J.R.R Tolkien Believed Fairy Tales were Corrupted by Making Them Childlike and Evil

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Fairy tales have been told for generations and now every child has dolls, movies and books filled with magical adventure. Cinderella, Sleeping beauty, and Snow white have become classics in every household. However, J.R.R. Tolkien described in his essay “On Fairy Stories” that the world has corrupted fairy tales by making them childlike and denoting them to evil. Our culture prescribed fairies to be diminutive, supernatural creatures; however, fairies are neither small nor necessarily supernatural. A fairy is a direct product of Faerie, which is “the realm or state in which fairies have their being” (Tolkien “On” 2). Fairy stories are derived from the human mind, more so the imagination. Without the imagination, Faerie would be dull. The imagination produces images that result in a Secondary World, or Fantasy. Tolkien believed that Fantasy is an inherent human action that provides recovery, escape, and consolation; all of which readers can experience in The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of Tolkien’s fairy tale trilogy filled with hobbits, elves, and magical rings. Recovery, a main function in fairy tales, is described as seeing clearly the value of the world, but more significantly, awakening the desire to experience other worlds. The new view that these stories provide is a fundamental value of Faerie. In turn, after entering fantasy people leave with a clearer view because it “may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds” (Tolkien “On” 10). Fairy tales are composed of elements of the real world and Tolkien recognized this when he said “It was in fairy stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of the things, such as stone and wood, and iron; tree and grass; hou... ... middle of paper ... ...rincesses and Fairy Godmothers, but Tolkien argued in his article “On Faerie Stories” that this was due to society’s misconceptions of Fantasy in the Age of Reason. Tolkien believes that Fairy stories can be enjoyed by everyone, especially people who enjoy these types of stories in particular. In his article, however, Tolkien indicated that Faerie is too vast to be described. In his philosophy he discusses the ideas of Recovery, Escape, and Consolation as main values and functions of a fairy tale. His literary work, The Fellowship of the ring, part one of his fairy tale trilogy, represents these functions well by not limiting Faerie to diminutive beings. He includes the values of people needing an escape from their Primary World, a renewed sense of that world, and the consolation of happiness to instill his belief that fairy stories are beneficial, not irrational.

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