Good children’s stories, new and old, have wide appeal. Adventure stories and tales of epic quests are no exception. Of course, there is no such thing as a story just for children; any story worth telling and told well and beautifully can appeal to people of all ages.
Perhaps more than other forms of storytelling, tales of journeys and quests have timeless features. At their best, these stories include a rich array of symbols, the unveiling of transcendent meaning, heroic virtue, and cosmic significance. Classics, like the C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, and high-quality contemporary children’s literature, including Grace Lin’s Starry River of the Sky and other novels, share many of the same qualities and draw from mythology and folktales to create a full and rich universe that delights.
Though they can be enjoyed by people of all ages, adventure stories are especially suited to the entertainment and formation of children. Often, they begin with ordinary people who are called upon to achieve a feat on which many other people depend. Whether Jill Pole in The Silver Chairof Pinmei in When the Sea Turned to Silver, a child whose potential is untapped is invited on a quest that challenges and transforms. These stories demonstrate the practice of virtue through which a child matures and gains mastery of self.What makes these stories so effective, however, may be surprising.
These tales are for the most part about wandering around in confusion, being tired and scared, hungry and cranky. Ultimately, they accomplish the major task, overcome tremendous odds, and encourage those around them. But that ultimate feat is rather beside the point. It is not the shining moments of heroism that define the person, but the quotidian experience of overcoming petty want and lack that make the story.
Common features in great adventures include:
Feeling Hungry
In the shocking abundance of so many of our lives, it is easy to forget how very difficult it is to shore up adequate calories when untethered from civilization. Lewis and Lin both spend a great deal of time explaining what it’s like to subsist on nothing but apples for several days or get by on a meager bowl of rice. When doing anything extraordinary, the predictable means of eating daily meals is disrupted. You don’t have to wander over mountains on foot to know what it is like to be hungry. Simply taking a bus trip to a nearby city is enough to disrupt our eating patterns and disturb our homeostasis. In order to accomplish anything in life, it is necessary for children not to be ruled by their hunger.
These are universal experiences that even those of us with plenty to eat can understand. Even if we have an embarrassment of riches in the way of nutrition, we all know what it is like to lack something in our souls. The struggle to nourish and sustain extends beyond our mere physical bodies. Adventure stories show us that children must endure the experience of lack in order to master themselves.
Being Tired
Closely related to hunger, fatigue is a universal experience and key feature of all the best quest stories. Distinct from other forms of want, lack of sleep in physically painful and emotionally unsettling. While parents should cultivate sleep hygiene in their young children, later in life, we must realize that some of the best and most worthwhile experiences in life require sacrificing sleep. Adequate sleep most of the time remains necessary, but for short periods of time, discerning the things worth staying up for can make a dramatic difference in the life we make.
Good adventure stories almost always have thrilling escapades that can only take place in the dead of night. Daring escapes, encroachment on enemy territory, or simply seeing the stars require the abandonment of comfort and predictability. What is even more challenging than giving up sleep is remaining cheerful and companionable the next day. Jill Pole and Pinmei do not go on their adventures alone, and remaining good friends with their companions is a key part of their success. Teaching our children to endure discomfort gives them strengths to draw upon later in life.
The Certainty of Insignificance
We might mistakenly think that epic stories carry a profound sense of meaning and purpose. So often, in stories as in life, deeply important work carries an overwhelming feeling of triviality and unimportance. The crushing sense of impossibility captured in C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle conveys the difficulty of maintaining virtue in the face of obstacles. The children who face the Tiger Emperor always seem destined for failure. The real test of virtue is often not when it is fruitful but when it appears that its practice conveys no benefit. Stories of adventure show the importance of acting with heroic virtue when it appears to have no point. The characters in the story, as with us in life, cannot see the context, the other characters, and the ultimate significance of their actions.
Our culture makes the mistake of fixating on big moments, but most people’s lives consist of small, seemingly insignificant moments of minor discomfort and tedium. How we respond to these forms the trajectory of our lives.
Life in Connection with Others
No true hero serves his own ends. In order to endure discomfort and persevere in virtuous action with no apparent meaning or purpose, the hero must have connections to other people and an interconnected life within a community. Pinmei and her grandmother have forged connections to the stories they tell and their symbolism is much more than mere abstraction. The children throughout Narnia ultimately find their purpose under the uncompromising gaze of the Lion. The eyes of another reveal us to ourselves and motivate us to right action in a way that our own perception of ourselves never could.
In life, we find that isolation allows bad ideas to fester and our resolve to dwindle. Connection to others keeps us on the path we wish to forge.
Epic journeys are a marvelous trope for life. Just like life, journeys rarely consist of astonishing splendor upon splendor. More often there are seemingly insignificant, even meaningless challenges endlessly presenting themselves, distracting us from the purpose we profess and the meaning we desire. Adventure stories for children can feed the soul and show us the significance of our suffering amid a beautiful and meaningful cosmos.
2 comments
Comments are closed.