Reading Comprehension

PT115 · S3 · P2 · Q9 Fairy Tales

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Fairy tales address themselves to two communities, each with its own interests and each in periodic conflict with the other: parents and children.

Topic

How fairy tales have been read by Bruno Bettelheim — and the author's critique of that adult-centered way of reading them.

Framework

Present Debate. The author critiques Bettelheim's parent-centered, child-blaming reading of fairy tales and proposes that this approach has obscured the real role of parents and the genuine pleasure of these stories.

Main Point

Bettelheim's reading of fairy tales (and similar parent-centered readings) systematically blames children and absolves adults; this distorts the tales and reflects a broader societal need to deny adult evil and treat children only as objects of moral instruction.

P1: Two communities, one perspective dominates

Fairy tales address parents and children, who often have conflicting interests. Nearly every study has read the tales from the parent's perspective, looking for moral lessons for children.

P2: Bettelheim's reading of "Hansel and Gretel"

The plot is set in motion by hard-hearted parents who abandon the children, but Bettelheim says the tale is really about children learning to give up unhealthy dependency. The witch becomes a lesson in the dangers of greed; the children become "mature" by returning home as breadwinners.

P3: The general pattern — and its distortions

"Superficial" vs. "deeper" readings; many adults prefer the deeper to avoid facing unpleasant truths about adults. Bettelheim and other psychologists are drawn to fairy tales because they can be read as moralizing scenarios with the child as transgressor. Stories that contradict this orthodoxy get suppressed or rewritten. Different cultural assumptions yield very different readings.

9.

Which one of the following most accurately states the main idea of the passage?

  1. While originally written for children,

    Opposite: true meaning

    This answer is making it sound like the author approves of Bettelheim's analysis. Our author does not think that Bettelheim's reading of fairy tales is the true meaning. She thinks that Bettelheim's reading is a tortured interpretation based on his hellbent agenda to use fairy tales as a way to teach evil children to obey their innocent parents.

    12% picked this

  2. The “superficial” reading of a

    Wrong Objection

    While this succeeds in capturing the Challenge Position sentiment, our author was not arguing that the superficial reading is more enlightening. She thinks that superficial reading is just "an unproductive form of playful pleasure". She doesn't think that fairy tales need to be this deep reading experience. They can just be a story that kids like.

    4% picked this

  3. Because the content of fairy

    Too Narrow

    Too Narrow: reinterpret Opposite: historically run counter The main clause here does reflect the Challenge Position sentiment, but it's a very narrow complaint that Bettelheim selectively ignores or revises fairly tales that don't fit his agenda. The author's bigger objections are distilled in the final paragraph. However, we can also get rid of this answer because it says that "fairy tales historically (i.e. usually) run counter to prevailing orthodoxies about child-rearing". The passage was not suggesting that fairy tales usually don't fit Bettelheim's agenda. It was saying the opposite. What makes fairy tales so attractive to Bettelheim & Co. is that historically they are very consonant with orthodoxies about child-rearing. The author was saying, "For those exceptional cases in which fairy tales don't fit Bettelheim's agenda, he'll ignore them or re-write them to make them work."

    16% picked this

  4. Correct

    The pervasive need to deny

    Why this is right

    While this may feel a little narrow or specific, this captures the Challenge Position sentiment while also addressing the author's most substantive objections. We start to hear the author's pushback at the end of the 3rd paragraph, but it comes into full focus in the final paragraph, and this answer is referencing that language. The author doesn't like how Bettelheim & Co. force fairy tales to be an instrument of moral instruction, both because she thinks that fairy tales can just be a simple form of playful pleasure and because she's grown tiresome of these characterizations of selfish children and innocent adults within society.

    Skill tested: Main Point · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    66% picked this

  5. Although dismissed as unproductive by

    Switched Opinions

    Bettelheim thinks that fairy tales can be used to help children grow into morally responsible adults. The author thinks that fairy tales should be seen as an unproductive form of playful pleasure. This answer is attributing those opinions in reverse.

    3% picked this

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