Keller and Tolkien on Happy Endings

I came across this while studying Mark 16 for Teen Church tonight.

Perhaps (our lack of appreciation for stories with happy endings) is the reason that Steven Spielberg was refused any Oscars until he stopped making movies with only happy endings, yet his fairy tale movies are his most popular by far. Critics observe this and scowl that, of course, 'escapist' stories will always be popular. 

But no less authority than Professor JRR Tolkien explains the adiding popularity of the stories that the critics disdain. He insist that people sense that happy endings are not escapist but somehow true to reality. In his famous essay 'on fairy stories' Tolkien expounds his view that the mark of the most satisfying stories is eucatastrophe. Katastrophe is the Greek word for a dramatic, world changing event, but what does Tolkien mean by eucatastrophe?

'The joy of a happy ending is not essentially escapist of fugitive...it does not deny the existence of a dycatastrophe of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance (eucatastrophe); it denies, in the face of mkuch evidence, if you will, universal final defeat, and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of this world, poingnant as grief...when the sudden turn comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy and hearts desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of the story, and lets a gleam come through.'

Tolkien argues that people sense such stories point to some underlying Reality. As we read of watch them, we are being told that the world certainly is filled with sorrow, pain and tragedy, but nonetheless, there is meaning to things, there is a difference between good and evil., and above all there will be a final defeat of evil and even an escape from death, which Tolkien says is the quintessential happy ending. 

The Reason For God, Tim Keller, Pp226-227.

Update: I'd written about this before, as has my friend Cat Caird.