Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale

6. The Contemporary American Fairy Tale

6. THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN FAIRY TALE You can always tell when Christmas is approaching in America . Sometime in November the bookstores begin displaying glossy fairy-tale books with attractive colors and startling designs in their windows. It is almost like magic, and the store windows appear to be enchanted by these marvelous books. Of course, there is really nothing magical about this phenomenon. It is absolutely predictable: storeowners and publishers are in collusion, seeking to entice both children and parents to buy as many books as possible during the holiday season. In most cases, it does not matter if the contents of the books are vapid. It is the fluff that counts, the ornament, the diverting cover designs that promise a wonderful world of pleasure and take the onlooker away from the harsh realities of the present. In the bookstore window there is the glow of difference and the promise of pleasure. In the fairy-tale books there is hope for a world distinctly more exciting and rewarding than the everyday world in the here and now. But is there any basis for such hope? Are the fairy tales in America mere commodities that compensate for the technological evolution that has narrowed the range of possibilities for developing the imagination and humane relationships in reality? What socio-cultural function do fairy tales have in an American society, in which the most ex- 140 FAIR\" TALE AS MVTH treme fantasies and nightmares have been coolly and brutally realized so that little is left for the imagination? In a significant study of the historical development of the literary fairy tale, Friedmar Apel has argued that, from its origins, the central theme of the fairy tale has always concerned the struggle of the imagination (representing the spiritual side of humanity) against the hard reality of exploitation and reification (representing the rise of inhumane technology). Whereas the earlier fairy tales of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could optimistically project a harmony of soul and reality brought about by magic or a fantastic element that seemed commensurate with progress in the world, Apel has claimed that the modern temper is stamped by our conscious recognition that such harmony can never be achieved and thus the very basis of the fairy tale is no longer relevant and can never again be valid, unless its formal characteristics totally change. As he states: While other genres (i.e., the novel, lyric poetry) have been able to maintain themselves only by depicting the impossibility of the unity of the world and soul, the fairy tale requires the possibility of conceptualizing this unity as a starting point, no matter how relativized it becomes. Without this possibility, the fairy tale must give up its formal function of depicting the marvelous (das Wunderbare ), unless it wants to degenerate into mere entertainment literature by feigning harmony and thus losing all connection to actual life.... all new endeavors to portray the marvelous with the traditional means of the fairy tale and other fantastic stories only serve to amuse the imagination and can no longer fulfill the old functions of conveying a sublime interpretation of life and a way of putting the meaning into practice.1 In short, Apel dismisses the profound utopian value, which the fairy tale, either as oral or literary product, once had, and he asserts that it is impossible in the twentieth century for it to be anything more than divertissement, escape literature, a cultural commodity that is part of the enProject MUSE (2024-04-25 03:29 GMT) THE CONTEMPORARV AMERICAN fAIRV TALE 141 tertainment business. His position is obviously a radical one and must be qualified, if we are to understand the development and the present function of the literary fairy tale in the West, and more specifically in America. Certainly, if we look at the Walt Disney industry and the vast distribution of bowdlerized and sanitized versions of fairy tales by Perrault , the Grimms, Bechstein, Collodi, and other classical authors, it is apparent that they have been incorporated into the western culture industry mainly to amuse children and adults alike. Yet, amusement is not to be taken lightly, for distraction and divertissement have an important ideological function: almost all the major classical fairy tales that have achieved prominence and are to be enjoyed in the United States can be considered as products that reinforce a patriarchal and middle-class social code. Their meaning is not limited to this ideological function. For instance, even if their purpose is to...