Final answer:
The author connects fun-scary experiences with real-life fears by illustrating how engagement with imaginary events in literature serves as a safe space to confront and understand real emotions tied to fear. Gothic tales and other stories offer a controlled environment for exploring these emotions, with a dialectic correlation between literature and life.
Step-by-step explanation:
The author suggests a connection between fun-scary experiences and real-life fears by drawing attention to the ways in which literature, and fiction in general, allows us to experience and process our fears in a safe and controlled environment. Through stories, we engage with imaginary events that evoke real emotions, but since we know these situations are fictitious, we find enjoyment in the thrill without the actual danger. As we identify with characters and their predicaments, we simulate potentially scary or stressful situations vicariously, which can be entertaining and also provide a means of confronting and understanding our emotions towards real-life fears.
Specifically, the text from LibreTexts™ touches upon the pleasure derived from gothic tales that often feature supernatural elements and evoke fear and excitement, set in a world distinctive from our own reality. Concluding, engaging with such fiction can give readers a way to deal with real fears by framing them in a different context and allowing them to feel a sense of control over the imaginary situation, thus highlighting a dialectic correlation between literature and life.