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Metaphorical Fairy Tales: What Are They Good For?
E3 Haroun Alice
by kparker

METAPHORICAL FAIRY TALES: WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?

Whereas Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There is a harsh critique of storytelling, Haroun and the Sea of Stories is an affirmation of storytelling. Haroun and the Sea of Stories argues that both simple fairy tales and thematically dense literate fiction have value as enjoyable escapes from real life and as precipitants of social change. Conversely, Through the Looking-Glass argues that the power of stories is limited at best, because adults are too sobered by life to enjoy fairy tales, and too corrupt and ignorant to apply the lessons of pedagogical fiction to their real lives.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories’ opening poem affirms its purpose as a simple fairy tale. Rushdie’s dedication at the beginning of the book is to his son Zafar: “All our dream-worlds may come true…As I wander far from view/ Read, and bring me home to you” (Dedication). This dedication refers to Rushdie having to go into hiding to escape Ayatollah Khomeini’s wrath. In it, Rushdie writes about how stories can bring father and son together. The opening poem of Through the Looking-Glass is a dedication of sorts to the relationship between Carroll and young Alice, but instead focuses on the dissolving of their relationship that will occur as she ages.

Carroll’s main problem with Alice’s maturation is that he believes she will outgrow fairy tales. The opening poem evokes imagery of adults who have forgotten the simple joy of their childhood fairy tales. Whereas children love fairy tale bedtime stories, adults “fret to find (their) bedtime near” (135). The poem’s final stanza states that “the shadow of a sigh…shall not touch, with breath of bale/ the pleasance of our fairy tale” (136). Carroll says here that the buoyant nature of the fairy tale will remain, even if the people around it age and become disillusioned with its pleasance. However, this is not a merry end to a melancholy poem; although the fairy tale will endure, it will endure alone, an ignored relic of childhood. The contrasting attitudes of the novels’ introductory poems sets the tones for both novels’ opinions of storytelling: Haroun and the Sea of Stories glories in storytelling’s progressive, intergenerational power, while Through the Looking-Glass focuses on the disconnect between ages, and storytelling’s inability to affect change.

Carroll’s melancholic obsession with Alice’s inevitable growth manifests itself throughout Through the Looking-Glass. Therefore, Through the Looking- Glass suggests that when lacking subtext that will interest adults, simple stories’ power is limited to children.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories argues the opposite: adults can fully appreciate fairy tales; in fact, it is young Haroun who questions their practicality. Haroun believes that “people should be happy when there’s something to be happy about, not just when they get bottled happiness poured over them,” (208). Conversely, the simple, uplifting fairy tales cause an “elderly gent who must have been at least seventy years old” (208) to shout “‘Whee! Whoppee!’ And…(skip) away down the road” (208). This stands in contrast not only to Haroun’s sober attitude towards the “artificial happy endings” (208), but to Carroll’s belief that adults cannot appreciate “the pleasance of our fairy tale” (136). In Haroun and the Sea of Stories, even fairy tales lacking depth appeal to adults.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories displays a faith that stories with political implications can lead to change in the world. Rashid Khalifa’s retelling of the allegorical Haroun and the Sea of Stories catalyzes the citizens to overthrow Snooty Buttoo’s repressive regime. Through the Looking-Glass, however, indicates that political implications in books cannot change political systems. The “Queen Alice” chapter demonstrates this. Throughout Alice’s journey, she picks up on the inequalities inherent in the Looking-Glass world, as well as theoretical unfairness told to her in poems. Her analysis of The Walrus and the Carpenter most plainly demonstrates her simple-but-accurate understanding of some of the novel’s underlying points: she eventually realizes that “they were both very unpleasant characters” (188), indicating that she does not approve of the Carpenter, who greedily eats as many Oysters as he can without a second thought, or the Walrus, who eats more Oysters than the Carpenter even though he shows sympathy for them.

However, once Alice becomes a Queen, she is unable to apply her understanding of The Walrus and the Carpenter to better the lives of her subjects. The Red Queen introduces Alice to some of the food she is going to eat, then has the food removed because “it isn’t etiquette to cut any one you’ve been introduced to” (262). Alice then says that “I wo’n’t be introduced to the pudding, please…or we shall get no dinner at all” (262), and cuts a slice of the pudding despite being introduced to it. Here Alice is the equivalent of the Walrus or the Carpenter. She is conscious of the fact that eating food she has been introduced to is wrong but does it anyway, similar to the Walrus. Or, like the Carpenter, she ignores those she is eating altogether. In either case, Alice’s ignoring of the lessons she learns from The Walrus and the Carpenter indicates that Carroll believed people would not apply the political and ethical underpinnings of Through the Looking Glass to their real lives, even if they understood those underpinnings.
Both works do agree that true political change must come from the bottom-up, not from the top-down—that is, the common people must better themselves because someone in power will not better the lives of the people he governs on his own accord. Therefore, the people of Alifbay, not rival politicians, force Snooty Buttoo to vacate the seat of power. Haroun and the Sea of Stories therefore proposes that literature is important because it has the power to galvanize an oppressed people to activism. Through the Looking-Glass states the improbability of change from the top-down through Queen Alice. Alice eschews the lessons she learns from The Walrus and the Carpenter because of her captivation with her newfound power. When the Red Queen orders the Pudding removed, Alice “(doesn’t) see why the Red Queen should be the only one to give orders; so, as an experiment, she (calls) out ‘Waiter! Bring back the pudding!’” (262) Alice is corrupted by her power, and becomes like the Walrus and the Carpenter, both of whom she used to find fault in. Although the books are in congruence here, they state their arguments in ways characteristic to their divergent tones. Haroun and the Sea of Stories proposes that literature can precipitate political change from the bottom-up; Through the Looking-Glass indicates that literature cannot precipitate change from the top-down.

While Through the Looking-Glass despairs at Alice’s inability to put the knowledge she learns on her journey to good use, Haroun and the Sea of Stories suggests that somber, mature stories do not have to directly impact the world to be meaningful. Rashid declares that “‘Not all good stories are (sugar-and-spice tales). People can delight in the saddest of sob-stuff,’” (48), not because they can find solutions to their lives’ hardships in it, just “‘as long as they find it beautiful’” (48). Like antebellum Negro spirituals, the beauty of sad stories turns them into “‘Sorrow Songs’ that (transcend) their sorrow and (become) hymns of joy .” Though Haroun and the Sea of Stories emphasizes the effectiveness of political satire, stories dense with mature themes do not have to affect the real world, as long as people enjoy them.

Queen Alice is an ambiguous character: while she reflects Carroll’s idea that age corrupts as much as power does, she also represents the immaturity of children (and adults). Alice’s ascension to the title of Queen also represents her maturation from a girl to a woman. The womanhood of Queens is represented somewhat stereotypically in the “Wool and Water” chapter, in which the White Queen turns into “an old Sheep, sitting in an armchair, knitting, and every now and then leaving off to look at (Alice) through a great pair of spectacles” (200). Once Alice becomes a Queen, this image comes closer to reality for her (make this better). While it is possible that Alice’s failure to take the lesson of The Walrus and the Carpenter into account results from her attaining the corrupt adulthood of a Queen, it is equally possible that her ignorance of the common people shows she retains infantile qualities despite her new title. Alice’s ascendance to the title of Queen implies a degree of maturation. However, her physical appearance does not change; the other Queens still dwarf her in age. Therefore, one could interpret Alice’s jealously of the Red Queen’s exercise of power and her (Alice’s) subsequent desire to eat the pudding as childish envy and impetuousness, rather than the corrupt initiative of an adult. Young Alice becoming a Queen may not indicate that she is maturing; it may show that the Red Queen and the White Queen—and thus adults and politicians in general—are immature. Perhaps Alice ignores the lesson of The Walrus and the Carpenter not because she is corrupted by adulthood, but because as a child, she lacks the maturity to apply them.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories at first appears to be dominated by the struggle between “pulp” fiction and “meaningful” fiction. However, a closer reading of Haroun and the Sea of Stories reveals that the book is quite comfortable espousing the strengths of both simplistic fiction and complex, literary fiction. Through the Looking-Glass shows that Carroll doubted that adults or children would put his fairy tale’s political messages to good use. To indicate this, his protagonist ignores the some of the books’ core messages within the book itself. Through the Looking-Glass therefore suggests that the allegorical fairy tale is the “tragic mulatto” of literature; it is unsure of its purpose and unable to be fulfilled in the adults’ world or the children’s world.

May 20, 2005, 03:11 PM

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