Bettelheim Fairy Tales

The tradition of telling fairy tales to children effects not only the listener but also the reader. Maria Tatar, in her book Off with Their Heads!, analyzes how fairy tales instill and reaffirm cultural values and expectations in their audience . Tatar proposes that fairy tales fall into three different tale-types: cautionary tales, exemplary stories, and reward- and- punishment tales. These three types portray different character traits as desirable and undesirable. Due to the tale’s varying literary methods it can change the effectiveness of the tale’s pedagogical value. In Tatar’s opinion, all of these tales are similar in the way they attempt to use punishment, reward, and fear to encourage or discourage certain behaviors. In the cautionary fairy tale “The Virgin Mary’s Child”, the use of punishment and fear to discourage certain behaviors is enhanced by the Christian motifs and values employed by the tale. These literary devices encourage the audience to reflect on and internalize the lessons that are presented in the fairy tale.

Maria Tatar’s “An Introduction to Fairy Tales” discusses the impact on how the stories help guide the children from their younger age. The first five paragraphs of the article mentioned about how the children can overflow with imagination, and can vividly see their reality of desire and also, fear. The fairytales can also corrupt the naïve minds of the child in a way of making them realize the reality of the world is unjustified, and people can be harsh. Moreover, Tatar gives an explanation on how people grow up with the same fairy tales with different versions; which gives an entirely different personal idea. Fairy tales also develop the child’s intellectual mind by reading various kinds of genre.

Fairy Tales are not just stories that parents tell to their children, but stories with hidden valuable messages which are mostly left on a side. In the article “An Introduction to Fairy Tales,” Maria Tatar clearly explains how people need fairy tales in their lives. Tatar also states how fairy tales have the ability to take the listener, especially children’s, into a journey in which they can play with their imagination so that they can discover their deepest fears and wishes. Personally I agree with the author, because of the fact that in an individual’s lives as they get older, they will try to define themselves, sometimes comparing their own life with a character from their favorite story or Fairy Tale.

Bettelheim’s theory is centralized on his argument of the importance of fairy tales on a child’s development. This argument was proposed through The Uses of Enchantment, he suggested that fairy tales provided images to the children and with these images they could structure a better direction to one’s life. Bruno Bettelheim felt that the use of fairy tales for child’s development represented good versus evil clearly, these stories helped children deal with problem of an inner self, the description of the heroes/heroines going out into

Fairytales and fantasies have existed to tell children’s stories because of their ability to bring a child

As a child, I was told fairytales such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs every night before I went to sleep. Fairytales are an adventurous way to expand a child’s imagination and open their eyes to experience a new perspective. Modernizations of fairytales typically relate to a specific audience, such as adolescence, and put a contemporary spin on the old-aged tale. Instead of using whimsical themes heavily centered in nature, the contemporary poems connect with the reader in a more realistic everyday scenario. Also, many modernizations are written in poetic form to help reconstruct a flow in the piece and to develop or sometimes completely change the meaning from that of the original fairytale. Comparing Grimm’s Fairytale Snow White

Fantasy allows children to stimulate their imagination, develop abilities, clarify emotions, and understand the difficulties in life, while at the same time suggesting solutions to problems. However, it is impossible for “realistic” stories to do the same. These lifelike stories are often uninteresting, complicated, meaningless, and do not provide their readers with psychological contentment. As a result, authors like Bruno Bettelheim deeply express the importance of fairy tales for children and kids alike. Therefore, in my estimation, a child might be comforted and experience growth and awareness through the viewing of fantasy stories like The Wizard of Oz due to the

There are numerous genre’s in literature, but their level of importance and influence on an individual will differ. Exposure to books and stories is especially important for children because it is their opportunity to acclimate themselves to written language, and in turn create their own visuals for the toneless words. Maria Tatar writes, “Why Fairy Tales Matter: The Performative and the Transformative” to demonstrate how fairy tale’s written language can spark a child’s imagination as well as empower them. Through personal insight from distinguished writers— Richard Wright— Tatar builds her argument for the benefits of fairy tales— particularly the violent stories. The writer organizes her essay in a concrete fashion by using each paragraph to build on a proposed idea or to present a belief, but does not use contemporary writers personal anecdotes or heed to her own advice of avoiding childish fairy tales.

There is nothing more precious and heartwarming than the innocence of a child. The majority of parents in society want to shield children from the bad in life which is appreciated. Within human nature exists desires of inappropriate behavior; envy, deceit, selfishness, revenge, violence, assault and murder. The most well-known fairy tales depict virtue and the evil in life. Even more important, the form and structure of fairy tales suggest images to the child by which he can structure his daydreams and with them give a better direction to his life. (Bettelheim).

In “Transcending Infancy with the Help of Fantasy,” Bettleheim tells parents: No reasonable parent can promise his child that perfect bliss is available to him in reality. But by telling his child fairy tales, the parent can encourage him to borrow for his private use fantastic hopes for the future, without misleading him by suggesting that there is reality to such imaginings.

The fairy tale helps the child to understand a balance between the good and the evil; it gives him a hope for a good future.” Fairy tales assure the

In Tatar’s article, An Introduction to Fairy Tales, she draws us in by describing childhood books as “sacred objects.” She takes a quote from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. describing how the stories give lessons about what a child subconsciously knows - “that human nature is not innately good, that conflict is real, that life is harsh before it is happy - and thereby reassure them about their own fears and their own sense of self,” (Tatar 306). She describes how many adults long for the simplicity of enjoying those stories in their childhoods, only to realize that they outgrew them, and instead have been introduced to reality. The original stories were more for adults rather than for children. Nowadays, stories have been adapted to be more suitable for children. Fairy tales may allow a kid to wonder due to their charm, but they also can

According to Tatar most fairy tales are chosen by many people because they allow readers to read about their biggest anxieties along with their desired wants. Therefore, fairy tales are used by psychologists like Bruno Bettelheim. In Bettelheim’s highly recognizable study, The Uses of Enchantment, he asserted that one should face their fears to overcome them in the end (Tatar 231). Thus many psychologists use fairy tales to help their clients overcome their problems in life by focusing on the dramas in the tale.

During world war two, people thought the fairytale encouraged genocide because of the intense death in some of Grimm Brothers stories. Bettelheim took a psychological approach in his book “The Uses of Enchantment” and believed that “fairytales arose from children’s subconscious as he sought to demonstrate fairy tales accurately projected children’s psychological needs and neatly describe their psychosexual desires.” (Buttigheimer, Par 17) In contrast, most theorist believed that fairy tales create a social norm and motifs for children. In modern day, fairytales have more egocentric values. The stories I chose to research were Little Red Cap, Rapunzel, Little Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, and Little Briar Rose. Little Red Cap is a tale of a young girl who is deceived by a wolf, who then tries to eat her grandmother and her but is saved by the huntsman. Rapunzel is about a young baby who was traded in place for her parents’ misfortune of taking rampion, she grew up in a tall tower that only had a window. The enchantress called out to Rapunzel and she would let down her hair, a young prince saw this one day and began to do so. She is banished and the prince grows with despair, in the end they find each other and live happily ever after. Hansel and Gretel is about two kids who are sent into the woods by their father, they

The author Bruno Bettelheim is telling us in the first two paragraphs how a lot of parents have replaced fairy tales with more realistic stories like “The Little Engine That Could.” This story encourages children to believe that if they try hard and does not give up, he will finally succeed. (Bettelheim) (Sims)