Trouxeste a chave? Embarcando na fantasia da casa da madrinha

Abstract

It is of the human nature the fascination, at least in some phases of the life, by fairy tales, where they are carried away by the fantasy present in literary texts. People believe that, on the pages of a book, everything is possible. Such belief in the fantasy, however, may fade away as time goes by since the passage of time from childhood into adolescence and yet into adulthood, as well as the demands of modern life restrict our potential for daydreaming. Schools, therefore, undertake a pivotal role to preserve and cherish it alive in the students. Still, it is crucial to their psychological and cognitive development, and, of course, to the development of their esthetical sense; after all Literature is art. Unfortunately, it hardly ever occurs and the classroom reality turns out to be a mere knowledge-passing resource, privileging the grammar rules and the literature background. Conversely, text is relegated to a mere pretext for analyses unrelated to what really matters: the text itself and its respective resources. We believe that, as to Literature, one of the essential resources to conceive it is metaphors by means of fantasies. We have now come to a key point where metaphors are major components of fantasies. However, both are poorly regarded by schools, which do not embark on a productive policy. Rather than effectively understanding the metaphorical potential, students are held to primary (and witless) tasks of recognizing and classifying metaphors. Such verifications arouse the interest in better figuring out the existing relation between fantasy, metaphor, and literature for children. It all poses questions: after all, what is the meaning of fantasy? Is it the same as fantastic approach? Fantasy characterizes literature for children only? Such questions make us ponder over the importance of literary texts and the respective tasks carried out as in classroom. In view of it all, we have taken a teaching look at the book A casa da madrinha (Godmother´s house) by Lygia Bojunga, verifying the fantasy present in the work perfect fusion of reality and imagination and how it takes place by means of metaphors