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All 3 stories portray enchantment as someone losing themselves or becoming possessed in some way. In this story, the protagonist discovers a new path in the forest by accident and embarks on a transformative journey as a consequence. The "plot" reads less like a dream and more like the kid is going on a strange journey to an exotic, impossible location.

There, he must come to terms with both physical and existential threats. You could say he receives a sort of education, and returns to his home a different person, and perhaps now a man.

This reminds me of Star Wars, and specifically of Luke Skywalker in the cave on Dagobah. He's undergoing physical changes during his training with Yoda, but in order to avoid disaster he must also grow stronger mentally, by facing his own capacity for evil.

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Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back - Cave On Dagobah, Luke's Training (Movie Clip)

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"A Child in the Bush of Ghosts" hardly states any of its themes directly, but we can still extract some important ideas. The journey to Wassai acts as a metaphor for the boy's transition into manhood, and so through its imagery we can reconstruct the story's idea of what exactly it means to "be a man."

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the boy has to make this journey on his own. He's the one who discovers the trail that his uncle has somehow never seen in 35 years (through the innocent, open-minded perception of childhood) and only visits Wassai by sneaking out of the house, obsessed with finding the source of the river.

The boy constantly mentions fear,, and how he's past the point of feeling it. This is interesting, because unlike other coming of age stories where the protagonist must find their own answer to fear, perhaps in a grand, dramatic moment, here the boy more or less becomes numb to fear because of the crazy things happening around him. He didn't make a conscious effort to overcome fear, but instead it's almost like he doesn't have time to be scared.

The story also seems to value genuine, child-like exploration as opposed to deep intellectual meditation. Upon arriving, the boy exclaims, "Wisps of white smoke rose from the foot of the trees. Little did I care about their origin and meaning! Let the sorcerers abandon themselves to their orgies, let them devour the souls of their victims. I was in Wassai!" He's rewarded for this attitude, and undergoes a sexual awakening that also constitutes part of the transformation into being a man. Likewise, once he comes home, he quickly dismisses his parents' request for an explanation of what happened to him. He even goes as far as saying that it cannot be explained at all. The message seems to be that people should value experience and feeling rather than rationality and verbalization.

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Enchantment as a Deconstruction of the Human Being

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Enchantment as a Deconstruction of the Human Being

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This story follows a sorcerer's efforts to create a man. He is obsessed with this idea, and so becomes enchanted by it. We don't know much about him or his motivations, other than the obvious personal achievement of being able to say, "I created a human being." The sorcerer reveres certain gods, though sometimes his attempt to create life is portrayed as hubris.

At first, the sorcerer's labors are academic, with him choosing to teach a class in his dreams to the souls of people who lived before, hoping to choose one among them worthy of being born into reality. However, this doesn't pan out and after recovering the sorcerer decides to build a simulacrum of a man. He quickly forms an attachment to this being and begins to regard it as his son. As a consequence, the story becomes more personal and begins to explore ideas surrounding the relationship between father and son.

This premise is similar to popular works like Pinocchio. By having the sons be artificial, it's easy to frame these stories as a deconstruction of larger concepts (what it means to be a father, what it means to be a son, what it means to be human and if humans can be created artificially).

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Pinocchio(1940) - Pinocchio Becomes A Real Boy

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Overall, the sorcerer's efforts don't work out the way he would've wanted them to. He succeeds in creating a son (after realizing that this is what he really wanted: creating a son, not just a man). However, he can't stop his son from discovering his true nature, and even after the painstaking labor of dreaming a body for his son, he ends up accepting Fire's assistance in bringing him to life. It seems that the sorcerer's tragic flaw isn't that he wanted to dream a man, but that he wanted to control what happened after also. It wasn't enough for his son to be born into reality. He also had to convince the boy that he was a natural human, not a construct. Even worse, at least from the sorcerer's point of view, he ends up being a simulacrum too. Another man has dreamed him.

Interesting note: The sorcerer is said to feel terror, humiliation, but also, "relief" at this revelation. It's unclear why this is the case, but maybe he resolved that a simulacrum could be capable of creating another simulacrum so convincing that it would fool everyone. Therefore, his task would've failed before it began. Perhaps this knowledge brought relief because it wasn't him who failed in his efforts, but something that was hopeless to begin with. This would make for a bittersweet ending.

The synthesis of life as seen in popular media today:

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Enchantment as an Exploration of What it means to Love Someone

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Enchantment as an Exploration of What it means to Love Someone

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This is a really funny story told in a simple, almost sarcastic way. The most simple reading of this story is that it's a metaphor for falling in love with someone and getting to know their darker side. This is the interpretation I had on first reading, and I think it works really well, so I'll go ahead with it.

First off, the girl could be said to be "enchanted" since she loses herself at night, quite literally turning into a different person. However, the more interesting idea is how the narrator also becomes enchanted. He's completely surprised at first and doesn't know how to react, just playing along with her transformation, but eventually he begins to genuinely love the girl while also having fun at night with the fat man, like two frat brothers. The most important takeaway is that the narrator didn't know what he was getting into. When the girl cries, he's basically comforting her out of necessity rather than really being ok with whatever her terrible secret is. However, he ends up realizing that he truly loves this girl, and is even ok with her more crude, unpleasant side.

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The Humor and the Surprisingly Emotional Heart Underneath

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The Humor and the Surprisingly Emotional Heart Underneath

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The central metaphor is that of a man growing to love and accept his partner, despite her flaws. I think a lot of the story's humor comes from how literal Keret's interpretation of this idea is and how far he runs with it. Often times a person's darker side is portrayed as a monster or demon, but here the girl quite literally turns into an obnoxious fat guy at night.

Despite this, there's a simple and beautiful story underneath.

To being with, this isn't a fairy tale romance. At first, the narrator is mainly interested in sex, and he never lies about it for a second. After the reveal happens, you can almost picture his stunned silence on the first night out with fatso, and you empathize with the narrator since he doesn't know what else to do in this impossible situation. Pretty soon though, you can see the love between the two of them unfold, and have some impression of Keret's idea of genuine, long-lasting love.

Above all, lovers don't prioritize fixing each other. Fatso ends the story being just as crass as when it started, but the main change is the narrator's reaction to it. He ends up accepting his partner's imperfections, while admitting that they're not ideal. In addition, there's a separation between Fatso and his girlfriend. The narrator doesn't let the worst part of his partner's personality define her, since he knows that there's more to her than the fact that she's cursed to turn into a hairy man by night.

In this way, the story is transformed from just a funny premise to an exploration on what it means to love someone and what makes that love last.

Similar scene about loving your partner's imperfections:

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Greatest dialogue in history (coffee joke, fart in her sleep) - Good Will Hunting (1997) Movie Scene