Daily Archives: 9 Nov ’14

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Why Americans are Afraid of Dragons

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”
—  Terry Pratchett
             While reading “Why Americans are Afraid of Dragons”, by Ursula K. Le Guin, I was haunted by a quote I read by fantasy author Terry Pratchett. Imagination is something adults struggle with everyday. To have a wild and vivid imagination is childish; and anything childish is considered to be derogatory. Le Guin writes: “I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child, and that is these faculties are encouraged in youth they will act well and wisely in the adult, but if they are repressed and denied in the child they will stunt and crupple the adult personality” (Page 44). This intrigues me because she then goes on to claim that there is a gender segregation in imagination. Young boys are taught that imagination is not apart of “maleness”; while girls are allowed to run wild with their imagination. This truly saddens me because growing up around young children I have witnessed this first hand. Young boys are encouraged to abandon their imaginations at young ages, while girls are encouraged to live in a sort of fantasy world for pretty much their entire life. Society cripples imagination by putting a huge emphasis on children to grow up; and part of growing up is forsaking their creativity and imagination.
              Now, to change gears of thinking, I do agree with this aspect of Le Guin’s argument regarding gender restrictions, but to say that there is little imagination in the American people today is false. In fact, Americans are not afraid of dragons (Game of Thrones, anyone?) Imagination in the sense of fantasy and alternate universes may not be as popular in American culture but in no way is it not encouraged or loathed. I am curious as to what Le Guin would think of “Fifty Shades Of Grey”? Would sexual fantasy be considered a mindless indulgence to her? Does fantasy HAVE TO be a hobbit, a unicorn, or a dragon. Americans do not discourage imagination, they just would rather read about something that triggers their imagination and desires in other ways. Le Guin labels fantasy in a very narrow sense. To me, fantasy is anything that is not every day life. Fantasy could be getting an A on that paper, to  Christian Grey, to even vampires (Americans love vampires). Perhaps Le Guin hasn’t seen the American sales for “Harry Potter”, “The Hunger Games”, and “Twilight”. Log onto Tumblr, or any other blog site and see that imagination is in fact still very much alive. What needs to be fixed is American gender segregation; not American taste in what Americans prefer to read about.
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The Wizard of Oz

Since its first debut in 1900, The Wizard of Oz has become a well known classic in American literature. While most people today opt in for just watching the movie, the book holds so much more culture and information. Comparing the novel to the movie, I think that the movie does a great job of interpreting the way use author describes Kansas to the way he describes the Land of Oz. To depict this, the movie shows Kansas in black and white and when Dorothy enters Oz, the movie switches to color, which was a total coincidence at the time because that’s when color television first came out and they thought it would just make a great edition to the movie. In The Wizard of Oz, the interpretation of the imagery described my the author plays a big part in how we understand the story being told. Again, comparing it to the original movie, by using both black and white, and color imaging, there is an emphasis on the wonders and magical-ness of Oz. Also, it is interesting to know that throughout the many republications of The Wizard of Oz, there have been countless illustrations drawn for the novel. I think that’s really interesting considering that other novels such as Alice in Wonderland and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer still use their original illustrations. The original illustrations for the Wizard of Oz were drawn by W.W. Denslow, now you seldom see the original illustrations. The original illustrations were also printed in green and red because at that time It was very expensive to print in full color. Each different illustration or image that we see impacts our own perspective and interpretation of the novel itself, so it would be interesting to do more research as to why there are so many different versions of the illustrations.

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My Thoughts on “Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons?”

In Ursula K. Le Guin’s chapter, “Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons?” in her book, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, I felt that I could see some of what she was saying contrary to what the author of the previous post before my post believes. Le Guin said that the people who reject fantasy books are usually those who are over 30, working, and male. I kind of see this with the older men in the country or just the more serious people. I have a friend who only reads books that benefits him. He’s serious in character and is always trying to improve himself and become successful in his career. He’s what some may call a workaholic. He does try to be sociable sometimes but I find that I have a hard time talking to him because he’s usually only talking about work and school. Another person I once met also seemed kind of rigid and only focused on work. He was my interviewer and when he asked if I read any books, I told him I was currently reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. It’s a fantasy series and at the time I was so interested in it that I was glad when he asked me what it was about but as I continued to talk about it, I felt he lost interest in our conversation and he quickly changed the topic. I feel that people who don’t like fantasy are hard to connect with.

However, although I kind of see what Le Guin was getting at when she talked about males over 30 and working, I also see that our people are slowly changing. I think her statement of males over 30 was probably just to encompass those who were working, trying to provide for a family, and with little free time to relax as they probably had to worry about bills and life. It was an attempt to make a label for the group of people she was talking about but it wasn’t a label that should be set in stone. Today, I have many friends who are male that also love to read fantasy or write/produce videos based solely on their imagination or inspiration gained from other fantastic things. So as the males in my generation grows and later on becomes the males over 30 that Le Guin was talking about, I think more of her labelled people will start to separate themselves from her label.

Also, as a side thing, I think it’s kind of questionable that she claimed males would watch things that they assured themselves were realistic such as cowboys, in order to not be caught watching or reading fantasy books with dragons and such. Because maybe they just really do have a different taste in fantasy. My dad likes to watch stuff with wars. Maybe they like it because it’s easier for them to understand or they don’t like the more farfetched fantasy with magic. Everyone has different tastes in fantasy.