J.C. Comeau #13, Growing Up in Neverland

In class, a frequent topic of discussion has been the debate on whether the children’s world of fantasy should be left alone, whether the fantasies concerning the tooth fairy, Santa Clause, trolls, goblins, and elves contain within them a kind of innocence and belief that should be mourned when lost as the child grows up.  I am of the mind that these beliefs may be well and good when you are a child, but when you grow up, they ought to be put to the side so that we might hold to the greater truth that they point to.  Take the example of Santa Clause for instance, when the child believes in him he is taught to mind his behavior, to begin to see some importance in doing good, and to find the importance of giving and receiving gifts from those we love.  But if a man went on believing in Santa, in the North Pole, well into his years, he would be holding on to a false reality.  The story of Santa communicates certain truths to a child in a way that he can understand, but when he grows up, it is expected that he can recognize those truths on his own.  By the time he grows up, the story has served its purpose, we must move on to greater things.  If we held onto childish beliefs past childhood we would detract from, not enhance our understanding of the world.  The man who believes in the Easter bunny as the main function of Easter does not see that it symbolizes the new birth in Christ’s resurrection.  The man who still thinks he will find a troll under the bridge does not realize that the troll represented danger.  We can summarize the argument with the work of Lewis himself, for at the end of the Pevensie’s initial journeys in Narnia, Aslan tells Lucy that she must come to know him in her own world.  So Lewis is telling his readers that these stories are not an end in themselves, but point to something greater, something deeper, something more real.