Reflection Of Hanseel And Gretel

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

Many fairy tales are used to teach children lessons. “Little Red Riding Hood” provides a clear object lesson on why not to talk to strangers. However, fairy tales can be more subtle than that and teach less obvious (and violent) lessons. In “Beauty and the Beast”, by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, and “Little Thumbling”, by Charles Perrault, courage is one potential lesson that stands out. The title characters of both stories display courage through their actions, giving children an example to learn from. Of course, courage comes in more than one form, but the courage in these two stories shares many features. “Beauty and the Beast” and “Little Thumbling” present courage as an important virtue that helps both courageous people and others by helping or protecting them.

Bruno Bettelheim’s “The Uses of Enchantment” claims that fairy tales help expand the development of children. Although more adult topics like death are never specifically talked about, they tend to deal with other kinds of everyday problems. Children read stories like where the hero overcomes a series of obstacles in order to achieve their happily ever after, and then find a way to connect to that. These kinds of fairy tales help teach children understand difference between right and wrong. Fairy tales are in a way a child’s first teacher, they essentially mold the mind and help convey ideas that would otherwise be difficult to understand at such a young age.

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 the essay “Fairy Tales and Modern Stories”, Bruno Bettelheim argues that fairy tales can provide children more reassurance than realistic stories. Bettelheim used examples like “The Little Engine that Could”,”The Swiss Family Robinson” and “Rapunzel” to show how realistic stories and fairy tales both affected children’s thinking. The author claims that modern stories don’t compare to fairy tales, because they can’t provide an outlet for children to work through their problems and emotions. Bettelheim explains that fairy tales give children the reassurance and hope that there's a better future that is waiting for them. He argues that fairy tales can have a more impactful effect because it can offer “escape” and “consolation” for troublesome events in their lives. He even claims that modern stories fail to give the reader “encouraging

Cinderella goes to her mother’s grave and cries about how poorly and inhumanely she is getting treated, she tries satisfying her wicked step-mother, but she is never successful. The Grimm brothers had a different audience to satisfy so their story tone is darker and deeper. Their main concern was for the audience to sympathize with Cinderella and emotionally connect with her.

Little girl recalled how fairy tales showed her that if her attitude changes and stays positive that her chances of succeeding is higher. This teaches the little girl that she does not need anything else, but the conviction belief that she can accomplish this task. According to the Bettelheim, children use modern stories to escape reality and go into a fantasy world that gives them temporary relief. Since the story was not a fairytale, it left the girl off with no hope for getting better in the future. Not only do fairy tales help children develop, but it also gives them hope. Bettelheim demonstrates through another scenario how fairytale gave a little girl hope in sense of her difficult situation. The little girl used “Rapunzel” as a way to relate her situation with the main character. While reading she figures out that her “prince” in real life will eventually save her like it happened in the story, giving her hope to keep going according to Bettelheim. That story of hope was sustained until that little girl grew up and got married eventually not needing it anymore, but she was using it more as a safety blanket. She would only use the fairytale in time of need.

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.

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.

The Tough Princess by Waddell is a children’s book that can be considered part of the fairy tale genre, shown through its inclusion of stereotypical conventions. It can also be classified as a fractured fairy tale – which is a tale that has been retold or created in order to give a different view on the original plot. The original review of the book by Child Education, suggests that the book “breaks all the conventions of the traditional fairy tale and is all the more fun for that”. Within this essay, I will be discussing to which degree this is accurate, in terms of subverting all of the conventions and whether the reasoning behind he subversion is simply for comedic effect, or not.

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).

"Once upon a time," the most used introduction phrase in common fairy tales used to start an adventure. These adventures have been around for years. The importance of some tales might be more significant than others, also based on culture. My goal for this paper is to educate my readers with the importance of fairy tales, especially for younger children. Fairy tales have been around for centuries from generations to generations. Different cultures, such as the Japanese and Western, have also expressed them differently. All these fairly tales teach children different aspects of life, which make these tales so important.

In Gregory Maguire’s novel “Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister,” set in Holland in the 17th century, Clara van den Meer; otherwise known as Cinderella, is not the leading character like in other versions of the fairy tale. Instead, it is her stepsisters: Iris Fisher the youngest, and Ruth Fisher the oldest who is autistic, who become, to some level, companions to her and are the predominant focus of the story. Iris and Ruth’s mother, Margarethe Fisher, stays true to the evil step-mother script; however, in this version Margarethe does whatever she feels is necessary, with the purpose of providing food and lodge for her daughters, after retreating from their hometown of Cambridgeshire England to Haarlem Holland, in which she murders Clara’s mother: Henrika van den Meer and her unborn child. Maguire puts the spotlight on Margarethe throughout his novel by showing her evil side as well as her survivor side, allowing the reader to decide whether she is truly evil, or a mother who would do

As we grow up, we hear fairy tales and we read them into our lives. Every word and every image is imprinted into our minds. The fairy tales we read are never abandoned. They grow with us and our dreams become molds of the many morals and happily ever afters fairy tales display. We tell children fairy tales when they go to sleep and they read them in school and we even have them watch Disney adaptions that reinforce them further. Generally, they were everywhere while we grew up and they continue to be present while children are growing up now. But what influence do these stories have? We casually expose our children to these tales, but in some cases they can have particularly, harmful personal effects on them, although there is nothing completely or visibly “bad” about them or about the characters in them. Before we divulge our youth to these stories, we should assess their substance and see what sort of effect they may be having on them. They have received so much scrutiny and have been studied by many. Recognizing fairy tales effects on the minds of children is vital in their development. This paper will focus on the underlying messages that the average person wouldn’t recognize in these everyday stories. There’s a modern distort with fairy tales because while they still are widely popular with the youth, they influence children’s self images, outlooks on reality and expectations for their futures, especially for young women.

Children are led to believe that Hansel and Gretel, in the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” by the Grimm brothers, are the protagonists or “the good guys” of the story. Bettelheim believes that in fairy tales all characters are either good or bad and that they are not ambiguous. To be ambiguous is to have a double meaning or to be unclear about decisions that are made. After examining Hansel and Gretel’s actions more thoroughly it is discovered that there is ambiguity in the choices they make, therefore rejecting Bettelheim’s previous claim on how fairy tale characters are never ambiguous. Initially, I agreed with Bettelheim’s statement on non ambiguous fairy tale characters because in the beginning they were merely victims of the antagonist’s decisions, but then I started noticing Hansel and Gretel’s counteractions and how it did not comply under the category of “good” or benign. Although Hansel and Gretel may appear to be “good” in the eyes of the children, Hansel and Gretel’s ambiguous actions have led me to believe otherwise.