It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and the Joys of Wishful Thinking

A moody masterpiece

Anyone who has ever been a child knows that a key part of understanding the world is having your desires collide with reality. Perhaps it’s a list of common victims: Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, or even the slow disintegration of imaginary friends. Maybe your parents were rather literary and had goblins, fairies, and elves living in the woods behind their house. Or maybe your mind conjured up a giant pumpkin raining gifts on good kids in your neighborhood’s honest pumpkin patch.

Like the previous work, charlie brown christmas, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Contains the voices of actual children. They also don’t seem like showbiz kids followed by overly ambitious parents. They speak in a halting rhythm like real children. In telling Snoopy’s adventures as a World War I air ace, Peter Robbins, the voice of Charlie Brown, replaces the phrase “crossing the French countryside” with “Crossing his path. The French countryside.” That’s wonderful. The sophisticated birth of children sounds about as realistic as Stepford Wives.

From the beginning, great pumpkin The work is announced as a distinctly moody, impressionistic comic. In the opening scene, Linus and Lucy trudge through a mess of fallen leaves to a pumpkin patch. Linus rolls his pumpkin home against a stunning magenta sky with deep purple hues. Preparing to carve a jack-o-lantern, Lucy wields a large knife and cuts a clean hole in the top of the pumpkin. Surprised, Linus exclaimed, “I didn’t say I was going to kill you!” This spooky explosion is followed by a credits sequence featuring a spooky ensemble of Halloween creatures.

And Vince Guaraldi’s amazing score. The flute plays a prominent role in most of the songs, giving them a fluttering, ghostly quality befitting a season filled with ghosts and falling leaves. “The Great Pumpkin Waltz” is one of Guaraldi’s most graceful and gentle works.

The joy of wishful thinking

great pumpkin have the dubious honor of appearing in works of analytic philosophy. Alvin Plantinga cites Linus as an example of honesty that goes beyond decency. Linus’ religious epistemology regarding the existence of the Great Pumpkin is very simple. “Everyone says you’re fake, but I believe in you. PS, if you’re really fake, don’t tell me. I believe in you.” I don’t want to know”

Linus’ colleagues also share Plantinga’s criticism. “You’re probably crazy. When do you stop believing in things that aren’t true?” intoned Charlie Brown. Linus says: you Wearing red clothes and growing a white beard, he said, “Hohohoho! ‘Don’t believe anyone who says that.” Brown replied with a wry smile, “Clearly we are separated by sectarianism.” Lucy fears that her brother’s eccentric beliefs will damage her reputation, but she is even more uncompromising. “Stop or I’ll hit you!” Linus is right about the double standards here. In his letter to the Great Pumpkin, he reasonably points out that the question of Gourd’s credibility is actually just a matter of publicity. Santa gathers the press.

One of the many symptoms of the modern world is the almost sadistic enjoyment we take in crushing the hopes and dreams of our children. My sister and I are both huge animal lovers who grew up in a world of Christian apologetics (and I still am), and we remember many times when the Wrinkly Wise Man made it his life’s goal to forever remove from us any hope that our beloved pets would one day find their way to a new heaven and earth. Aside from the theological dubiousness of this claim, who on earth would say something like this to a child?

For that matter, why tell them that Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Big Pumpkin, or other mythical creatures of childhood aren’t real? I know I’m walking through a minefield of glorification here, especially in Christian circles, so I’ll say it again: What’s the harm in a young child believing in the Great Pumpkin?

I keep hearing the familiar reactions. The Great Pumpkin is not real! Worse, he can undermine the trust between you and the young people in your life, possibly causing them to fall into some kind of unbelief. There’s a fine line between a big pumpkin and Jesus, and one day that scary atheist professor might put the final nail in the coffin for your child’s already fragile faith. At the risk of offending you, this is nonsense. First of all, adults indulge in their fair share of fantasies, but most of them aren’t as wholesome as the Great Pumpkin. More importantly, as we will see below, figures like the Great Pumpkin can be excellent tutors of desire.

My son now has a habit of asking me about the existence of impossible toys. His latest research involved child-sized helicopters. (It’s not as outlandish as it sounds, considering he’s just guessing from the many children’s electric cars scattered around suburban garages.) At first, I lectured him passionately about the rigors of flight school and aviation safety, but then I had the decency to listen to myself and shut up and start over.

“That’s great. What would you do if you had it?” I asked. “I took my sister for a ride around the neighborhood. Maybe we’d land on the roof of a house.” I had to admit that this prospect sounded appealing. It reminded me of a similar childhood wish I had once had for a small, impenetrable submersible that could explore the ocean’s deepest trenches in complete safety. I’m really glad my parents didn’t nag me about the enormous ocean pressures and specialized knowledge required for such a voyage. Many children’s shows that call themselves “scientific” aim to do exactly this kind of thing, of course simply presenting fantastical scenarios and debunking them with scientific explanations. I’m not against science, but let’s not smuggle children’s dreams into laboratories. Which is more dangerous: overactive imagination or deep-rooted reductionism?

It Can’t Be Too Good to Be Too Good: The Joy of True Wishing

Wishful thinking is an important expression of the human mind, and figures like the Great Pumpkin, seemingly insignificant, can play an important role in channeling childhood aspirations into a more mature state. A child dreaming of a pumpkin dispensing toys may provoke a frown of disapproval or a perplexed laugh, but behind this wish lies something more timeless. Like Santa, the Great Pumpkin is said to reward virtue. Is it too much to suggest that this is an early desire for cosmic justice and a world where vice is punished and virtue is rewarded? What about toy promises? We often chastise our children for their obsession with Christmas presents, assuming that they are just being greedy. But I don’t think it’s far-fetched to suggest that children’s joy in receiving gifts is a small expression of a deeper desire for a rich life and experiences that endure newness, joy, and surprise.

Indeed, we are more than Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the big pumpkin. Many anxious Christian adults fear that our Lord will suffer a similar fate in the lives of children who once believed in Santa and others. But we cannot transcend our desire for cosmic justice and abundant life. Nor can we transcend our desires for love, friendship, meaning and purpose, and an afterlife.

No matter how sincere we are, these deep, innate needs cannot be satisfied by simply giving presents under a tree or in a pumpkin patch. But the fact that we all have such desires has led to deep spiritual introspection by some truly remarkable individuals. From Blaise Pascal to Miguel de Unamuno to C.S. Ruiz, there is a strong tradition of Christian thought that takes these desires as clues about the nature of reality. Philosopher Clifford Williams also did this. Well done in refine this argument.

It’s clear that no one is born with the desire to fly like Superman, drive a sports car, and support a team of eternal champions. As often happens, all such wishes are obtained. A deeper desire for love, meaning, and a fulfilling life, what the Hebrew tradition calls it. shalom—It is universal and innate. Their omnipresence is evidence of the fact that God has ordained eternity in the hearts of men.Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Who or what could stand up to these constant desires? It’s certainly not the big pumpkin, but when we look back on our childhoods, we see that Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the big pumpkin were just the stepping stones.