To know we're not alone - Elizabeth Roy

To Know We're Not Alone
Non-assigned reading blog
Elizabeth Roy
4/23

In the C.S. Lewis biographical movie that we watched in class, one of the characters tells Lewis what his father said about reading – that we read to know we’re not alone. Is that true, or just a sentimental turn of phrase? Do we read to know we’re not alone? I think that most often, yes, we do. The stories that we like the best, or the articles that we enjoy reading, are those in which one of the characters reminds us of ourselves, or one of the situations is either something we long for or something we once had. Part of this comes out of psychology. We are programmed with a need to belong, and we are programmed to like people similar to ourselves. However, I think that this presents a particular problem for the writer or reader of fantasy. It is easy for someone who writes realistic fiction to create ways for the main character to have similarities with the reader – they might easily be in similar situations, encounter similar problems, and have similar likes or dislikes. In a fantasy or science fiction novel, of necessity something is fantastic, out of the realm of our normal experiences. The writer must therefore tap into something more universal than situation, which is why I prefer fantasy as a genre. In order for a fantasy novel to be successful and be perceived as well-written, it must contain universal pain, desires, or problems, In Anne McCaffery’s famous Dragonrider series, a young woman bonds to a dragon and subsequently saves the world by traveling in time on her dragon. Such a situation is not something the normal reader can relate to. This means that the character herself must be extremely relatable on a basic level, and she is: she feels unloved and unwanted, is resentful and angry, and longs to be needed and loved, all of which everyone has felt at some time. Such fantasy writing demonstrates the fact that we do indeed read to know that we’re not alone.