'Fear Of Fantasy' By J. R.

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

A parent will never know what goes on in the mind of their child, all a parent can do is shield the child from the negatives of life and hope negativity never enters their mind. Author Bruno Bettelheim wrote The Uses of Enchantment, published in 1976, the book contains an essay called “Fairy Tales and the Existential Predicament,” in which Bettelheim presents a psychological perspective of the impact that traditional fairy tales have on children. Bettelheim begins his essay with personal knowledge, rhetorical appeals (pathos and, logos) and textual evidence. In his essay, Bettelheim sets the stage by reaching out to to his audience, he writes “overcoming narcissistic disappointments, oedipal dilemmas, sibling rivalries; becoming able to relinquish

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

Power can influence people to make disagreeable decisions. Thesis: For power to stay out of the wrong hands you must pick the right people as power doesn’t corrupt, people corrupt power. Harry S. Truman once said, “There is a lure in power, it can get in a man's blood just as gambling and lust for money have been known to do”.

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).

“Fairytales tell children what they unconsciously know, 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). Many adults wish they had grown up in a fairytale family or childhood seeing this as idea,l but in reality the fairytale family is very similar to our modern mixed families and rings true with the pattern of abuse and change that so many children face in our society. Audiences tend to overlook the abuse and neglect that Cinderella endures at the hands of her evil stepmother and stepsisters and focus on the happily ever after ending with the handsome prince and the glass slipper. However, the struggle

Bruno Bettelheim’s essay “The Uses of Enchantment” portrays how fairytales utilize death, witches, and wounds which allows children to grasp a different perspective on the world, preparing them for the real world as well as allowing them to overcome their fears. Bettelheim uses many instances where he describes how modern stories lack proper motives that fairytales have regarding the idea of tragedies and death. Bettelheim argues throughout the essay that children are meant to learn from their hardships and difficulties in life. He stresses the importance by using examples of fairytales where a mother or father are killed which creates a problematic situation; thus giving children the opportunity to observe and learn from such predicaments. Bettelheim also discusses that the idea of eternal life in fairytales does not deceive child from

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

Unlike any other form of literature or entertainment, Fairy Tales help children to discover their identity and suggest experiences needed to develop their character. In Bruno Bettelheim’s “Life Divined from the Inside” Bettelheim states that “Fairy Tales intimate that a rewarding, good life is within one’s reach despite adversity-but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity (Bettelheim 106). Anne Sexton’s “Cinderella” is a perfect example of Bettelheim’s definition of a Fairy Tale.

Another way of learning is introduced by an entry entitled "Fairy Tales" included in an encyclopedia which mentions that fairy tales can teach a child about other cultures and civilizations and therefore teach it that apart from it's own country and culture there are also many other people and cultures throughout the entire world. This can help children to overcome the egocentrism and selfish thoughts, which are very common in those ages, and make them realize that apart from them , billions of other people live in this planet and hundred of other nations exist apart from their own. Also fairy tales can introduce children, who are relatively powerless in most areas of their lives, to a world "where the smallest animal, the poorest peasant, the youngest daughter often prevails over those larger, richer, older, and more powerful." Thus, in the words of writer and child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim: "fairy tales can help children confront and resolve conflicts in their own lives" Therefore, we can easily conclude that, fairy tales, by portraying a world where it is possible for the weak to prevail over the strong, can give hope to children and make them confront their own problems with courage and self-esteem.

In a child’s early life, hearing and reading fairy tales are extremely important aspects of expanding their imagination. In these fairy tales, children can use their minds to paint a picture and create a reality that only their eyes can see. It is said the “original” fairy tales, like those from the Brothers Grimm, were too explicit for a child’s mind, and that a “happier” fairy tale would do the job better. It is also said that these fairy tales are appropriate because they display honest and real life situations. Although the “original” fairy tales were great and legendary in their time, children today should not be exposed to darker fairy tales at an early age, and instead should be exposed to the more “sanitized” fairy tales because they are healthy for children’s mind, they allow the children to maintain their innocence, and they are entertaining while teaching a lesson without instilling fear and scaring them.

The power of imagination works on everyone from a tender age. Young children are thrilled by fairy tales and mythical stories because the power of imagination is still at play in their lives. Adults on the other hand hide themselves in a veneer of reality which can however be unmasked by sneaking through the critical mind.