I was thinking about the idea of characters who have a dream of something - a wonderful life, a perfect situation, and are living for the possibility of getting there.
For me, the story that hits this hardest is Of Mice and Men, where George and Lenny, struggling during the Depression, have a dream of starting their own farm. In the end, let's just say it's probably not going to happen.
This kind of thing strikes me as a sort of “literary” trope. It's a sometimes-hard truth of life and humanity that perfect ideas we have are possibly not going to come to pass - or if they do come to pass, the reality won't be as perfect as the picture we have in our minds.
This idea is definitely at play in writing, creating comics, or creating or working toward anything else. The reality will have elements that aren't perfect.
And that's okay!
Some of the best advice for writing, doing art or creating anything is that it's only perfect at the IDEA stage. That story or comic or whatever is perfect in our minds, before we make it. At that point it can never be perfect.
But isn't that better than never making it at all?
Ha…this was intended to be an article about the impossible dream in Of Mice and Men and other stories. But it connected to something much more positive. So…there's the Newspost. Not perfect…but nothin' is!
Do you like, or recognize the trope of the dream-that's-doomed-to-fail in fiction?
Have you struggled with the imperfect reality after the perfect dream? I'm sure we all have to some degree - I find that it's easier to let go of that perfectionist thing if I want to keep going, making more pages - there's just no time for it!
Have a good one!
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Dem Rabbits
Banes at 12:00AM, May 16, 2024
6 likes!
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bravo1102 at 4:57AM, May 16, 2024
Chuck Jones in Looney Tunes did a really good turn on this with the character of the Abominable Snowman interacting with Bugs and Daffy. Abominable was patterned closely after Lon Chaney's Lenny in the original screen version. And the whole not fulfilling the dream because "rubbing his feathers the wrong way. Hold on George rabbits don't have feathers" Just a great take on the dream and disappointment.
PaulEberhardt at 4:49AM, May 16, 2024
I like it, obviously. At the risk of getting accused of misplaced self-promotion, my currently uploading short comic is based on that very idea, so to speak. To many of its original readers it also goes beyond that, but reality always pissing on the epic moment (as a highly memorable phrase coined by Alastair Reynolds in one of his novels goes) was my starting point back when I drew it years ago, and the comic an excuse to vent not my frustration at dreams usually staying exactly what they are, but rather my annoyance at compulsive optimists who insist otherwise. I managed to gain a somewhat more positive attitude, since, it's been a few years after all and during that time following my plans with terrier-like stubbornness has generally worked out, if your definition of a plan working out leaves enough leeway.