CARNIVALIZATION OF FEAR IN CHILDREN’S FOLKLORE

Abstract

The article tackles the topic of creative language developed by children in the kindergarten- and early-primary-school-age. This language is marked by composition dominants of absurdity, grotesque, macabre, impropriety, obscenity, scatological humor, childishness, profanity, hyperboles, and ludic punch lines. The main subject of the analysis is children’s folklore, which is a spontaneous verbal rhymed activity and expression accompanying children’s play. This type of improvised poetic micro-forms is common for children’s culture and is engendered in peer-group environments. They thus occur outside of the official language culture and serve as a verbal form of rebellion, effectuated by children against the imposition of the adults’ language. The latter is conversely characterized by properness, formality, instrumental nature, and its aim to mirror reality. Children gain satisfaction from breaking language taboos and introducing consternation among their elders. In their verbal productions, one can observe a typically carnivalized gesture, which is the elevation of the weakest subject of the social hierarchy. In this sense, a child can instill a different and carnivalized version of the world through play. The analysis encompasses the rhymed and narrative short forms present in the verbal realm of children’s lives and depicting a carnivalized fear. Adopting a carnival lens for looking at children’s use of being afraid is a symptom of rejecting the monolithic nature of fear. Children appear to perform an exorcism on fear through laughter, try to neutralize it and ascribe the fears with that Bakhtin could see as building a ludic and grotesque version of a world upside-down.