The clash of fantasy and reality has always waged in people’s hearts. Although there should be a healthy balance between the two, reality must be the basis for all of life’s choices. Despite its sorrows and pains, living in the real world also brings the most clarity, fulfillment, and joy.
A Romantic Love
When Charles Fenwick meets Adelaide Merton, they are both young and extremely romantic. Charles possesses “views of life [that are] altogether perverted and erroneous, and his ends are deeply tinctured with the love of distinction, for its own sake.” Adelaide possesses a character which is “showy in her style of conversation, but exceedingly superficial.”Some of his poetry was praised, so Charles now believes himself to be an exemplary poet. Adelaide has some knowledge of the literary greats: “Homer, Virgil, Milton, Shakespeare, Pope, Byron, Shelley, [and] Coleridge,” and now thinks she is cultured and erudite. Charles and Adelaide see themselves as the ideal couple: intellectual, romantic, elegant, and sophisticated.
They marry and set themselves up in a grand house, with the aid of Mr. Fenwick, Charles’s merchant father. Even though Charles is a medical doctor, he has not set up an office, taken any patients, or made much of an income. Needing money, but not desiring to degrade himself as a “a practical doctor,” Charles begins studying the law. Such a practice would be less degrading for him and Adelaide.
A Dose of Reality
Yet one day, Mr. Fenwick experiences a financial loss and can no longer afford to keep lending money to Charles and Adelaide. Charles panics, for such a withdrawal of funds means that he and Adelaide will no longer be able to keep up their rich lifestyle.Mr. Fenwick advises his son: “I have, heretofore, held you up, and now that my sustaining hand is about to be withdrawn, you must fall or rise to your own level. And I am satisfied, that the sooner you are permitted to do so the better.”
With debts to pay and Adelaide and their new child to keep, Charles plunges into the law, seeking more and more clients. However, his prejudiced and romantic way of looking at the world, prevents him from accepting “petty cases” and he falls further into debt.
Through this story, T.S. Arthur shows the dangers of living an overly romantic life, one in which fantasy separates the mind from viewing life realistically. Such a lack of perspective leads to dissatisfaction and revulsion of one’s real circumstances.
Arthur’s story seeks to remedy a life of fantasy with a good dose of reality. Arthur, like Ray Bradbury in “Fahrenheit 451,” advises: “We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”
The fantasies which people create cannot compare to the real world. A satisfying job and a place to live are far more important and beautiful than anything a fantasy could conjure up.
