Well this is it, the nitty gritty. YEESH!!! I'm still staring at the computer screen asking myself where the time went. So in this one, I'm supposed to reflect on what I've learned, or what I've taken away from this class. Well, I could certainly say that I learned what a fairy tale is, and how fairy tales link together. But I've already done that. I think the real challenge is saying now, I've learned all this stuff, "So What? I looked over my blog, my first blog, and I said, I enjoyed fairy tales as a child. Throughout this class I've been rediscovering why. In class today when we were discussing Pan's Labryinth the concept of time came up.
Dr. Mazaroff said an interesting quote. "You're first moment of life is the first moment towards death, Time eventually destroys us all." Ever since we are born into this world, we are constantly agonizing over time. It either drags on unbareably slowly, or we lement for when it is lost. We constantly search for ways to get more time or ways to end it. People spend ridiculous amounts of money getting facelifts and plastic surgery in order to feel young again. On the other hand, sadly we have others who commit suicide because they feel that their time has gone on long enough and that their final hour has come. They don't want anymore time. When we are little we want to move the clocks forward so we can do everything all at once. When we are older, we wish for ways to turn back the hands on the clock. When we grow up, and move into the working world, we find ourselves immersed in a complicated world with countless gray areas that change constantly over time. Sometimes we get so immersed in these gray areas that we don't realize that the simplest solutions are sometimes "Manichean" black and white. I think that's partially why fairy tales are so appealing and have been for so many years, everywhere in this world.
The second we enter a fairy tale whether it be "Once upon a time," or "So it was, and so it shall be, we are whisked away into a place where time fades away. In a fairy tale time doesn't matter because everything works out in the end just in time. Suddenly no matter how brief we are in the fairy tale, all these murky complicated gray areas don't matter because for now, it's okay to be in a world of black and white. " As we travel on a quest with supernatural animals, monsters, and magical items, we find that nothing is impossible. If we're in a jam, we find that a magical item, or a little wit goes a long way. Boundries, rules, predjudices, and other complicated issues can't hold us down as we fly around on a magic carpet. When we're in a fairy tale, we are all the same. No matter what country, or origin, the basic struggle between good and evil always remains the same, no matter if it takes the form of a wolf or a crocodile, or a witch. Perhaps if we took the time to learn about others fairy tales as well as our own we'd be more inclined to appreciate and accept the differences in others cultures, beliefs and values around us.
Dr. Mazaroff said, "The enchantment of fairy tales comes from it as a work of art." It's like going to a museum and bieng captivated by a beautiful painting; all of us can take away and interperet the meaning(s) in our own way. In doing so we excercise our ability to independently think for ourselves. But in doing so we are also united; all of us I believe are consciously or unconsciously searching for a little magic in our lives as time passes on. The beauty of it is, that it's always there waiting for those of us who want to look for it. And when we find it the possibilites are infinite.
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