ABSTRACT
Funfairs exist all over the world, from Bombay to San Francisco and from Alaska to New Zealand. Funfairs mean a break in the daily routine, in the exacting discipline of working life. The traditional pleasures found at funfairs may be classified under several headings. The traditional foods sold at funfairs must generally have two characteristics. Often the types of sweets sold there are peculiar to funfairs and are sold hardly anywhere else or on any other occasions; this, however, is not an absolute rule. The rejoicing of the environment on being destroyed by the individual, to the extent of offering rewards for its own destruction—as happens in funfairs—is one more fairly strong argument for the theory of primary love. This chapter examines in what way other thrills resemble those offered in funfairs. The thrills caused in the spectators increase with the distance of the acrobat from the safe earth and the precariousness of his attachment to some firm structure.
