Christopher Rush

Content Summary and Author’s Perspective

J.R.R. Tolkien’s early essay “On Fairy-Stories” summarizes (in seventy pages) Tolkien’s conception of the nature of fairy-stories, their connection to myths, their audience, and their three main functions of recovery, escape, and consolation.  Fairy-stories, according to Tolkien, are not the safest of places, since they contain “beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords” (33).  Tolkien creates a unique definition of fairy-stories, furthering his distinction from lesser tellers of tales: “fairy-stories are not … about fairies or elves, but stories about Fairy, that is Faërie, the realm or state in which fairies have their being.…  Most good ‘fairy-stories’ are about the adventures of men in the Perilous Realm or upon its shadowy marches” (38).  Throughout the essay, which is an apologia sans remorse, Tolkien defends fairy-stories as if they are important literature, as valuable and life-relevant as the poems of Homer or the novels of Proust and Stendahl.

Early in the essay, Tolkien describes various elements of fairy-stories, as just mentioned, such as their danger and characters.  Tolkien also contrasts them with other kinds of stories for clarification: a genuine fairy-tale is always presented as “true,” never as a dream or with similar machinery (42).  Beast fables, like the Three Little Pigs or The Wind in the Willows, while good stories, are not fairy-tales (42-3) according to Tolkien.  Myths and fairy-tales are similar, but Tolkien ascribes to myths an element of divinity and worship in the tales that are lacking in fairy-tales (49-51).  Similarly, contrasting Joseph Campbell’s monomyth conception, Tolkien doesn’t compartmentalize fairy-tales by a standard pattern of events, but instead a “colouring, the atmosphere, the unclassifiable individual details of a story” (46) is what make a fairy-story what it is:

An essential power of Faërie is thus the power of making immediately effective by the will the visions of “fantasy.”  Not all are beautiful or even wholesome, not at any rate the fantasies of fallen Man.…  This aspect of “mythology” — sub-creation, rather than either representation or symbolic interpretation of the beauties and terrors of the world — is, I think, too little considered (49).

Tolkien denigrates the pervasive attitude that fairy-stories are the domain of children.  If a story has quality, it is a good story regardless of who is reading it and why.  The main reason most people think fairy-stories belong to children is because that is the only kind of story available to them in the nursery.  If young ones appreciate fairy-stories, it is because the stories are intrinsically good, not because they are fit only for children.  Similar to that is the notion of “suspension of disbelief” — if a story is told as “real,” like good fairy-stories need to be, according to Tolkien, audiences won’t need to suspend any belief or disbelief: “if [adults] really liked it (the fairy-story), for itself, they would not have to suspend disbelief: they would believe — in this sense” (61).  A fairy-story, if it is a good story regardless of its genre, is good enough for any reader regardless of age.  If it is a good story, it can be analyzed as well as appreciated.

The pattern of “recovery, escape, and consolation” is as close to Campbell’s monomyth as Tolkien gets.  “Recovery” assumes some conflict has beset the community of the story as well as “a re-gaining — regaining of a clear view.…  I might venture to say ‘seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them’ — as things apart from ourselves” (77).  Escape “is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which ‘Escape’ is now often used.…  In what the misusers are fond of calling Real Life, Escape is evidently as a rule very practical, and may even be heroic” (79).  The consolation “of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires.  Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending” (85), what Tolkien coined “eucatastrophe.”  The purpose of all this is, for Tolkien, to emphasize the importance of a happy ending, or eucatastrophe, after much believable and serious conflict: what makes a good fairy-story worthwhile is because real life has its own eucatastrophe, Jesus Christ.

Critical Response and Evaluation

“On Fairy-stories” is almost as important to studying Tolkien’s world as reading The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.  It provides great insight to his thinking about the nature of stories, and why he wrote fantasy; it closely resembles fairy-story, especially since his definition of Faërie is beyond the silly supernatural creatures found in poorer-written stories.  Even though the essay never mentions hobbits or dwarves, and only briefly mentions elves and dragons, it is an important place to begin any examination of the world of Middle-earth.

Mentioned above, Tolkien gives a fair amount of freedom to what constitutes fairy-stories.  Joseph Campbell did give a fair amount of leeway in what is a hero, but his focus in The Hero with a Thousand Faces is on what the hero does, not who he is.  Tolkien’s fairy-stories follow the basic “recovery, escape, and consolation,” but they have more variety than mythic heroes according to Campbell, since the authors can change whatever else happens, and to what degree mythic, fantasy, and magical elements appear in the tales.

Tolkien’s conclusion, that mankind has had its universal eucatastrophe in the work of Jesus, overtly betrays his Christian perspective.  I wonder if Tolkien’s declaration in “On Fairy-stories” is in part responsible for so many critics (of diverse skill) finding Christian symbolism throughout The Lord of the Rings that really isn’t there.  It is possibly the best defense of the “happy ending,” in contrast to the last few decades of critics who posit tragedy and destruction as superior and “more real” than happiness and true love.

In addition to Tolkien’s interesting concept of the “eucatastrophe,” his general defense of the worth and value of fairy-stories and their like is very refreshing.  He does not apologize for enjoying this kind of narrative, nor does he try to make a case for it being as valuable as other kinds of literature; instead he just analyzes and summarizes as if he is clarifying the misconceptions of the confused.  Like C.S. Lewis, he enjoys what he enjoys and has no qualms about it, but when he tries to convince others to enjoy it, he reasons his arguments lucidly and respectfully to the opposition (unlike the critics who denigrate Tolkien and Lewis).

“On Fairy-stories” provides an important beginning for understanding Tolkien’s creative processes when reading The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.  We can understand these tales through formalist criticism, but this essay gives a deeper perspective behind Tolkien’s motivation and intention.  The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings are not “fairy-tales” exactly, even by Tolkien’s definition of them, but they are close cousins, like the fantasy genre of which he speaks highly in this essay.  His eucatrastophe concept explains why, after much loss and suffering, The Return of the King has a “happy” ending, one that fulfills the expectations of the heroes and sees evil conquered: life is like that because of Jesus, according to Tolkien.  Non-Christian critics and audiences might disagree with him theologically, but it would be difficult to fault the coherence and believability of the trilogy because of external religious differences.  The trilogy’s end is not forced or through an unbelievable deus ex machina (it is a slight deus ex machine, but is consistent within the reality of Middle-earth), fulfilling Tolkien’s ideas of great stories (whether or not they are fairy-tales) found in this essay.