2/8/2023- Escapism, and Its Negative Connotations

 What makes the faerie-story and the fantasy-tale so vastly different from these other methods of “Escapism.” For is the ravenous consumption of clothes, jewelry, and food not also a form of escape from the reality of human existence? Tolkien and Lewis both share a positive perspective of the role of “Escapism” of faerie-stories, but this will be shown to be vastly different from the type of escape that consumerist culture offers. Tolkien states “I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used: a tone for which the uses of the word outside literary criticism give no warrant at all.” 

He approves of the use of “escape” from the drudgery of modern life, for that is what faerie-stories can offer us- an escape into a world of dragons, hobbits, and elves. However, the primary difference lies in what one is escaping to. For the consumer, he escapes into that which cannot satisfy him. For the reader of fantasy, he is escaping into a world of myths, which according to Tolkien, is a good thing for the soul, for “We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God.”

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