Rhetoric Of Fantasy Essay

In Mendlesohn’s The Rhetoric of Fantasy, she outlines various methods that can be used to enter the reader into the “fantasy” of fantasy novels. Three of the main methods of entering the secondary world are portal-quest, immersion, and intrusion stories. Many fantasy novels explore at least one if not more of the options outlined by Mendlesohn. We can consider the choices made in children’s fantasy literature in conjunction with their levels of involvement, entertainment, and capacity to pass off or “transfer” moral and life lessons. I assert that portal-based stories are more effective in achieving these goals than the other methods outlined due to the real world running parallel to the secondary world, thus allowing for the secondary, informative

Nevertheless, even if lessons are not being taught explicitly, individuals may take lessons away from the events and themes implicitly stated. We must understand the ability of children to be influenced by the content they consume so that we can be aware of how said content can affect them. Dubourg and Baumard suggest that fantasy is intended to be engaging to satisfy our cognitive need for exploration. They continue to say that the stimuli aid in grabbing our attention, therefore, aiding in information retention (4). This idea is supported by the findings in Richert and Schlesinger – fantasy can seemingly aid children in transferring information from a story into real life. They also found that children are more likely to trust information coming from an individual with fantastical abilities (12-13). Finally, Fisch proposed a computational model of content comprehension. He explains that the brain first processes the narrative then processes the secondary content, and then computes the distance between the two of them. If the lessons being taught run parallel with the events of the story then the distance is small. He then suggests that if the distance is small then the brain can process both aspects simultaneously therefore leading to a greater increase in retention of the narrative and secondary content (Fisch 66). We will consider these findings in this paper, placing less onus upon the arguments made by Fisch due to the age of the article and the relatively small amount of distance found between the primary and secondary content of each novel. It is the direct events of the narratives presented where each protagonist learns the secondary information and grows from