I am truly amazed at the use of “once” in all fairy tales,
and though we have talked about it in class this piece of fairy tale requirement
seems almost routine in a way. Though fantasy requires certain things, such as
a passage between primary and secondary world, a troubled main character and a
change within said character at the end of the story these are all subject to a
certain form of variety. The phrase “Once upon a time” is used almost as much.
The phrase can change however as we go back and read other stories in this past
semester, it seems however that the word “Once” is in every single story. “once
upon a time” in the hobbit, or “once there were four children” and now in
stardust “once there was a man”. It introduces the story and brings us back to
the time this happened, as fantasy rarely takes place in the present.
But as I go back and think on when I have heard this word in
everyday life it seems dreamy, for example my grandfather uses this term
whenever he is about to start a story about when he was my age. Always saying “once,
when I was a young man” even to him his past is a fantasy because it is a part
of him that changed his life, it takes place in the past and changes to his
secondary world of when everything was wonderful and he was young. He was in
his twenties or younger so he always had a world wide open for discovery, but
now as he ages he feels his opportunities are closing, no more is the time for
meeting “magical” (read new) people who would take him on a new course of life.
To me it seems as if even in reality the past is seen as a fantasy to those who
would give us words of wisdom. And reminds me that even now when we are in
college and careers, we have so many routes we may take in life that to our
grandparents our lives truly do seem fantasy.
No comments:
Post a Comment