some one please help me with my essay, im pulling my hair out here

[kimberleyxxx]

Hey,

i am hoping that some of you friendly people put there may be able to help me. I need to write an essay on fantasy and realism, why they cant exist without each other. I am really stuck and just dont know which way to go any help with an essay plan or anything is really appreciated. i know i have left this to the last mintute as its in next week, ive just been putting it off because its so hard.:( :bawling:

thanks:

[kimberleyxxx]

Hey,

i am hoping that some of you friendly people out there may be able to help me. I need to write an essay on fantasy and realism, why they cant exist without each other. I am really stuck and just dont know which way to go any help with an essay plan or anything is really appreciated. i know i have left this to the last mintute as its in next week, ive just been putting it off because its so hard.

i think i would need to define what each of them is and then how they work together and why they cant work seperately, i just don't know

apologies for frantic message stressing out a little/

thanks:

[blp]

It's a strange question because its premise isn't something I would have thought was generally agreed. As far as I can tell, a lot of realist writers think they can pretty much go about their business without any help from fantasy, and vice versa. Perhaps one could start by pointing out examples of how apparently 'pure' examples of realist writing actually contain vital elements of the fantastic - and vice versa. Alice in Wonderland's frequent allusions to elements of ordinary life might be an example of the latter. A film like John Cassavetes Opening Night, with its seance sequence half way through an otherwise realist depiction of a play rehearsal, might be an example of the former. However, it's difficult to prove, based on examples like these, that fantasy and reality are actually inseparable.

Your most solid starting point might be the shifting sands of philosophy, which show over and over again how what we think of as reality may well be little more than a fantasy. You could argue that we are always at three removes - 1) the basic Kantian limitations of our perception or reality - we perceive what it is within us to perceive. To be Darwinian about it, we have a human eye, not a bee's eye or an owl's eye etc. 2) relatedly, the limitations of language as a way of symbolising reality; the two things are not the same, yet we have no way of conveying our sense of reality except through language - hence all writing, even the most realist, somewhat falls short of its object; and 3) the Freudian sense that our perception of reality is always conditioned by our own experiences, that we are always seeing through the filter of our own intensely subjective, phantastical conditioning.

Best of luck!

[RingoLass]

Well... fantasy is finding the beauty in the exotic and turning it into its own world. And realism is looking at the simple, every day man or object and finding beauty in it without glamorizing it. Does that help at all?

[byquist]

Teacher may be trying to get students to see that there is no happy without sad, no sweet without bitter, no fast without slow, etc. You only know joy because you've known sadness, and vice versa. You only know one thing as contrasted to its opposite. Thus, no realism without fantasy. A good vocab word to use in the essay is "dichotomy."

Teacher might also be pointing to "dualism," good and evil coexisting. There are varied views on the accuracy of dualism.

[jgweed]

One might begin this exercise by clearly stating the defining characteristics of each; how does one, for example, know the difference between fantasy and reality, and in what cases is this distinction blurred?
Perhaps reality is only an agreed-upon fantasy?
What class is this essay for?
Cheers,
John