ABSTRACT

The dark fantasy both brings to mind the moment of the loss and destruction of the world and seeks to overcome loss of the world by overcoming the forces responsible for it. In the fantasy, people are strong rather than weak so they are able to impose their will rather than finding that they are helpless to defend themselves against the aggression of others. But the dark fantasy also poses a problem. In it, there exists no image or idea of a world that has been pieced back together, no idea of a reality in which people are safe from aggression. The more the dark emotions dominate in fantasy life the less flexible or creative the encounter with external reality will be. It follows that the predominance of the dark fantasy constitutes a kind of impairment in the creative capacity that narrows its range of operation.