Fairy Tales

What values should fairy tales teach young children in your opinion?

Dictionary definition:

1. A fanciful tale of legendary deeds and creatures, usually intended for children.

2. A fictitious, highly fanciful story or explanation.

Fairy tales come from an oral tradition (use of 3s, primary numbers), but three men became famous for writing and publishing fairy tales they collected from (peasant) women:

Charles Perrault (1628-1703)

- Author of "Cinderella"

- From wealthy French upper-bourgeois family

- Wrote stories or Tales from Times Past, with Morals: Tales of Mother Goose (1697)

- Marks new literary genre: fairy tales

Jakob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) Grimm (a.k.a. The Brothers Grimm)

- Likely authors of "Ashenputtel" 

- Professors in Göttingen (now in Germany) until protest (origin of ‘tenure’) exiled them to Berlin

- Traveled through the countryside interviewing peasants about folk tales

- Coincided with growing interest in children’s education, the nature of the “folk”

1. Anthropological Approach: Western fairy tales follow an familiar archetype that Joseph Campbell calls the heroic formula. In The Hero of a Thousand Faces J. Campbell suggests that all myths map on to rites of maturation (36):

Trials and Victories of Initiation

2. Psychological Approach: Bruno Bettelheim writes about fairy tales from a psychological angle in The Uses of Enchantment (1976).

Bettelheim’s Five Main Points 

1. Cinderella follows the narrative tradition of representing the tensions between siblings that arise from competitive beauty, subservience / power relations, and rivalry for parental affections.

• Cinderella mirrors themes in other folktales: sibling rivalry, wishes coming true, elevation of the humble, punishment of evil and reward of virtue, and recognition of true merit (Bettelheim 11).
• Biblical story of Joseph also recounts the enslavement of a sibling, who “miraculously escapes and ends by surpassing his siblings” (Bettelheim 8).

2. Cinderella appeals to children’s unconscious desire to surpass siblings.

• The child identifies with Cinderella’s devastation “by the miseries of sibling rivalry” (5)
• This personal identification with the story elevates it to the “emotional quality of ‘truth’” (340/6). Cinderella gives a picture to already latent feelings of sibling rivalry.
• Cinderella offers escape from “the extreme misery [the children] experiences when ravaged by sibling rivalry” (7).

3. The term ‘sibling rivalry’ encompasses a number of psychological neuroses (that the child may not be aware of).

• Despite knowledge of contrary reality, children unconsciously fantasize that they suffer like Cinderella. Sibling rivalry can come from jealousy and envy.
• Children’s inability to comprehend that ‘growing up’ will further distinguish them from their siblings and leads to fantasies of “domination” (9).
• Children hope to be recognized as good and innocent like Cinderella.

4. Children in the late oedipal phase of development identify with the story most, because it alleviates guilt induced by hatred of mother, father, and/or siblings.

• Children identify with the “vileness of the stepmother and stepsisters” (14).
• But because Cinderella is often portrayed as truly innocent and maltreated, the child may “feel he need not feel guilty about his angry thoughts” (14).
• The story’s happy end provides a hopeful fantasy ending to childhood difficulties. Children need this reassurance especially in the phase between “primary” and secondary narcissism.

5. Cinderella epitomizes children’s’ feelings of rejection

• The child feels ashamed for wanting to have the (same sex) parent dead. Like Cinderella, the children feel ‘dirty’ about their unconscious desires (25).
• This “feeling of being unworthy” leads to an unrealistic fear of being rejected for another sibling (22).
• The moral of Cinderella for children is that virtue, ingenuity, and personal merit will help one transcend “insurmountable obstacles” (26).

Some Critiques of Bettelheim:

• Does not distinguish between male and female development.
• Assumes that all children suffer from Oedipal anxieties.
• Does not mention different cultural versions (i.e., non-Western) of Cinderella.

Female Coming of Age Discussion Questions:

Common Fairy Tale Elements (and their Meaning [lecture])

• Fairy Tales = Survival Lessons
• oral tradition
  
• Primary numbers (3, 7) -- Mnemonic
• universal (no names, "once upon a time")
  
• poverty 
• stepmother
  
• two (competitive, evil) siblings
  
• trickster tale (how to survive)
• witch or magician
  
• a boon
• the forest
• the hunter
  

Closely analyze the following passages from "Hansel and Gretel:"

• "The moon was shining brightly, and the white pebbles round the house shone like newly minted coins. Hansel stooped down and put as many into his pockets as they would hold" (145-46). 
  
• "His father said: 'Hansel, what are you stopping ot look back at? Take care, and put your best foot foremost.' 'O Father!' said Hansel, 'I am looking at my white cat, it is sitting on the roof, wanting to say good-bye to me. 'Little fool! that's no cat, it's the morning sun shining on the chimney,' said the mother" (146).
  
• "When the full moon rose, Hansel took his little sister's hand, and they walked on, guided by the pebbles, which glittered like newly coined money. They walked the whole night, and at daybreak they found themselves back at their father's cottage" (147).
  
• "
• Hansel, what are you stopping to look about you for?' asked his father. 'I am looking at my dove which is sitting on the roof and wants to say good-bye to me,' answered Hansel. 'Little fool!' said the woman, 'that is no dove, it is the morning sun shining on the chimney'" (147).
  

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Random House, 2010. Print.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Bollingen/Princeton UP, 1973. Print.

"Hansel and Gretel." Best-Loved Folk-Tales of the World. Ed. Joanna Cole. NY: Random House, 1982. 145-51.

The Lion King. Dir. R. Allers, R. Minkoff. Perf. Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Nathan Lane. Walt Disney, 1994. Print.

The Matrix. Dir. Andy and Larry Wachowski. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss. Warner Home Video, 1999. Print.