On the face of it, there seems to be no principle underlying all this activity. It encompasses pastimes as diverse as finger-painting, swinging on monkey-bars, games such as Cluedo and Checkers, and Holloween dress ups. This term we use to categorise it is ‘play’. Play defines the child as ‘work’ defines the adult; we categorise all activities as one or the other, although it might be fairer to say that the terms ‘work’ and ‘play’ constitute the opposite ends of a continuum of human behaviour
What is the essence of child’s-play? The evolutionary psychologist explains it by appealing to its ‘telos’, its purpose. By playing (he says), the child is developing the physical and cognitive faculties that will serve him or her as an adult: child’s-play prepares the child for roles and behaviours he or she will adopt when they grow up. In this explanation, the evolutionary psychologist ascribes ‘motives’ to the child that are not to be found in the child’s conscious mind – it is as if Evolution itself is acting through the medium of the child. Nor are these motives unconscious. Consider the child of accountants- does he make-believe that he is an accountant? No, he pretends to be a cop or an astronaut or a king or a wizard.
The evolutionary perspective does not satisfy. To explain child’s-play we cannot assimilate it into the World of the adult; we must seek to understand it in terms of the World of the child, a World which is quite distinct and has its own rules and preoccupations. Consider the game of tag. In this game the child who is ‘it’ runs around trying to transmit this ‘it’ status to another child, while the rest of the children try to dodge him. Certainly, this game provides an excuse for physical exercise and develops motor skills- but this is now what interests the child about the game. The child who is ‘it’ is a pariah, tapu; the other children avoid him as though he carries a contagious disease (which in a sense he does). In the World of the child, even the young child, friendship is important, and there is always the child who is shunned, feels excluded from the community. Perhaps an acute feeling of difference, of singularity, underlies the experience of all children. In tag, the children who flee the one who is ‘it are united by the game, form a community based on the exclusion of on of their members. Tag is not dissimilar from sacrifice.
And then when a child becomes ‘it’, what a transformation! Because the child who is ‘it’ is not just a pariah; he is a monster. He is all-powerful and the other children fear him. The game of ‘tag’ converts social ostracisim into potency. The child who is ‘it’ is the centre of the system; the game could not exist without him. So at a deeper level he, too, participates in the community.
The analysis I have undertaken shows how strongly the element of make-believe features even in so simple a game as tag. To speak paradoxically, tag is an imaginary re-presentation of the child’s World. In this it resembles more complex games of make-believe. I remember when I was a child that my best friend and I would pretend to be super heroes and invent super-powers for ourselves quite unsystematically. Although super-heroes feature little in the World of adults and not at all in the real world, they feature strongly in the Worlds of children. For the child, superheros are ‘interesting’ and this is sufficient to justify why one should pretend to be one.
The essence of child’s-play is make-believe. The game of tag finishes at the end of recess and the child who is ‘it’ stops being it and returns to the classroom. When a child pretends to be a superhero, the narrative he creates is determined by him and his friends, not by adults or the adult world, and he can alter its rules as he sees fit. Even the child on the jungle gym constantly informs his play with adventurous, adventitious narratives. The attraction of make-believe is simply this: when playing the child has complete control of the World he creates, because that World is imaginary. The real world cannot interfere even by implication.
How does this relate to literature? I believe that reading literature is a form of make-believe. The difference is that it is passive, rather than active. As a person ages his ability or willingness to ‘make stuff up’ deteriorates, but he still seeks the pleasure he found in childhood make-believe. Because he ‘creates’ (in Sartre’s sense) the World about which he reads, the reader theoretically possesses total control it. All the meaning of a book or a film is, so to speak, ‘on the surface’ – potentially available to a thorough enough reading or viewing. This contrasts with the real world when we can never be sure. Why are many people obsessed with the details of Tolkein’s Middle Earth? Simply because Tolkein’s creation, despite its complexity, can (in principle) be completely understood, understood in a way that the history of the real world cannot.
This instalment should be considered a direct continuation of the previous, “Reading Sartre”. I hope that the connections between the two are obvious. I have not yet decided what the topic of the next instalment shall be.