Almost all of us have several books or films that we remember with immense affection and that have somehow marked our childhood, in my case The Endless Story?He’s one of them. But when I re-read it, as an adult, I realized that it was a book that reflected child depression, with nothing as the main protagonist.
Through Nothing, as a metaphor for the loss of imagination, the loss of innocence in the adult world, says that growing up doesn’t necessarily mean sorry to stop dreaming. Because if you stop dreaming, the Fantasy Kingdom will cease to exist, even though, with a drop of hope, everything can resurface.
- Therefore.
- Nothing can be seen as a curious way to explain to children what childhood depression is.
- But this is not the only form adopted in the book or in the film: gradually its author.
- Michael Ende.
- Explores from the symptoms to the best way to deal with them.
I warn the reader that from now on the article will go further in the book and the film and that, therefore, it contains spoilers.
“We have to fight sadness so it doesn’t take us. “-?The endless story?
Bastian, the protagonist of the book, is a child in the recent duel for the loss of his mother, and he stopped doing things that were previously pleasant to him and provided him with stimuli, such as swimming or horseback riding, and at school, or rather, along the way, his classmates do what we now call bullying.
The only way you can escape this horrible world is to use your own imagination. The book brings the reader closer to a group of beings who had imagination and had it all. And all this, then, nothing took away. That is, like him, these characters have lost the paradise of their peaceful lives, a life that Bastian also had when he was with his mother, for something that happened fast and that has no explanation.
Nothing is this emptiness, this terrible thing that grows more than lost, nothing ends with everything. It’s nothing because it’s not replaced by anything else, it’s just pain. Therefore, only the bravest warrior in the Kingdom of Fantasy can fight him, Atreyu. He does so wandering the kingdom until he begins to find the answers in the swamps of pain.
The swamps of sadness are the last destination, the last hope, in them is the old Morla, the wisest being of the realm of fantasy, but the swamps were a great danger, because in them there is a risk that a great sadness will invade them. you: if this happens, it will gradually sink into the swampy waters.
It is a beautiful metaphor that is reflected in Bastián’s dialogue with Morla: do not get carried away by sadness, it will sink you, you must continue to fight adversity. As bad as you are, don’t give up, or you’ll sink and, above all, don’t get carried away by those who don’t have the joy of youth and don’t stop to listen to it.
“Fantasy is but a piece of human dreams and hopes. Fantasy dies because men have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. The endless story?
Then nothing, darkness, took shape, becoming a wolf named Gmork, a wolf who whipped everything in Atreyu to prevent him from fulfilling his mission, a wolf present at the time when Atreyu loses all hope.
Thus, nothing is shown as the inner hell of the protagonist, a hell that says that if you approach him, if you sink, he will finish you off, but Atreyu is a warrior who will not surrender without a fight. he can’t fight the biggest problem, nothing.
And you can’t fight anything because you don’t know how to cross the boundaries of the realm of fantasy and communicate to those outside, to adults, what’s really going on. For a child, face pain in a real way. , as adults do, it’s a very complicated thing, and that’s why they create their own universe.
?- Fantasy can be reborn, from your dreams, if you wish, Bastian
? How many wishes can I ask for?
? As much as you want. And the more desires you ask, Fantasia will grow more and more.
? Oh seriously?
? Treat?
? The endless story?
But in the end, when nothing took almost everything, Bastian realized that he was the protagonist of his story, how sad he was, that after the death of his mother, it was he who sank into the swamp of sadness. he had lost his wonderful world, and it was the adults, his father and the library owner, who did not want to hear it, and as Morla asked him to stop being a child, to use his imagination to enter the adult world. .
But he retained a hint of dust of hope, so that nothing could take you all over the world. It’s not that children can’t understand the world of adults, adults don’t understand the world of children. That is why they, with their games and their stories, through their imagination, bring us closer to their inner universe, which makes the psychology of the child very important the projective techniques.
That’s why Fantasy is so important, because through it, children communicate to us how they feel and can tell us things they don’t know how to express. For a child, understanding the concept of childhood depression is not easy, but explaining that a character of his imagination, fantasy, is sad to lose everything, it is much easier.