WHEN WE’RE LOST in TALL TALES. to GET YOUNG, WE’RE TOLD

We hear myths of magic and mystery that we escape into, and as we follow along with the heroes, we pick up lessons along the way. We fall asleep to words that take us to faraway kingdoms and forests and somehow help us better understand ourselves.

We may or may not be explicitly taught to dissect them, in school, at home, or with whoever tells us these tales, but we don’t really need to be. Regardless, on our trips through the castles or to distant lands, we realize that these stories are more than entertainment or escapism. They teach us whatever we need, when we need it most.

At the top of the beanstalk we learn caution and care with Jack, and we follow Alice’s fall to Wonderland to learn fearlessness and fortitude. Cinderella teaches us humility and kindness, in Neverland we learn to grow up and accept change, and as Sleeping Beauty wakes up we vow along with her to be disciplined and hopeful. We still learn to dream big like Rapunzel and fight the bad guy like Snow White. And, of course, we idealize true love, hoping for our own fairy tale endings. Cautionary tales and those with an affinity for agency and strength balance out to depict, in their very clear, distilled, and fantastical way, some semblance of reality.

And even when we don’t need Little Red to remind us not to talk to strangers, we still bring those characters with us. The heroes sit in our consciousness, guiding our decisions, our goals, and our hopes. Eventually these stories come off of the pages or the screens or the stages. We make them our own, imagining the characters outside the stories we were given. Jack redeems himself the next time someone tries to sell him magic beans, and Alice comes back to visit Wonderland to check in on her magical friends.

The people come out of their plots, jumping around in our minds so that we can call on them when we need them. My Alice becomes unlike anyone else’s. Their archetypical natures still might help us connect, but the deeper qualities diverge in a way that allows us to understand ourselves. It lets us test scenarios using the emotions or ideas that our characters represent, when we might not even be able to fully realize the importance of the associations that these characters hold.