The Importance Of Fairy Tales

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

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.

Given that his stance on the ownership of fairy tales is strikingly different from the prevalent, popular opinion that “establishes fairy tales as national property”(355) or is “thought to reach back like sacred works”(353), by positioning his own belief of “Individual Ownership of Fairy Tales”(362) towards his conclusion, Haase gains a terrific advantage in being able to persuade the reader, since the alternatives, “Revered Place of Folklore”(353), “The Nationalistic View of Folklore”(354), “Vessels of purportedly universal human truths”(358), have all been rendered sufficiently unsound. Had Haase not used this particular stratagem, he would have opened up his essay to a lot of speculation, skepticism, assumptions and even repudiation. If he were to present his case differently, say chronologically tracking the ideas of ownership throughout history, it would be interesting to see whether the inference that a reader drew from the essay or his ultimate acceptance of Haase’s view would be entirely so straightforward. He is also completely humorless while writing about fairytales, failing to inculcate wit, sarcasm, quips, lively phrases, or even scholarly badinage, in any shape or form, which is a rather curious departure from the amusing perception of the subject at hand. This, however,

In the piece “Yours, Mine, or Ours?, Donald Haase discusses on the ownership of fairytales. Fairy Tales originate from folklore, described as traditional art, literature, knowledge, and practices that are passed on in large part through oral communication. With fairytale's being passed down through generations its new ‘authors’ take ownership of them. Ownership impacts the reception of the fairytale and determines how the audience reads and interprets it. Haase discuss how fairytales are suppose to show and tell what is true and what is acceptable in the context it was written in. With fairytales being changed the reader is exposed to a different moral and purpose with its telling. Haase concludes by informing that fairy tales belong to everyone and that we must take

In Tatar’s article, An Introduction to Fairy Tales, she draws us in by describing childhood books as “sacred objects.” She takes a quote from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. describing how the stories give lessons about what a child subconsciously knows - “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 306). She describes how many adults long for the simplicity of enjoying those stories in their childhoods, only to realize that they outgrew them, and instead have been introduced to reality. The original stories were more for adults rather than for children. Nowadays, stories have been adapted to be more suitable for children. Fairy tales may allow a kid to wonder due to their charm, but they also can

Tartar explains how a little Fairy Tale can affect someone’s life, it could be by their personality, or even just little things such as how they see life. She then explains that even reading the same stories as people got older, like for example The Little Red Riding Hood, each person will see it with a different message. On Maria Tatar work she explains some of the psychological aspects that are involved in knowledge development of children; she makes an emphasis on how some “fairy-tale characters always seem to be lying, cheating, or stealing their way to good fortune.” (Paragraph-10, Pg. 231); most parents do not want their children to steal things from other people. Tatar states that as people get older, they are more likely to forget the strong messages that a simple

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.

Donald Haase’ essay, “Yours, mine or ours” questions who truly owns fairy tales. He first explains how different nationalities claims that they have the ownership of fairy tales. Then he claims how the fairy tales are written for common people and they have the right to the fairy tales. Then he concludes with saying that the owner ship of fairy tales is in the hands of the people telling the story. Similarly, Andrew Haywood’s story applied a question on who does Snow white belong to. Does Snow White belong to the Queen who tried killing her or does she belong to the dwarves who helped her. the conclusion of Haywoods’ story the narrator says, “But should you awake, should you come again to this cottage, perhaps you will find this, which says

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).

"Fairy tales have long created potent cocktails of beauty, horror, marvels, violence, and magic, drawing in audiences of all generations over the course of centuries" (Tatar 55) writes Maria Tatar in her essay "Why Fairy Tales Matter. " This innate power is probably the reason why, still today, fairy tales are as meaningful and effective as they were centuries ago, when the brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault first wrote them down. Thus, as fairy tales are powerful weapons to condition the minds of their readers, it is only natural that literary critics have decided to analyze them in great detail. For example, both Maria Tatar and Vanessa Joosen assert that fairy tales play a vital role that tales play in children's empowerment: the first one arguing that the language in traditional stories gifts children a newfound virtue, the second claiming that the tales' retelling are cardinal for the development of critical thinking.

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.

Reading fairy tales or seeing them represented has become part of an everyday routine for children. As Baker-Sperry states, “Through interaction that occurs within everyday routines (Corsaro 1997), children are able to learn the rules of the social group in which they are a part” (Baker-Sperry 717-718). For example, through Red Riding Hood, children learn to listen to their parents and to be wary of strangers. Some of these messages are harmful though; not all girls have to be naive and weak while boys are predacious wolves. Not everyone has to play the role that society assigns them.

Fairy tales have always been revalent in our society and throughout history. From entertaining children to demonstrating why one should stray away from immoral things, these classic stories are rooted in a rich history. Originally fairy tales were used as warning for adults, hence the gruesome elements found in the original stories, but they have since evolved into tales that children of all ages can enjoy. Because of the deep history and ability to be related to, cultural importance has been put on these narratives. The social significance is implied through the numerous retelling of specific “classic” fairy tales and the hype around those classic characters.

Young girls are often stuck in a world of make believe, they are fed fairytales, dream up unimaginable views of reality and believe everyone will find their prince charming. This unrealistic perspective is formed through their experiences with different fairytales. As G.K. Chesterton tells the fairytale are a realistic world for children, “Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten”. Fairytales lead these girls to believe that in order to find true love there is some sort of intense journey one must go on. This idea of a journey for love has created a specific ideology for what love is and how to achieve it. In the text Beauty and the Beast by Madame Le Prince

People have been fascinated with fairy tales since they began being told. Stories of wonder, mystery, adventure, and horror tweak one 's’ imagination and allows one to explore in someone else 's world. Overtime, the original fairy tales have been altered to suit the present; however, aspects of the original still linger within the new versions so as not to take away from the story’s background. For example, Alice in Wonderland tells of a curious girl who wants explore in a world of nonsense and get a different view from a “mad” world. The benefit of viewing many different versions of Alice in Wonderland is to see how different people 's perspectives and imagination are, pertaining to the original.