The Truth About Fairytales Fairytales of one sort or another have been with us since the very beginnings of humanity. They give expression to some of our deepest fears and longings, as well as teaching us things about reality and our place in it that often are neglected in more "realistic" literature. A fairytale shows us the reality of good and evil, right and wrong, and of our need to choose between them. In Beauty and the Beast we see that it is necessary to love people before they become worthy of our love. The Frog Prince teaches us that promises must always be kept, even though the consequences may be most unpleasant. In every fairytale a deliberate choice must be made between right and wrong. But unlike fables, where the moral is stated directly, fairytales do not preach. Instead they show us through the actions and choices of their characters what they are about. And the making of that choice is crucial, for in it we are shown something deeply important, although all too often forgotten: The choices that we make matter. There is in a fairytale no such thing as a small decision. Every choice affects our destiny, and in some way the destiny of the world. And this is a crucial lesson, because our society tries very hard to convince itself that people can make choices without consequences. We even call this ability freedom, although in truth it is the precise opposite. We are free to make choices only insofar as choice itself has meaning. If our choices have no lasting effects life is meaningless. But fairytales deny this meaninglessness. Decisions have consequences, for good or evil. Little Red Riding Hood disobeys and both she and her grandmother are devoured by the wolf. Beauty breaks her promise and the Beast very nearly dies. And in a more modern fairytale, Han Solo chooses to return and help his friends, turning defeat into victory. But even beyond all of this, what is most important in a fairytale, what in fact defines it as a fairytale as opposed to many other types of fantasy, is the surprise happy ending, the eucatastrophe to use Tolkien's word for it. The sudden turning of utter despair into absolute joy. It does not deny the possibility of failure and disappointment: Without the possibility of failure, success would be empty. But it does deny that evil, meaninglessness, and despair will have final victory. No matter how much struggle and pain the hero or heroine must endure, the final ending is always both triumphant and in some way unexpected. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in The Little Mermaid. Some have claimed that this story does not have a happy ending since the mermaid is not permitted to marry the prince, but it must be remembered that marrying the prince was never her real goal. It was merely the means through which she sought to fulfill the true longing of her heart - the desire to have an immortal soul. And that longing was fulfilled in the end, although not in a way that anyone could have expected, and only after she proved willing to sacrifice her life. When she finally abandoned all hope of ever achieving her desire, then it was given to her. There could be no better ending than this. And this, I would argue, is the most important function of the fairytale, as well as it's true form. For in this sudden turning of despair to joy every fairytale is a pre-figurement, a type if you will, of the Christian gospel. The resurrection of Christ is the guarantee of final victory. It is the eucatastrophe of history. It's hard to make this point strongly enough. If Christ truly is who he claimed to be, if he truly has risen from the dead, then there is a final, decisive, gloriously happy ending to any situation whatsoever in which I may find myself. This is not to say my choices don't matter. On the contrary, it matters profoundly what I choose. God is a gentleman, and will not force even a happy ending on me unless I am willing to receive it. (How upset we often become at the notion that God treats us with respect and takes our freedom of choice seriously!) But if I am willing to enter in I will find that the fairytale has, at last, entered time and space and become real, although never in a way I would have expected. There is therefore a sense in which all fairytales are true. And this is very much unlike what passes for realistic or "serious" literature, which typically is realistic in trivial details but unrealistic in matters of importance, and "serious" only in the sense that much of it isn't very funny. Fairytales are delightfully unrealistic in small things: animals talk, witches live in cottages in the forest, frogs and castles and even people may at any moment prove to be enchanted. But in the more important matters of good and evil, love, truth, duty, and most of all hope, what is true in fairytales is true also in the reality in which we live. And of course it is just the sort of thing we should expect from fairytales that they should come true in some unexpected way. And in the fullness of time, and of Heaven's purposes, we may yet one day find there is even more truth in fairytales than we have so far suspected, for: "All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know." Note: I am indebted to J. R. R. Tolkien's Tree and Leaf. both for introducing me to the idea of fairytale as pointer to the Gospel and for the quote I used at the end. © 1997, Joe Jefferson. All rights reserved.