“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” – C.S. Lewis
In 1939, J.R.R. Tolkien, beloved author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, delivered a compelling lecture that became the genesis of his famous essay “On Fairy Stories”. This 18,000-word essay expressed Tolkien’s views on the power and importance of fairy tales as conveyors of ultimate human longing and desire.
Fantasy, myths, and fairy tales have always been powerful mediums for helping readers or viewers locate themselves in life. Like the giant site maps in shopping malls, these stories can provide a powerful “You are here” moment, even if the stories themselves are not technically considered “true”.
Mythic stories specifically—whether or not they are based in science, history, or verifiable fact—explain truths about the world and mankind’s experience in it. Thus, The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia can be quite true even though they are make-believe. They express profound truths about the human experience—friendship, courage, goodness, and love—in ways that strengthen and inform our everyday lives. This is the great power and beauty of story.
Not every story does this of course. Some stories are mere entertainment, offering simple reprieves from the pressure and dailyness of life, but others are deeper and more profound. They communicate truths, insights, and inspiration that helps us find our way. A true fairy story does both.
Tolkien described a fairy story as meeting three primary criteria:
- Fairy stories enable the reader to critically assess his or her own world from the perspective of a different world. Thus, observations about Narnia or Middle Earth can help readers gain insight or draw conclusions about their own world.
- Additionally, fairy stories provide legitimate escapist pleasure. For Tolkien, escaping the pressures of daily life through the outlet of fairy tales was perfectly legitimate. In Tolkien’s thinking, a prisoner is not obliged to think of nothing but cells and wardens, but rather they can use imagination and creativity to think beyond their current situation. Fairy stories provide the same outlet for us.
- Finally, true fairy tales end happily, providing the reader/viewer with moral or emotional closure and consolation.
In more recent thought, author John Eldredge echoed some of Tolkien’s sentiment in his book Epic: The Story God Is Telling. In this little book Eldredge identified the consistent themes of every great epic story and showed how their essential truths are embedded in the story of God and man in Scripture. Eldredge’s four themes included eternal love, the entrance of evil, the battle for the heart, and the kingdom restored.[i] More specifically, the recurring themes in every great epic include:
- A glorious past.
- The entrance of evil (which disrupts the glorious past).
- The emergence of a hero (supported by a small fellowship, a band of brothers/sisters).
- A love to fight for.
- A final battle (where hope seems lost and all hangs in the balance).
- Ultimate victory that restores the glorious past.
These themes do indeed appear in every epic story from Pixar’s Finding Nemo or Up to Marvel’s sprawling blockbusters. They also appear in the larger story of God’s relationship with mankind. Evil has indeed traumatized our world, and each of us now struggles to overcome. A fellowship is essential as we fight for beauty, healing, and love, and thankfully, through Jesus Christ, a restoration is assured.
Let’s ponder these themes and notice when other stories re-present them. Let’s enjoy our fairy tales, fantasy, and myths, and use them to reconnect us to the larger, truer story of God.
[i] John Eldredge, Epic: The Story God Is Telling (Thomas Nelson Publishing, 2012).