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The fantasyis a literary genre that is believed that its only public are children sinceadults opt for a more realistic literature, but if we think about the benefitsfantasy gives is the capacity of allowing readers to visualize the world indifferent ways. That means that fantasy turns readers into open-minded people,who can associate what they are reading with the society that surrounds them. Takingthe real world to fantasy causes it to deal with questions about morality. Byexaggerating situations and the themes of fantasy, children can learn and knowbetter about the right and wrong things, and they can come to moral structuresto deal with their own life’s problems. The two-textchosen to make this analysis are Winniethe Pooh (1924) written by A.A.
Milne and Charlie and the chocolatefactory (1964) by Roal Dahl. We can notice how fantasy is used as a mode ofwriting to engage the attention of an inexperienced reader to teach childrenabout the moral problems that happens in everyday life. To begin with, we are going to focus on thestory of Winnie the Pooh. The storywritten by A. A. Milne addressed his son, Christopher, who becomes theprotagonist of the story, accompanied by his friends the animals, who play avery important role throughout the story as they enact different values.
Thoseanimals were the toys Christopher had as a child. So, that show us a differentperspective of the story since, instead of being only one story, there are twostories to tell. The first one is the story of the real Christopher Robin whois been told a story by his father, and that story is the second one in whichthe author gave voice to the animals. This second story is the one used toteach the values with the use of fantasy in an animal story. In the case ofA.A.
Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, it canbe seen how the author give human characteristics to animal characters and thathelp children to identify with the characters and to learn of the relationshipamong them. The figure of the animals becomes essential to understand the backgroundof the novel in which all the characters, in their own way and depending ontheir personality, give us lessons about everyday life. Children who read thisbook will receive those lessons in a clearer way because, as children, they areattracted to the figure of animals and even more if they see that in the book achild appears as the protagonist, who could be himself. Thus, children feelidentified and therefore try to imitate what they see and read in a book. Amongthe values that children can learn through the personality we can find thesense of friendship between animals and children and among animals. This isreflected in numerous conversations in the book. For example, the character ofWinnie the Pooh present a bear who has been able to teach kids how toappreciate their friends. He shows himself loving his friends and appreciatingthe relationship with others.
We can see that many of the times Winnie the Poohis going to refer to any of the other animals he adds before the name the word’friend’ so that gives us an idea of how important friendship is to Pooh. Anexample of that is presented here, ‘ONE fine day Pooh had stumped up to the topof the Forest to see if his friend Christopher Robin was interested in Bears atall’ (Milne 1924:99). We not only find it in conversations but also indifferent acts. An example of this is the moment in which Winnie the Pooh istrapped in the exit hole of Rabbit’s house.
After being stuck, Rabbit tried tohelp him by pulling him, but he was not successful and that is why he calledChristopher Robin. In the end, after a week waiting for Winnie the Pooh to loseweight, to get out of the hole easily, Christopher Robin, Rabbit and hisfriends managed to take him out by pulling him. It can be seen in this quotation:’So for a week Christopher Robin read that sort of book at the North end ofPooh, and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end…
and in between Bear felthimself getting slenderer and slenderer. And at the end of the week ChristopherRobin said, “Now!” (Milne 1924:27).Here it is demonstrated how friendship and teamworkmake one’s problems less. Another important value that needs to be spread isthe sense of generosity and empathy with the rest of the people. That lesson isgiven to children by animals, although who starts it from the beginning isWinnie the Pooh but thank to him, another animal participates in a generousact. That act corresponds to Eeyore’s birthday in which Eeyore seemed so sadand Winnie asked him what happened; in that moment Eeyore told him that it washis birthday, but anyone remembered so Winnie the Pooh started looking for apresent and on the way home he found Piglet who, in turn, looked for anotherpresent for Eeyore. The fact of looking for anything to make a person happy onsuch a special day for him makes us see, both Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, howgenerosity must be presented in each one of us and it also teaches us to empathize,since no one likes to spend their birthday alone, or simply nobody wants to notbe remembered. In that same moment we can appreciate another value but in thatcase, it is given by Eeyore.
He feels so thankful because his friends gave himpresents for his birthday but if we see deeper we can notice that he is okaywith little since we see how Winnie and Piglet offer their gifts which reallyshould be: a jar full of honey, not a single jar to save things and a balloon,not a piece of an exploited balloon but, Eeyore feels happy with the simplefact that his friends have given him some gifts. But this value can also beseen the other way around since, for example, Pooh was supposed to give Eeyorea pot full of honey, but he eats it in the way to Eeyore’s house, and Eeyore ispresented as a character who only thinks about himself, how lonely he is andshowing his sadness. The reason why we draw two conclusions from the same ideais because one of them is the one we can see at a glance, which in this casewould be the selfishness of the characters, and the other is what we find if wego deeper and look for a teaching of that selfishness. Then it is important tomention the motif of trying everything and thinking that you can do everything.The least value we are going to talk about is the motif in which everyone isdifferent, and all people should be accepted and respected for who they are. Ifwe look to the different personalities of the characters, we can notice thatthey are so different among them but that is not an obstacle to be friendssince it is beneficial to relate to people different from us because this givesus different points of view and helps us to be more open-minded. For example,Christopher Robin is the sole human character and, although he is a child herepresents the maturity in the book while Winnie the Pooh is different from himsince he is considered as a ‘Bear of very little brain’.
Now we are going to analyse the moral valuespresented in the fantasy in Roal Dahl’s Charlieand the chocolate factory (1964). In this novel it is presented a ‘fantasticworld’ where there is a chocolate factory in a town where Charlie lives. Thenovel presents morality from the beginning of the novel, in which we are showna child from a poor family who is anxious to have under his power a goldenticket that allows him to access the chocolate factory of Willy Wonka, afactory closed for years.
As the day went by, the first lucky ones came to getthose tickets, since there were only five in the whole world, hidden inside WillyWonka’s chocolate bars. Something that characterizes each of the first winnersis their ambition to win the prize, not to enjoy the visit of the factory, likeCharlie did. That is why four of the five winners leave the scene,progressively, accompanied by the fantastic characters of the Oompa Loompas andtheir warnings songs. An example could be the chapter 17 in which AugustusGloop, because of being drinking the hot chocolate’s river, fell on it and disappearand then the Oompa-Loompas started to sing: ‘the five Oompa-Loompas on the farside of the river suddenly began hopping and dancing about and beating wildlyupon a number of very small drums.
‘Augustus Gloop!’ they chanted. ‘AugustusGloop! Augustus Gloop! Augustus Gloop!’ (Dahl, 1964:47). An important valuepresented in the book is that every person is different and that there are actionsthat should be avoided. First, Charlie teaches the value of the kindness bysharing his birthday present with his family since it is a chocolate bar, asweet that can only be eaten once a year on his birthday and therefore hedecides to share it so that everyone can enjoy that pleasure, ‘He smiled atthem, a small sad smile, and then he shrugged his shoulders and picked up thechocolate bar and held it out to his mother, and said, ‘Here, Mother,have a bit. We’ll share it. I want everybody totaste it.’ (Dahl.
1964:20). Augustus Gloop and Violet Beauregarde show rudenessand insubordination, like in this moment when he did not pay attention to what WillyWonka said of taking a blade and for that we must assume all the warnings: ‘Automatically, everybody bent down and pickedone blade of grass — everybody, that is, except Augustus Gloop, who took a bighandful.’ (Dahl, 1964:40) or when she took the chewing-gum meal despite beingwarned by Willy Wonka not to be quite right: ‘Oh, to blazes with that!’ saidViolet, and suddenly, before Mr Wonka could stop her, she shot out a fat handand grabbed the stick of gum out of the little drawer and popped it into hermouth.’ (Dahl 1964:56).
The next character, Veruca Salt, shows the value of theavarice, she demands anything she wants to have, and she does not stop complaininguntil she gets it: ‘Daddy!’ shouted Veruca Salt (the girl who got everythingshe wanted). ‘Daddy! I want an Oompa-Loompa! I want you to get me anOompa-Loompa!’ (Dahl 1964:43). Here children can learn how to be grateful with whatthey have because having more things does not imply being happier. Then, MikeTeeves is presented as a child addicted to television and that is somethingchildren must avoid since they need an active life, do sports and going out,not staying in front of a screen without doing nothing.
What can be highlightedabout the personalities of each child is that, those who behaved badly arepunished and therefore the child who reads the book will know that the actionsthe characters did were not right and for that reason they should not followtheir actions. However, we find Charlie, who from the start behaved appropriatelyand this gives us two conclusions. Firstly, it does not matter what socialclass you come from or how rich you are, what really matters is the politenessand knowing how to behave in different situations, and finally we can see thatfrom the beginning Willy Wonka knew who would be the winner because during thevisit he puts some child in reach of something that really catches theirattention, in the case of Augustus it was the chocolate, for Veruca it would bethe craving for a squirrel, Violet a chewing gum and Mike a television. As a conclusion, we have analysedtwo different novels from different periods but despite this we see how fantasyworks in the same way in both. Fantasy is used as a medium through whichauthors can spread different values adapted to children.
In this case, the valuesthat we have analysed are focus on the way the characters behave, since childrencan see themselves reflected in them. Both texts reflect values about the behaving,but they are presented in a different way. In one hand, A.
A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh (1924) focus in the friendshipamong characters, how to solve your problems if you work in team, and itteaches children not to be selfish, which can be seen when Winnie the Pooh atethe jar of honey in the way of Eeyore’s house. In the other hand, in Roal Dahl’sCharlie and the chocolate factory (1964)we focus on the behaviour of the five children since the reader can relate onthem. Thanks to the punishment Willy Wonka and the bad behaviour of four of thefive children, the reader can understand what is wrong and what is right. Finally,without using fantastic elements that spreading of values may not have work consideringthat children are attracted by things like animals or maybe an enormous factoryof chocolate so, authors must find the correct elements to make the childrenlearn while they are enjoying the reading.
