Five functions of fantasy

September 17th, 2008 | by Ben Hoare |

I recently mentioned escapism as one of the possible functions of fantasy, and have been meaning for some time to elaborate on this by outlining its other functions, as I see them.

These functions are not necessarily mutually exclusive - a fantasy can perform more than one function at the same time. It might even be true that they are mutually inclusive - that these are the necessary qualities of all fantasies. I’m not sure, yet. Let me know what you think.

1. Fantasy escapes reality

In a crude sense, fantasy provides escapism by creating something that is other than reality. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the children are literally escaping a real-world threat when they enter the wardrobe and discover Narnia.

Fantasy transports us, and can distract us from real-world concerns. It has been said that, in fantasy, anything can happen. Although I’m not sure how true this statement really is (see below), it’s certainly the case that the usual rules do not apply in fantasy, and there is something exciting about that.

The implication of “fantasy as escapism” is that fantasy gives us what is not real: it shows us what is not really there, just like the glasses Dorothy and her friends put on before entering the so-called Emerald City.

2. Fantasy replaces reality

There is another way of understanding the Emerald City con: some might say that whatever we see is the reality: there is no underlying truth, but instead our perception of things makes reality.

Often, when reading or watching fantasy, I’m reminded of Puddleglum’s speech in The Silver Chair. Towards the end of the novel, the villain of the piece tries to convince the protagonists that everything they remember of ‘reality’ - their life above the ground - is an illusion. Puddleglum replies:

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.

What is more important - something that is real, objectively, or something that feels real, to an individual? Fantasies that address this essential question include Better Than Life, Life on Mars, The Wizard of Oz and many, many others.

3. Fantasy creates reality

In order for us to suspend disbelief, fantasy must have an internal logic we can make sense of, even if it’s not ‘real’.

Contrary to the popular belief that anything can happen in fantasy, many of the best examples of the genre emphatically enforce the notion that this is not the case. As Doctor Who developed, for example, so did a set of rules about what was and was not permitted in the Doctor’s universe.

Rules add to a fantasy’s plausibility. Father Christmas is generally understood to be an imaginary person, but people nevertheless share an understanding of his essential qualities: he is male, old, has a beard, appears at Christmas, etc. Any deviation from these qualities is seen as a transgression of some kind. When I say “Father Christmas”, you know what I mean.

It sometimes amazes me that we can accept something to be completely made up but still understand it and discuss it as if it were real. Whole portions of our brain must be devoted to things that do not exist.

4. Fantasy reflects reality

In her second adventure, Alice literally steps Through the Looking Glass, and the world she finds on the other side appears to be a reflection of her real world.

It’s been suggested that alternative worlds such as Narnia or Fantastica can only really be understood as reflections of, or deviations from, our world. Many parallel universe fantasies present a world that is identical to our own except for one significant feature: the roles of men and women are reversed, or our souls are physical, tangible companions, or the historical racial hierarchy is turned on its head.

A reflection is a strange thing: it’s the same, but opposite, and it cannot exist without the original; the original generates the reflection.

5. Fantasy defamiliarises reality

Fantasy is often used as a means of presenting reality in a new way, so as to defamiliarise something we are used to. This trick is also used in satire: what we see initially appears absurd, but we later come to recognise it as something we already know. For a good text that’s both fantasy and satire, see Gulliver’s Travels.

Most obviously, dystopian fiction defamiliarises the world we know. We initially think, “this is fantasy”, only to later exclaim, “hang on a minute, I recognise that.” A recent example that is unsophisticated yet powerful is Russell T Davies’ Doctor Who revival, which has conveyed dystopian representations of social networking, mobile phone usage, traffic, and much more.

By making the familiar strange, fantasy helps us see it in a new way.

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As you might have guessed, I understand fantasy to be defined and conditioned by reality. After all, unless we can recognise fantasy as some kind of deviation from reality, how do we know that it is fantasy at all?

Here’s another question: to what extent do these principal functions of fantasy also apply to all storytelling? If the answer is “a lot”, what is the actual difference between fantasy and other forms of storytelling?

Related posts:

• Beginning again
• The ugly duckling
• Lions and tigers