Somewhere between reality and fantasy: The legal right of the imagination
Somewhere between reality and fantasy:
The legal right of the imagination
On the 15th of October 2010, Shlomit Cohen Asif, an Israeli children’s writer and poet, gave an interview in which she recalled an experience she had in one of the elementary schools she had attended: “Once a teacher asked me, in front of the pupils – ‘in a science class, I constantly need to clarify poets’ mistakes. Why does one write that the moon shades light? The moon does not shade light; it reflects the light of the sun’. I was shocked by her question. If the teacher considers the phrase – “the moon shines” – as some sort of a misguided phrase, or even a lie, who knows how she corrects them the rest of the time. And what about imagination?”1
Indeed, what about imagination?
Is the ability to wonder into worlds which do not really exist an accomplishment or a delusion?
Do we need to make room, time and place for imagination or should we stick to pragmatic realism even at a young age?
And where does one draw the line, a boundary between what is real and what is not?2
Finding Neverland3 is the story of a boy who stops imagining. The movie, portrays the making of the canonical Peter Pan. It is centered on the relationship between James Matthew Barrie and a child named Peter Llewelyn – Davies.
An author and his muse.
Due to profound sorrow, caused by his father’s death, Peter stops acting like a regular child: he stops playing and goofing around and turns into a very serious, somber and cheerless young boy. Peter consistently rejects Barrie’s attempts to bring back the magic of playfulness into his life. However, Barrie does not give up. His personality and uncompromising attempts to revive Peter’s lost imagination finally succeed and the boy learns how to deal with his pain in a healthier way.
Nevertheless, not everyone acknowledges the importance of imagination: in the film The Neverending Story4.
Bastian’s father rejects his son’s tendency to wonder off into daydreams: “You are old enough to get your head down from the clouds and start keeping both feet on the ground… Stop daydreaming. Start facing your problems”.
Not harshly or angrily but with a very distinct tone, the father demands his son to grow up and by so doing, give away something valuable and precious in his son’s identity.
Bastian’s father oppresses any imaginative aspects in his son’s life, such as drawing unicorns in math class. He does not even understand that they were unicorns; he is too busy being disappointed with Bastian. Bastian does not do well at school, Bastian does not join the swimming team and does not want to ride horses, even though he paints them. Bastian is a daydreamer.
An accurate perception of what is real and what is not, together with critical thinking, does not necessarily refute the importance and necessity of the imagination. As a person matures, he learns how and when to use this ability, within the right and acceptable boundaries. Bastian’s father, perhaps like many others, finds it difficult to transform from one type of reality to another. He prefers to stay in the logical and rational dimension, denying fantasy5.
An interesting example that tries to express the coexistence of imagination and reality occurs in the famous Leah Goldberg’s story Thus and not thus6.
Anat is a girl who asks her father to paint her a picture. The father consents but does not stop making mistakes in every picture he paints. Again and again he alters the natural order of things as he draws an uncle in the doghouse while the dog reads the newspaper, a mouse chasing a cat, a house the on sea as a ship rests on a mountaintop, a boy who sleeps under a bed while his shoes are on the pillow, a chicken that hatches from an egg laid by a chick, a couple who eats the napkin and a boy that carries a horse and a wagon on his back.
Ostensibly it is a relatively simple story, lacking insight and interesting developments: a father who makes mistakes again and again and a little girl who never fails to correct him.
The father does not apologize nor does he act as if he has a subversive agenda to his mistakes. On the contrary: he testifies that he is disorientated, that he didn’t get much sleep the previous night and that he generally does not understand what’s with him today.
From a didactic point of view, one can deduce that this is a story that teaches children about the proper order of things in the world: the big cat chases the small mouse. The house is built on a mountain and the ship sails on the sea. The boy sleeps on the bed while his socks and shoes are placed on the floor. The chicken lays eggs, out of which chicks hatch. A plate is not to sit on and a napkin is not food.
The end of the story supports this idea, when the author invites the children to paint a “Right” and “Wrong” picture, in order to teach the father “how he should paint!”. However, does not this consistent and persistent explanation also hold a more subversive approach, protesting against the stifling of the imaginative and creative drive? The heart of the story is built on the assumption that the father is wrong while the daughter is right. There is no doubt that such explanations and corrections are needed from an educational perspective. But at the same time, don’t those explanations and corrections deprive the girl’s rightful ability to accept and enjoy a fantasy, even if it does not reconcile with what is right and true? In other words, when the girl demands the see the reality within the art, does not she loose the art within the reality?
In the story there is no debate about the adult who sits in the doghouse while the dog is reading the paper. No questions are asked about the little mouse chasing the big cat or the ship that is stuck on mountaintops. But without those questions, how can we tell stories about the little mermaid and her lovely underworld palace?
It is not likely that a boy will leave his bed for his shoes and socks, but the question – what came first: the egg or the chicken – is an important philosophical matter. If we immediately assume that the picture, which expresses it, is wrong and incorrect, will not also miss out the ability to wonder about it? What would our world be, without the ability to question everything we see and know?
The story ends with what is probably the highlight of realism: the father has a telephone call and must be excused. Anat is left alone with the painting. But even then, all she does is to correct the mistakes that were left in front of her. There is no possibility or even a slight chance to think outside the box.
Thus and not thus is not an original story by Leah Goldberg. It is a translation of a story by Korney Chukovsky7, one of the most popular children’s poets and writers in Russian language. Miriam Yalan – Shteklis had also translated this story, titling it Funny daddy8 and Uriel Ofek, translating it – True and Not True.
Goldberg’s choice to translate the story to Thus and not thus expresses all too well the dichotomy of the two worlds: the real and the imaginary9. You either have an imagination or realism. One cannot have both10.
Big Fish11 is the antithesis to Chukovsky’s story, but it expresses its idea with the same careful meticulousness between the rationalistic child (now grown up) and his father who simply refuses to act his age.
Edward, the father, tells Will, the son, stories about his life. Fairy tales that couldn’t take place in the real world, according to Will. This belief makes Will feel as if he does not know his father at all, and leads to distance himself from Edward with anger and resentment. Will does not want imagination. He wants the truth. He wants to know his father, not the myths that were weaved about him. But those myths are reality according to Edward, now old and sick. Maybe not all of them actually occurred, certainly not in the way he had told Will, but all of them express something profound in Edward’s identity. Without these stories, something of great essence will be lost. Edward will be lacking an essential part of himself, without which he will become gray, feeble and an incomplete man.
Close to the end of The Neverending story, the brave warrior Atreyu confronts G’mork, the monstrous beast which was sent to kill the only hero that can stop “The Nothing” from destroying Fantasia. Atreyu admits defeat: he can’t fight against “The Nothing” because he cannot leave the boundaries of Fantasia. G’mork scorns him:
“Foolish boy, don’t you know anything about Fantasia? It’s the world of human fantasies. Every part, every creature of it is a piece of the dreams and hopes of mankind. Therefore it has no boundaries…”
“But why is Fantasia dying then?” asks Atreyu.
“Because people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams, so the nothing grew stronger” answer G’mork.
“What is the nothing?” cries Atreyu.
“It’s the emptiness that’s left, it is like a despair destroying this world” answers G’mork.
Atreyu, the brave warrior, can’t save Fantasia.
Only Bastian can.
But Bastian refuses to believe that such an ordinary boy as he is, a boy whose father forced him to keep both feet on the ground, a boy that does nothing of which he dreams, can be of such value and to have such power.
But then Bastian dares to imagine12.
And he succeeds.
Imagination and reality are two parts of one system, depending and relying on each other in order to continue coexistence. Reality is the boundary of imagination just as imagination is the boundary of the reality. Together, they enable the existence of wishes and dreams, targets and goals.
Together, they enable life.
Not only children can and should enjoy the virtue of imagination.
Imagination is an inevitable part of any man’s life.
Of man who has a dream.
Of man who desires life.
