Shadows of Truth
Humans are, by nature, communicators. And their words provide windows into the turbulence or ecstasy of their hearts. A person need not know all the deep philosophical reasons behind his thoughts, and he may sadly be unable to discern the consequences of his worldview and be blinded to the ultimate truth while speaking or writing about the symptoms he observes.
Fairytales are expressive means of demonstrating the common human longing to escape death, inviting the reader to experience an alternative world, although the joys that may accompany this secondary world are only fulfilled through the supernatural.
Facing the Facts
One of the most basic things fairytales reveal is the existence of a problem. Otherwise, what need would there be to look beyond the confines of the natural world? A man does not seek for food unless he is hungry, and he does not desire anything if satisfied. Generally, fairytales move from a catastrophe to a happy ending, what J.R.R. Tolkien terms “eucatastrophe.”
We are all familiar with the cliché eucatastrophe “and they lived happily ever after.” If only we could see and hunger for that ultimate reality – and not as the world envisions it! We are very familiar with suffering, sorrow, and death. These themes are not inherently appealing. However, they are relatable. But only Christians know where the problem stems from. Romans 5:12 explains, “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned . . .” (ESV). Genesis 3 speaks of the first sin which tainted perfect happiness and bred evil and suffering, creating an endemic, ubiquitous plague of enmity with God and our fellow man.
Although all people are beset with the effects of sin and misery, so many are blinded to the truth. Many people, even Christians, can be tempted “to think of ... [themselves] more highly than ... [they] ought to think”, to the point of believing that they are basically good (Romans 12:3). By his grace alone, God removes those blinders so that his children are freed from the chains of death, forsake the lies of sin, and grow in conformity to his image, being made to see the unseen, as revealed through Christ, with true eyes of faith. Fairytales, although far subservient to the perfect Word, are eye-opening as they employ hyperboles to draw attention to the absurdity of worldly-mindedness.
George MacDonald’s “The Golden Key” is an excellent example of this, where Mossy’s initial, instinctive interest in the golden key is how he can exchange it for worldly goods. How different are the words of Scripture found in Proverbs 23:23— “Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.” We tend to seek—to demand—quick and painless panaceas and would be content to be trapped if only are hearts are soothed, even if for a fleeting moment. Fairytales can show the folly of worldly- mindedness when there are much weightier matters in the balances.
Made for Another
Fairytales whisper a hint that man’s fallen estate is unnatural. That’s because it is. We were not made for sin. We were not made to die. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, they would have enjoyed, and their descendants with them, unbroken communion with God. Fairytales expose man’s desire for restoration. People voice their longing and emptiness, the more so when the misery of sin’s consequences stares them miserably in the face. After the World Wars of the 20th century, many who had relative peace and affluence beforehand were rudely awakened by the horrors of global war. Artists like the Surrealists and Abstract Expressionists sought freedom and an escape from the reality around them which seemed too harsh to be their only portion and lot.
They turned to dark themes and undisciplined desire, taking refuge in sin. Far from liberating the distressed soul, this tightens the chains. Their method was escapism, and its end: further catastrophe.
But proper fairytales point to a very different sort of escape, an escape that transcends all fleshly methods and that points higher, points upward, to a strength that sustains us to face our difficulties with expectation, waiting “with eager longing” for “the freedom of the glory of the children of God . . . the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:19, 21, 23). True escape is not just a psychological crutch. (It is not, normally anyway, conducive to feel-good emotions to believe that I am fully, totally, and hopelessly depraved outside of Christ.) True deliverance does not hide from the problem; it solves it. Our Deliverer did not dismiss our sin; he paid the debt. Fairytales continue to hold their appeal with readers of every age because of the universal nature of the problem they address.
The Vanity of Worldly Acclaim
A man may be the most successful businessman, the most brilliant academic, or the wealthiest individual in the world, and yet have nothing (Matthew 16:26). In Luke 12, Jesus tells a parable of a rich man full of himself. The man considered provisions for his ever-expanding wealth but failed to consider heavenly things. Luke 12:20 tragically but fully sums up this man’s life – “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” Man builds himself up in his own imagination, but God’s infallible opinion is the only one that matters.
Fairytales have a very simple way of revealing the emptiness of worldly-mindedness, particularly pronounced in MacDonald’s characters Mossy and Tangle (Psalm 39:6, 49:10-20, Ecclesiastes 1:1). Children may seem like an odd pick for heroes in MacDonald’s tale, and yet they are heroes nonetheless, heroes with a quest for lasting treasures, with a hope for an eternal home.
Humans are frail (Psalm 90:10, Ecclesiastes 1:3-4). But that frailty is exacerbated when young Mossy assures the lady with the fish that he will take care of Tangle (McGillis, 88). This seems cute but silly—a little boy without direction protecting a girl from he knows not what? “You will take care of her, Mossy, will you not?” the lady asks. “That I will,” he replies, only to lose Tangle shortly after entering the land, not of attacking enemies, but of shadows. Man is so utterly weak on his own, for he was not made to be his own. The world cannot satisfy because we were not made for this world. Ecclesiastes 3:11 states that God “has put eternity into man’s heart.” And no amount of humanistic arete or earthly riches will ever satisfy man’s deepest desires. French theologian, Blaise Pascal, powerfully paints the longing in every human heart which points to God.
What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself. (Pascal 138)
Paradise was lost, but it has been regained, and it will be restored.
The Supernatural – A Super-Reality
The strong sense of otherworldliness in fairytales denotes their approach to style and setting. Fairytales adopt a no-nonsense approach to something that seems laughable at first glance, that is fantastical, that breaks all the rules of possibility and reality. But the spiritual realm to which fairytales point is a wonderful realm, in some ways more real than what we term “real life,” a super-reality in Christ that transcends all human comprehension. In the words of 1 Corinthians 1:18, “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Fairytales appeal to a new, greater sort of space and story. They do not fit neatly into the “real” world; they appeal to a space that we cannot literally touch and see, but a space that we know deep down must be—a home that beckons us to come and rest.
But, although fairytales impart lessons, of course they are still unreal, right? What could be more obvious than that? However, C.S. Lewis’s response is not so simple. His answer may come as a surprise, but it is worth pondering. The argument Lewis submits in his work “Myth Became Fact” can be as easily applied to fairytales as to myths. Christ is the fulfillment of all that man could hope or dream of. There is no greater, no sweeter, nor truer eucatastrophe but that brought about through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior.
Comfort in Christ
Fairytales thus powerfully bind together human longing in search of something beyond human comprehension, serving as shadows of the truth. The Psalmist, having tasted the true eucatastrophe presented through the Gospel genuinely and joyfully proclaims in Psalm 16:5, “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.” Even in the darkest of times, God Almighty is our portion, our strength, and our comforter. God holds our stories together. He has engraved our names upon his hand. And he works in each of his chosen ones to turn mourning into dancing, catastrophes into eucatastrophes, rebels into children, through stories that begin on earth. To be continued...
Works Cited
Lewis, C.S. “Myth Became Fact.” InGod in the Dock. Edited by Walter Hooper. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970, 63-67. https://archive.org/details/godindockessayso0000lewi/mode/2up.
MacDonald, George. “The Golden Key.” Project Gutenberg Australia, 1867.
https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700571h.html.
McGillis, Roderick. “‘A Fairytale Is Just a Fairytale’: Georege MacDonald and the Queering of Fairy.”Marvels & Tales17, no. 1 (2003): 86–99.http://www.jstor.org/stable/41389901.
Pascal, Blaise.Thoughts. United States: P.F. Collier & son, 1910.
Tolkien, J.R.R. “On Fairy-Stories.”Internet Archive, 2021. https://archive.org/details/on-fairy-stories_202110.
