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  • Fantasy as philosophy in children's literatureThe multicultural landscape of The Clockwork Forest
  • Kate Mclnally (bio)

The field of children's literature has always celebrated the role of fantasy stories in offering young readers ways to negotiate their own place in the world. Both traditionally and in contemporary times, harsh realities including violence, death and war have been mediated through fantasy as a means through which to discuss not only human conflicts, but cultural ideologies pertaining to growing up, maturation, and a sense of self. At the same time, however, fantasy, like children's literature in general, has been considered less serious than its counterpart, realism (and adult literature) when [End Page 42] important questions about identity, cultural positioning, and "otherness" underpin the narrative.

There is now a marked shift in the hierarchy of what has been considered serious or important literature. Contemporary scholarship in children's literature has recognized that the genre of realism has no exclusive authority over claims to truth, or jurisdiction over how to conceive reality. As such, fantasy has shifted from its previously undervalued position, as somehow less significant than novels that employ realism (Stephens, 1992, pp. 241–242; Hunt & Lenz, 2001, p. 2), to negotiate philosophical questions about self and otherness that are at the foundation of cultural tensions and anxieties. Fantasy is considered "one of the most important genres" in its ability to allow authors (and readers) engagement with "disturbing material" (Reynolds, 2005, pp. 42–43). Indeed, the potential of fantasy to deal with deeply philosophical questions is arguably more expansive in landscapes, both fictional and psychological, that are not always easily identifiable. By asking questions about identity and otherness, about our place in the world and more specifically the culture in which we live, about why we suffer and how to live fulfilling lives, fantasy allows a negotiation of how to live with others via its own position of "otherness" to real worlds and knowable situations. I do not argue that much fantasy for children reaches, or even approaches, this potential. Indeed, like realistic novels, it most often presents ideologies that reproduce hegemonic values and interests. However, fantasy has the inherent ability to negotiate varying futures that realism cannot.


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Examining Philosophies in Fantasy

This paper explores the potential of fantasy to act as a philosophical agent in presenting such futures to child readers. In an analysis of Australian author Doug Macleod's The Clockwork Forest, I examine how two particular philosophies of East and West not only meet, but cohabit harmoniously in a narrative space. Through the use of both Buddhist and humanist philosophies, the novel presents a landscape that speaks to and about possibilities of what multiculturalism could mean. The plot reveals how such a strategy of negotiation and then acceptance of cultural differences through engaging with such philosophies is not without its dangers. However, by its exploration of how dominant philosophies of different cultures can not only coexist but inform each other, it treads a challenging landscape of what sameness and difference are all about. This neither negates the Western importance of individual and essential humanness, nor Orientalizes the fundamental Buddhist principles that structure the narrative. [End Page 43]

The author Doug Macleod is fairly well known in Australia for his deconstruction of gender and sexuality in fiction for children. Many of his novels have references to Buddhism, but this story (written from his original stage play) is actually about such concepts, and thus both original and intriguing. Because the concepts raised in the novel fall outside the usual trends in publishing, the book is entirely fascinating both in its genesis and in its subject matter. The author explains his perspective this way:

"This is a fairy tale that borrows from Buddhism. Chris Drummond (the commissioner and director of the play version of The Clockwork Forest) was keen to present a play with the theme of abandonment. But he didn't necessarily want a purely negative interpretation of the theme, so it seemed natural to turn to a Buddhist perspective, that is, sometimes abandonment can be a good thing… [The protagonist] tries to fill the emptiness in his life by focusing exclusively...

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