Fairytales help children overcome their anxiety. The tales bring forth the inner fears of children in an almost tangibility, giving them form in the witches, the wolves, the ogres and any situation that stands in the way of the heroes or heroines. The psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, author of The Uses of Enchantment, declares that because the dark aspects of life are unavoidable and fairytales can present a confrontation to the inner fears of children (8). For instance, the story “Three Feathers” focuses on sibling rivalry. The two oldest son of the king were smarter and cunning than the youngest son who is an idiot in comparison and was aptly named “Dummy”. The king sets up trials to determine who will inherit the throne and the two older brothers
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In of C.S. Lewis’s famous essay, “On Three Ways of Writing Fairytales”, he reasons,
…what profess to be realistic stories for children are far more likely to deceive them. I never expected the real world to be like the fairy tales. I think that I did expect school to be like the school stories. The fantasies did not deceive me: the school stories did. All stories in which children have adventures and successes which are possible, in the sense that they do not break the laws of nature, but almost infinitely improbable, are in more danger than the fairy tales of raising false expectations.
Children expects that realistic story to reflect the workings of the actual world. Fairytales, on the other hand, are a mixture between realism and fantasy. The fantasy side of the story can’t be applied in real life but the lesson learned can be. Bettelheim believes, “fairy stories do not pretend to describe the world as it is, nor do they advise what one ought to do . . . the fairy tale is therapeutic because the patient finds his own solutions, through contemplating what the story seems to imply about him and his inner conflicts at this moment of life” …show more content…
In the story of the “Goose Girl”, the titular character under goes the trials of betrayal and treachery. The maid takes over the role of the real princess and forces the princess to become a geese herder. The Princess had a hard time freeing herself from the oath she was forced to make by the false bride, disabling her from telling she’s the real princess. She endure her bleak situation as a new goose girl and stands by her oath to not tell anyone, not even when the king interrogated her. And even though she can’t do anything about her situation, her actions of thwarting the goose boy, her partner in herding geese, from touching her hair –summoning the winds to blow his hat away– annoyed him enough to tell the king about her peculiar actions and the deception of the false bride was discovered by the older king after he made the real princess share her oath to a stove instead. Bettelheim
In of C.S. Lewis’s famous essay, “On Three Ways of Writing Fairytales”, he reasons,
…what profess to be realistic stories for children are far more likely to deceive them. I never expected the real world to be like the fairy tales. I think that I did expect school to be like the school stories. The fantasies did not deceive me: the school stories did. All stories in which children have adventures and successes which are possible, in the sense that they do not break the laws of nature, but almost infinitely improbable, are in more danger than the fairy tales of raising false expectations.
Children expects that realistic story to reflect the workings of the actual world. Fairytales, on the other hand, are a mixture between realism and fantasy. The fantasy side of the story can’t be applied in real life but the lesson learned can be. Bettelheim believes, “fairy stories do not pretend to describe the world as it is, nor do they advise what one ought to do . . . the fairy tale is therapeutic because the patient finds his own solutions, through contemplating what the story seems to imply about him and his inner conflicts at this moment of life” …show more content…
In the story of the “Goose Girl”, the titular character under goes the trials of betrayal and treachery. The maid takes over the role of the real princess and forces the princess to become a geese herder. The Princess had a hard time freeing herself from the oath she was forced to make by the false bride, disabling her from telling she’s the real princess. She endure her bleak situation as a new goose girl and stands by her oath to not tell anyone, not even when the king interrogated her. And even though she can’t do anything about her situation, her actions of thwarting the goose boy, her partner in herding geese, from touching her hair –summoning the winds to blow his hat away– annoyed him enough to tell the king about her peculiar actions and the deception of the false bride was discovered by the older king after he made the real princess share her oath to a stove instead. Bettelheim