Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is a beloved children’s story that tells the tale of a fox that discovers a way to feed his family by stealing from a chicken farmer, a goose farmer, and a cider brewer. Essentially, the story ends with the protagonist having done nothing to fix his ways, and his family and friends subsist off of the cleverness of this fox.
The desire in this story is clear. Adults are constrained by society. Stealing is a wrong practice, but Dahl justifies it by portraying the protagonist as a clever, debonair, and kind-hearted animal and the three farmers as villainous and nasty farmers. Because of this juxtaposition, the reader finds the story more palpable, but the essential act of what the fox is doing cannot be masked. We have the desire to steal, and especially from bad people. But society has stopped us from letting out our “animal side”. We have to hope other man-made constructs, like the justice system, will equal the balances and hurt those who deserve it. This is why it is our fantasy to harm those people who deserve it in our eyes.
To a child, then, the story is nothing but a clever fox who innocently steals to provide for his family and to harm those people who he believes deserves it. The children read this story and cheer on the fox, because they know who the good one is. They are taken to a fantastical world wherein foxes are clever and can talk to badgers, and the good guy always wins. An adult will read this story and cheer on the fox not because he’s clever, but because he can do the things that the adult can’t. He lives a fantasy through this clever fox who takes down the bad guy, because the good guy has to sometimes do bad things to make the bad guys pay. The problem is, society won’t let us. But we’d all love to be the fox.
Here’s the thing: The thing you identify as the desire is not really the desire; it’s more like the moral, and that’s probably why it seems clear.
However the thing you identify about how the farmers are all villainous, that’s part of the desire. The desire here is to imagine that even the fox who has to steal does so b/c he is noble and has a family, and that his stealing is more noble b/c the one’s who have are unkind. Such a fantasy means we don’t have to deal with how we would perceive the ethic if the fox was a jerk but he still had some hungry mouths to feed and the farmers were nice but still had more than enough food.