Fairy tales address themselves to two communities, each with its own interests and each in periodic conflict with the other: parents and children. Nearly every study of fairy tales has taken the perspective of the parent, constructing the meaning of the tales by using identifying universally valid tenets of moral instruction for children.
For example, the plot of “Hansel and Gretel” is set in motion by hard-hearted parents who abandon their children in the woods, but for psychologist Bruno Bettelheim the tale is really about children who learn to give up their unhealthy dependency on their parents. According to Bettelheim, this story—in which the children family’s support. Thus, says Bettelheim, does the story train its young listeners to become “mature children.”
There are two ways of interpreting a story: one is a “superficial” reading that focuses on the tale’s manifest content, and the other is a “deeper” reading that looks for latent meanings. Many adults who read fairy tales are drawn to this second kind of interpretation in order to avoid facing the and expectations, who, unlike Bettelheim, do not find inflexible tenets of moral instruction in the tales.
Bettelheim interprets all fairy tales as driven by children’s fantasies of desire and revenge, and in doing so suppresses the true nature of parental behavior ranging from abuse to indulgence. Fortunately, these characterizations of selfish children and innocent adults have been discredited to some extent by recent psychoanalytic literature. The need to stand in the service of pragmatic instrumentality rather than foster an unproductive form of playful pleasure.
What this question is testing
Topic
The author is unhappy with how the famous psychologist Bruno Bettelheim reads fairy tales — and is using "Hansel and Gretel" as a case study of what goes wrong.
Framework
Present Debate. The author lays out Bettelheim's view and then argues against it.
Main Point
The simpler version: in "Hansel and Gretel," parents abandon the kids. That's right there in the story. But Bettelheim somehow turns the story into a lesson for the kids about being greedy and dependent. The author thinks this kind of reading happens over and over — Bettelheim and others can't handle the idea that parents in the stories might be doing something wrong, so they reroute every fairy tale into "lessons for children." That impoverishes how we read these stories and feeds a bigger pattern of treating children as the only ones who need moral correction.
P1: Two audiences
Fairy tales speak to both parents and children, but most studies have approached them as moral instruction from parents to children. The parent-perspective wins.
P2: A worked example
"Hansel and Gretel" starts with parents abandoning the children. Bettelheim makes the story about the kids learning not to be greedy or dependent. He even calls them "mature children" by the end. Notice how the parental wrongdoing has disappeared from his reading.
P3: The pattern, generalized
Adults are drawn to "deep" readings that put children in the wrong. Stories that don't fit the orthodoxy get rewritten. Readers from different cultures find the same tales saying very different things.
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