings of imagination. When a boy sees a beautiful girl he fantasizes the moment with her in a world of imagination notwithstanding the fact that it is just virtual.

Fantasizes appeal to us, and they liven up us or else life is so short and meaningless if we remain confined within a cage of realities.

Break the seal of realities and venture out, untangling yourself from the fetters of traditions that are conditioning you into a pattern of life.

Imagination is powerful and if you are not free in wakefulness or in consciousnesses, somewhere deep down you are totally free to do all you want. That is living in fantasies.

[xtianfriborg13]

Harry Potter, definitely.