Reading Fairy Tales
With Children: An Exercise in Imaginative, Reflective, and Moral Thinking
Children have been
read the Grimms’ fairy tales since the 19th century. Adults usually
read to them in order to instill finger-wagging lessons. Don’t misbehave.
Listen to Mother. Wander into the woods alone, and bad things will happen. What
most people don’t know is that today’s Grimms’ fairy tales are sterilized, moralized,
cleaned-up versions of their original selves. Usually more violent and ribald,
the original tales were also thematically more complicated and literarily more fantastical.
In this essay, I argue that children should be read the original versions of
the tales because they exercise children’s imaginative, reflective, and moral
thinking. Specifically, as scholar Bruno Bettelheim argues, these stories touch
on themes that are psycho-developmentally relevant to children’s own growth,
offering them a space for empathy as well as psychological connection. Children
should also be given the historical, contextual tools to navigate some of the
more bizarre and confusing plot and character elements. As scholar Maria Tatar
shows, a lot of the stories reflect and were influenced by a medieval European
way of life. Children, given the space to imagine and the context to critically
reflect, are then capable of deeper exercises in thought about greater themes
of morality. However, a thinking child begins first with a thinking adult, and
it is the teacher who can pedagogically combine both the psycho-developmental
approach and the critical contextual approach that will be able to effectively
read fairy tales with children.
The publishing
history of the Grimms’ Children’s and
Household Tales is one of continual revision. The first 1812 edition
expanded to six more in the brothers’ lifetime, not counting, of course,
numerous contemporary anthologies. The early editions were not aimed for an
audience of children; in fact, the brothers were primarily concerned with the
scholarly preservation of the German Volk,
viewing themselves as “patriotic folklorists, not as entertainers for children”
(O’Neill). They wanted to document German oral tradition, folklore that
mirrored a medieval world view with all its “stark prejudice, its crudeness,
and barbarities” (O’Neill).
Jacob and Wilheim
talked with, listened to, and wrote down 40 something persons’ oral rendition
of various tales, most of them from women. Many of the tales resembled Charles
Perrault’s earlier French Mother Goose
Tales, and others can be traced back to even earlier Italian versions. What
became clear is the cultural migration of these stories across geography and
time. It is in roadhouses, barns, and especially spinning chambers that
medieval women told these tales as a form of entertainment to escape work
drudgery; as the stories traveled from one mouth to another, from one country
to another, elements were added, deleted, exaggerated, reduced.
By coincidence,
the Grimms’ first published collection dovetailed with the flowering of
children’s literature in Europe, and so for financial reasons, the brothers
began to reedit their tales to suit a new younger audience; Wilhelm Grimm says
that “there is much to be improved and added---something that will also prove
favorable for sales,” as he took more literary freedom with writing the tales
as well as deleting scholarly footnotes from the first edition (Tatar 12). Thus
each edition underwent more revision, usually resulting in the deletion or
softening of themes of incest, violence, pre-marital sex, and the injection of
explicit condemnation of deviant behavior (Tatar 12).
Parents began
reading these tales to their children because “they approve of the finger-wagging
lessons inserted into the stories: keep your promises, don’t talk to strangers,
work hard, obey your parents” (O’Neill). No longer reading for its scholarship,
parents of 19th and 20th century Europe and America used
the stories as cautionary tales of morality for their children. Furthermore,
the link with morality tales has “fallen prey to ideologues and propagandists”
(O’Neill). The Third Reich read Little Red Riding Hood as a symbol of the
innocent German people and the Big Bad Wolf as Jewish. At the end of World War
II, Allied commanders banned the tales’ German publication because they
believed that the stories contributed to Nazi savagery. In the 1970s, college
campuses in Europe and America condemned the tales as espousing a sexist point
of view.
From individual
parents to historical leaders to scholars and students, the link between the
tales and childrens’ morality is assumed. As evident in parents’ use of them as
cautionary tales and in the Allied commanders’ assumption that the stories may
have influenced German character to be cruel, many people believe there is a
link of causality. The censoring of these stories began with the Grimm brothers
themselves (as they prepared for the sale of each new edition) and moved on to
being abridged, excluded from school reading lists, and further sterilized
through picture books and movies. The ultimate sterilization is with Disney,
who sweetens the material by giving the dwarfs (once peculiar and fantastical)
names like Sneezy and Happy (O’Neill). Today’s audience knows not about the
incest and violence of the original Snow White but rather see only the
happily-ever-after cute Disney
version.
Is there still
merit in reading the original 1812 publication? I, along with scholars Bruno
Bettelheim and Maria Tatar, argue that it is crucial to do so. The original
text not only opens up a fantastical world of characters and events but also
enriches our knowledge when read through literary, historical, psychological,
and cultural lenses. Specifically, I’m interested in re-evaluating the way fairy
tales are read, taught, and culturally handed down to children; often
simplistic, moralistic, and black and white, these stories in their original
form, and through contextual knowledge, are anything but. When read to and guided
by parents/teachers in the right way, children exercise their imaginative,
reflective, and even moral thinking through original readings of fairy tales.
Bettelheim (1977)
focuses on the fantastical and magical element of fairy tales and how they can help
exercise children’s imagination in guiding them to deal with and grow through
various psychological stages. Tatar (1987) focuses on the importance of
unveiling the historical, socio-cultural background of the tales, the Grimms,
and the women who told them, as a way to contextualize the central themes in
the stories and to critically analyze various strains of censorship that the
tales have undergone. Both authors lead us back to the original for very
convincing reasons: the importance of childrens’ imagination and personal
connection for mental growth through reading of stories, as well as the need
for critical, analytical scholarship to historicize stories that morph with
various cultural milieus.
I argue that a
combination of these two approaches is best. Children who read the original
versions of the tales can dwell in the imaginative land of growing
protagonists, helpful creatures, and defeated antagonists, a space that draws
empathy and psycho-developmental connection with their own lives. Meanwhile, an
adult/teacher who provides immediate, relevant, and thought-provoking context
to specific stories opens the child’s reflective and moral mind. An open
discussion of how the child makes sense of the story and the context is a
fruitful exercise in thinking about not only the story land but also the real
world. As a specific example, in the final section, I will analyze through the
psycho-developmental, as well as the critical contextual lens, the tale of Snow
White. By reading the original story while providing certain contextual
information, an adult/teacher is able to have the child think about relevant
themes like violence, gender, beauty, and labor.
Is there a link
between reading the stories and morality (for good or for bad)? For Bettelheim,
perhaps, but not in the conventional link of causality that reading of violence
will cause people to do violent things; rather it’s about opening the door of
imagination and thought in children, so that the tales act as a guide and a
resource to how moral situations are handled. Tatar is more cynical about that
link; what she does do is expose how the purpose and reception of the tales
change with culture, time, and people, thereby showing ultimately that society
reads into the stories its own moral values and judgements. Combining the two
scholars in a pedagogical approach to reading fairy tales to children, I argue
that these stories open the door to reflections and conversations about
morality, and a reflective conversation with various perspectives and ample
context is the best place to start.
A Pyscho-developmental Approach to the Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Bruno Bettelheim
argues for children to be read the original versions of fairy tales because
they offer a greater space for imaginative thinking as well as the working out
of various psycho-developmental stages in a child’s life. The original earlier
versions of these tales have “poetic qualities and enchantment,” where “true
meaning and impact of a fairy tale can be appreciated” (19). Interest in the
types of stories should be left to the child, not the parent; it is “always
best to follow the child’s lead… if a child does not take to the story, this
means that its motifs or themes have failed to evoke a meaningful response at
this moment in his life”(18). For Bettelheim, coming from a psychological
developmental perspective, children are drawn to certain tales because those
stories offer greater personal meaning; stories help illustrate, elucidate, or
illuminate various issues concerning the child’s mental state consciously and unconsciously.
The structure of
the original fairy tale is set up in a way that “possess[es] a multifarious
richness and depth that far transcend what even the most thorough discursive
examination can extract from them” (19). He says that “the child’s need for
magic” can be found in the otherworldliness of fairy tales, a place where
deliberate vagueness (once upon a time…) offers a space for the child to insert
her own imagination, being a part of the story-making process (62). Bettelheim
is not concerned by the gratuitous
violence, declaring that children think animalistically until puberty. What is
meant here is that children animate the inanimate. Bettelheim cites and example
given by Ruth Benedict in his article “Animalism” in Encyclopedia of the Social Science: when a door slams on a child,
the child pushes the door back because she thinks the door did it to her on
purpose (49). I’m not sure how believable it is to argue that all children
think animalistically all the time, because it’s easy to imagine a scenario in
which a child (or adult) pushes the door back simply because she is angry;
however, it is plausible that children are prone more to animalistic thinking
than adults. This animation of the inanimate maps on well with the talking
beasts, helpful birds, and intentional animals found in the Grimm’s tales.
Another
psycho-developmental phase Bettelheim argues maps on well with fairy tale
themes is the tendency to think and act in extremes, another part of what he
calls animalistic thinking. Children are polarized in thinking the world as
either good or bad, beautiful or ugly, without comprehension of “intermediate
stages of degree or intensity” (74). This, Bettelheim argues, occurs in the
Oedipal period of the Freudian stage between 3-7 years old. Children see the
world as chaotic and are trying to deal with their own fledging ambivalent
emotions like love and hate, desire and fear.
Bettelheim says it’s not a coincidence that children are drawn to the
fairy tale world where “figures are ferocity incarnate or unselfish
benevolence…essentially one-dimensional” (74). This one-dimensionality is not
limiting to the child because “‘presenting the polarities of character permits
the child to comprehend easily the difference between the two, which he could
not do as readily were the figures drawn more true to life…ambiguities must
wait until a relatively firm personality has been established on the basis of
positive identifications. Then the child has a basis for understanding” (9).
Thus, the educative focus for the child is the working out of the concepts
themselves. What are the characteristics of good? What are the characteristics
of evil? What is the difference between the two? Bettelheim believes that
learning about ambiguities should happen after the Oedipal stage, where
children have already made solid concept identifications.
Here
again, is a point that can be contended; solid identification of concepts need
to happen, yes, but that does not mean children cannot comprehend shades of
gray or be probed to think about the spectrum between two extremes. According
to Bettelheim, children would naturally think a character is evil, evil being a
permanent character trait rather than an action. It’s important to think about
the role of the parent who is reading the stories to the child. It is not good
for the child if all the parent does is wag her finger and teach the tales as
cautionary morality stories. Likewise, I see a problem with wholly letting the child
interpret what she wants in a tale without the parent guiding the child to
think, talk, and discuss about what’s happening in the stories and in the
child’s own interpretations. Bettelheim argues for the organic unfolding of
understanding by the natural mapping on of children’s psycho-developmental
stages with themes in the tales. He leaves it to the child to draw conclusions
based on what he read (influenced by what psychological stage he is in). This
sole dependence on reader reaction to a text is problematic because there is a
lack of critical thinking and varying perspectives. If children naturally see
the characters as black and white, then moral values and actions are also
either/or. The child may also already see the story a certain way because her
familial, cultural, and peer influences tint her perception. I believe that
this is when the role of the parent as teacher and guide comes in. A parent can
ask a child about her interpretation and opinions of the plot and characters
without making value judgements. More about how this type of guided thinking
can happen through story-telling will be discussed later in the final section.
Maria Tatar’s Critical and Contextual Perspective
Germanic scholar
Maria Tatar agrees with the imaginative mapping on of Grimm’s themes with
children’s (as well as adults’) psychological realities and fantasies. However,
she does worry that some tales lend themselves more explicitly to moral value
judgements than others. When “undesirable traits like deceitfulness, curiosity,
insolence come to a bad end,” the transgression/punishment pattern “can instill
fear in children rather than confidence (192). This is where Tatar and
Bettelheim differ: instead of Bettelheim’s more optimistic belief that
children’s psychological state will guide them to certain stories that will in
turn guide them through specific psychological issues, Tatar is more cautious
and pessimistic about this type of guidance being a good thing or effective at
all. In other words, these stories, whether solely interpreted by children
themselves (via psychological curiosity) or interpreted for children by adults
(via cautionary finger-wagging) both have the possibility of misconstruing and
reading into the text what was originally not there.
In The Hard Facts of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Tatar
sets the facts straight about these stories that have been linked with teaching
morality to children. In fact, the original intent of such tales was not meant
or linked to any type of moral or pedagogical purpose at all. Nor did medieval
people, the original disseminators and consumers of the stories, read into them
in those ways. Tatar historicizes the tales to reveal not only the original
context of the stories but also how various societies and groups have taken
liberal liberty with interpretation, resulting in convenient morality specific
to a certain socio-cultural context.
The Grimm’s fairy
tales, their earliest versions, were oral stories peasant women shared with one
another while working (usually spinning the loom) long hours. There is no way
to know where these tales originated from or whether they’re based on reality
due to its oral nature, but what’s important to note that each new teller of
the tale had the liberty to embellish and subtract from the stories as they see
fit. These stories were told for entertainment, to pass the time away while
manually laboring. They were also tied to a specific class---working peasant
women. Both these factors directly and heavily influenced the content of the
stories. Originally, the “graphic descriptions of murder, mutilation,
cannibalism, infanticide, and incest” were not only issues that directly
mirrored real life in a certain class of the medieval social and economic structure,
but also the stories’ graphic and bawdy descriptions were primarily experiences
of entertainment and spectacle (preface XIV). Much like how contemporary horror
films are for the purposes of entertainment rather than moral pedagogy, ribald
and grotesque fairy tales were told for the same pleasurable diversion.
However
gratuitously violent or sexual the original oral stories were, they were based
on certain feudal realities. There was child abuse. There was incest. There was
paternal and fraternal cruelty. There were plenty of pre-marital pregnancies and
inequalities for women. The stories are rife with examples of how the medieval
worldview is reflected in certain reoccurring plot structures. For example,
there’s a significant group of stories that begin with parents abandoning their
children (i.e. “Hansel and Gretel”) due to economic hardship, which Tatar
describes as “wholly realistic for premodern social conditions” (49). Cast out
children or stepmother child abuse were not uncommon. There are also a group of
stories that deal with mothers or stepmothers being jealous of their daughters
because of a sexual father-daughter attraction; the original Snow White had an
evil mother, not stepmother, who was jealous because Snow White’s father was
attracted to her (24). The motif of spinning and imagery of the loom (“Sleeping
Beauty”) directly reflects “spinning as a woman’s destiny” (49). Although the
tales do not faithfully record reality, there are significant points
documenting the cultural climate of when these stories were told (56).
Tatar then does
something very valuable in her book, which is to trace the changing cultural
climate with the changing way of telling and interpreting the stories. The most
obvious shift is the stories transitioning from multiplistic oral form to
singular written documentation by the Grimm brothers’ collection. The women who
told them the stories, some contributing more than others, had significant say
in the plot, characters, and pace of the tales, and then the brothers
themselves took small literary liberties to stylistically tie the stories all
together. Thus, the moving oral nature of the stories became frozen by a
specific lens of written documentation.
Furthermore, after
the first edition was published in 1812, the Grimm brothers decided to
capitalize on the lucrative nature of a flowering children’s literature market,
thus began the extensive editing out of unsuitable scenes, injections of straightforward
moral values, greater literary liberties, and picture illustrations. From the
first to the second edition, Tatar notes that “rather than allowing various
figures of the tale to reveal their traits through their actions…Wilhelm Grimm
felt obliged to stamp the tale’s actors with his own character judgement and
thus shaped his reader’s views of them” (30). His preconceived notions of sex
and class were influenced by the milieu of his time; likewise, Christian
symbolism and character values were infused into the texts. For example,
Wilheim “seized every opportunity for virtue of hard work, correlating
diligence with beauty and desirability” (29). All these 19th century
German cultural values contributed directly in morphing the tales.
After the Grimm’s
death came the creative and convenient interpretation of the tales by various
political and ideological groups. As mentioned in the introduction, Nazi
Germany saw the stories as national tales of purity, interpreting the innocent
children in the tales as the good German folks facing corruption by the big bad
Jew. Later, Allied forces forbade publication and public school teaching of the
fairy tales, fearing it contributed to a violent and grotesque German character
formation. Tatar stresses the double-edged sword that is the fairy tales: “the
simplicity of fairy tales allows interpretive pluralism to reign supreme” (51).
Reduced to its essential components, each fairy tale “mounts a struggle between
any two entities with competing interests,” so this can be parent versus child,
aristocracy versus peasantry, master versus slave, or nation versus nation
(51). The imaginative subjective possibilities are endless, which is its most
alluring as well as dangerous aspect.
Thus Tatar agrees
with Bettelheim that children probably do see themselves in the stories as the
child heroes, who usually possess compassion, naïveté, and courage
at the same time (children’s characteristics). Likewise, in fairy tale world,
the least successful becomes the most successful; stories of the underdog
winning again map on to children, who perhaps see themselves as the underdog
among ruling adults. However, Tatar argues that although children may be able
to draw sympathy with the texts and find comfort and growth in successful
heroes, there are other elements of the text that may have not so optimistic
repercussions. The hyperbolic nature of fairy tales, in which a single false
step is inflated, in which missed opportunities are overstated, could instill excessive
fear and caution in children. For
example, the heroine in “Bluebeard” was told not to open a forbidden door, and
once she did, she saw excessive carnage--- “the bloodbath is simply too
sensational a spectacle for so minor a transgression” (164).
Tatar cautions
against any interpretation of moral direction in the tales, whether by parent,
child, or ideologue. What “originally functioned as a motor of the plot and as
a means of introducing villainy becomes a general behavioral guideline” (166).
Likewise, what was once burlesque gratuitous violence for comedic effect has
been morphed into an extreme violation/punishment interpretation. History has
shown that oral stories of gossip and entertainment can be changed into
children’s cautionary tales and even nationalistic symbols of character.
Teaching and interpreting the tales with a specific moral bent or intention is
ultimately doing a disservice to both the truth of the tales themselves as well
as to the reader/interpreter who is now only seeing the tales through one type
of lens. For children, this singular lens might be interpreted by the parents
for the children or by the children themselves (as they are old enough to be
influenced by other ideas in their environment that will influence their own
interpretation of the text). Personal reactions can be moral, or psychological
(Bettelheim), but if they do not include or take into account the knowledge of
the history and context of the tales and their subsequent changes, then the
stories have not been understood completely in their rich and troubling
complexity.
To compare and
contrast Tatar’s critical approach with Bettelheim’s psycho-developmental one,
both writers argue for the reading of the original edition of the Grimm’s fairy
tales. For Bettelheim, it is here that the stories are the most fantastical---a
place where children can insert their own imaginations. For Tatar, the original
edition comes closest to the stories’ oral tradition, a place where the
medieval socio-cultural and economic structure can be best seen and traced.
Both authors agree that a great element of the stories is their flexibility to
interpretation. The imaginative world of the stories provides manifold ways in
which readers can sympathize with or read
into the text. However, here is where the authors disagree. Bettelheim
takes a more optimistic view in which children’s own conscious and unconscious
psychological stages will guide them towards certain stories that will in turn
guide children through their own lives. Bettelheim’s view can be argued to extend
to adults as well: literature and texts are sites for observational learning
and empathy.
Tatar does not
discredit the power of the tales to guide children, but she does worry that
such guidance may be too subjective or may backfire and have deleterious
effects. In other words, two concerns arise when children interpret their own
texts based on psychological feeling/psycho-developmental drive. 1. What if the
text instills fear instead of confidence due to its fantastical nature and
transgression/punishment pattern? 2. What if the child just interprets the text
through the lens of whatever environment she is in that holds influence over
her (parent’s opinions, their schooling, the dominant culture they live in)? It
seems that these are the questions that Tatar would ask Bettelheim if they were
in conversation with one another. Tatar’s extensive research uses history to
unmask the layers of politicized and convenient revisions the stories have
undergone. Ultimately, she argues that interpretation of the tales alone,
without context, is likely to be erroneous because current values of judgement
and morality are different than those of medieval times from which the tales
originated from.
Combining Bettelheim and Tatar: A Pedagogical Approach to Fairy Tales
Both authors argue
convincing points of why fairy tales should be read in a certain way.
Bettelheim’s psycho-developmental approach brings to priority the naturally
pedagogical relationship between child and text, specifically the text as a
site for empathetic feeling and (conscious and unconscious) observational
learning. Even if the ideas read don’t immediately map on to a child’s psychological
state, Bettelheim believes that “these ideas…become available when the time is
ripe for the child to build his understanding on them” (Bettelheim 120). In
other words, a seed is planted in the preconscious mind and will ripen when
certain psycho-developmental stages progress. Tatar’s critical and historical
approach prioritizes reading and interpreting the text through contextualization---socio-cultural,
economic, biographical, and political. Depending on the version/edition of the
text a person is reading, a certain intention may be put in by the
author/editors; likewise, a certain intention may be brought by the reader
herself because she is reading a text through a specific
ideological/moral/cultural time.
A
reading that combines these two approaches would greatly benefit the reader as
well as do justice to the text. Specifically, for children, psychological
intimacy as well as critical, contextual knowledge can be felt and learned at
the same time. This is where the role of the adult comes in. The teacher,
either parent or schoolteacher, can guide the child to read and think about the
text in both these ways, without injecting finger-wagging morality. One can
imagine picking a story that a child is drawn to (as Bettelheim stresses to let
the child’s interest guide the reading), letting the child interpret the story
her own way, then asking why she read
the plot or characters in a certain light. The teacher can focus on key points
of the text that may be contentious/open to interpretation and probe the child
on her view of them---this offers valuable insight into how the child is
reading the text or what psychological stage or state the child may be going
through that influences her interpretation. The teacher needs to be keenly
aware of opportune moments to ask the child why
she interpreted a story a certain way. Since a child thinks and feels based
on her own past experience, chances are it is personal experience that has
influenced her thinking (Bettelheim 49).
By
making the link between the text and a child’s personal experience obvious, the
teacher exposes the child’s own thought patterns and psychological state.
Verbalizing the link and, more importantly, having the child herself see it, is
bringing into consciousness the empathetic connection between child and text.
Here, Bettelheim’s connection between textual and psycho-developmental is made,
and as an extra step, the teacher and child have talked about the connection,
resulting in not only the organic mapping on of psychological state but also in
the creation of a reflective perspective of having the child think about why
that is.
The
next step is to bring in Tatar’s contextual and critical critiques. The teacher
can explain to the child that not everyone has interpreted the story this way.
In fact, here are several other possible interpretations of characters and
situations. The teacher can then go on to try to have the child put herself in
the shoes of characters other than the protagonist, even in the shoes of the
villain. What motivated the villain’s actions? Some stories lend themselves to
obviously evil and ridiculous villains, while some others are less clear.
Depending on the story, having a child try to trace the psychology and actions
of the villain, or other characters, can be a valuable exercise in reflecting
on other perspectives. Ultimately it’s about problematizing any black and white
morality conclusions the child may come to generalize without contextual help.
Finally,
Tatar’s historical context may help the child understand in a new light the
actions and motives of certain characters. Telling them about the poverty
during Hansel and Gretel’s time may help them gain greater understanding of why
the characters were abandoned rather than sit in fear or anger at the idea of
horrible parenting. Telling them about the inequality between men and women may
help them understand why Bluebeard’s wife was exposed to visual carnage, why
female curiosity was linked with punishment while in other fairy tales, male
protagonist curiosity usually lead to fortune. Even gratuitous violence can be
honestly explained to the child in terms of real types of violence in medieval
times as well as violence functioning as humor in the text. Offering apt context,
especially at points where the child interprets things as certainly one way,
helps the child reflect on the multiple and layered meanings of the text,
creating a richer, more nuanced understanding of fairy tales rather than a pure
visceral reaction to textual events and characters.
Snow White
“Little
Snow-White,” in its first 1812 publication, is a rich text to guide children
through both Bettelheim’s psycho-developmental approach and Tatar’s historical
contextual layout. I will split the text into several plot sections and explore
how a child may react to and interact with different parts of the story as well
as provide some ways to pose reflective, provocative questions through
contextual knowledge. The goal here, is for the adult/teacher to recognize what
parts of the story deserves attention and background knowledge, what parts are
conducive to reflective and moral thinking.
The
story starts off with the queen validating her beauty in a magic mirror until
one day the mirror declared her daughter Snow White to be the most beautiful.
The queen became “pale with envy and from that hour on, she hated Snow White” (Grimm).
She orders a huntsman to kill her in the woods and bring back her lungs and
liver, parts she intends to cook and eat with salt. In this first section, the
child will have naturally felt fear and maybe hatred towards the queen and
sympathy for Snow White. Bettelheim will argue that the prominent child-hero
versus adult-villain theme found in fairy tales naturally reflect children’s
view of family power dynamics; children are helpless and inferior to adults who
have power over them. Psychologically, the child may have naturally put herself
in Snow White’s shoes, sympathizing with her being forced under the power of
the queen. It is here also that some of Tatar’s approach of contextual
knowledge can offer children a more complex way to think about the theme. First,
asking the child whether it makes a difference if the queen is the mother or
step-mother can broach the topic of familial love and responsibility. Then,
informing the child about the Grimm’s subsequent changing from mother to
step-mother in later editions helps her think about why such a change may
happened and talk about the nature of motherhood. This contextual knowledge of
mother versus step-mother is a great conversational starting point for children
to think about the mother-child bond, the nature of family, and familial
obligations and transgressions. In other words, children are invited to engage
in reflective and moral thinking.
Another
topic to bring up is the violent nature of eating Snow White’s internal organs.
The adult should ask how the child naturally feels and thinks about such an act
(probably disgusted, curious, scared…) and then later inform the child about
the relevant historical point of view: in the spirit of Tatar contextualization,
medieval societies have held beliefs that one can acquire characteristics of
what one eats (Bettelheim 207). In this case, Snow White’s lungs and liver
represents her being, her beauty; thus, since the queen wants to be the most
beautiful, eating her organs actually has a purpose beyond cruel violence or
gloating victory. For children to ruminate over this medieval medicinal point
of view is to complicate what is on the surface considered graphic gratuitous
violence and dig deeper into the queen’s psychology.
Moving
on to the second session of the tale, the huntsman “took out his hunting knife
to stab her” when she began to cry and beg, so he “took pity on her because she
was so beautiful” (Grimm). He thought that wild animals would kill her anyway,
and was glad he didn’t have to do the deed. Snow White then ran afraid in the
dark forest, tripping over stones and thorns until she came to a little house.
In this section, in the spirit of
Tatar, children can be guided to think about why the huntsman took pity on Snow
White. The text reads “because she was so beautiful,” but what if Snow White
was ugly or average looking? Does beauty engender more pity? Also, the question
of allegiance/responsibility arises: the huntsman works for the queen and
disobeys her orders. Does that make him irresponsible, a bad person? Dealing
with the themes of killing, duty, beauty, and choice, the huntsman episode
poses a moral dimension for children to reflect on.
From
the Bettelheim viewpoint, children, who see themselves as Snow White, feel
scared to be attacked and relieved to escape. Bettelheim would argue again that
the attacking huntsman and ensuing dark forest can unconsciously map on to
symbolic forces or obstacles the child is dealing with. Controlling adults,
growing up, self-responsibility are all psycho-developmental stages that map on
well with this part of the narrative. Bettelheim also interestingly interprets
the huntsman as a weak father-figure who “neither does his duty to the queen
nor meets his moral obligation to Snow White to make her safe and secure”
(206). For children, the huntsman may represent a father who tries to placate
both mother and daughter, like in the case of the queen and Snow White. He is
conflictingly both a threat and a protector. Here, the topic of the missing
father, or the missing male figure in the story can be discussed---would the
plot be different if a re-imagined father was present?
In
the third section of the story, Snow White enters the little house hungry and
thirsty. She sleeps in one of the dwarf’s bed until she wakes up and sees seven
of them. They take pity on her story and tells her “if you will keep house for
us, and cook, sew, make beds, wash, and knit, and keep everything clean and
orderly, then you can stay here, and you’ll have everything that you want. We
come home in the evening and supper must be ready by then” (Grimm). Here, Bettelheim’s
psycho-developmental point of view interprets Snow White’s stay with the dwarfs
as a pre-oedipal latency period. The dwarfs as miniature men, stunted,
non-sexual, and child-like. In the symbolic unconscious, Bettelheim argues that
the child recognizes the dwarf’s place as a safe space of childhood. But even
childhood comes with certain responsibilities, and it is the requisite and
introduction of work that will give Snow White her right to stay. This exchange
of labor is the first time Snow White learns to work for her food and shelter,
a precursor to adult responsibilities. Contextualizing this section with the
historical and cultural responsibilities of women will make the child
understand in more detail the nature of such a labor trade off. The adult should
inform the child about female household obligations like cooking and sewing as
the historical norm. The topic of labor responsibilities, especially their
difference along gender lines can be broached in this way. Again, it is a point
of discussion for children to both historicize the story as well as consider
greater socio-cultural trends.
In
the next section, the queen finds out Snow White is still alive and disguises
herself as a peddler woman to knock at her door. She sells her first a bodice
lace, then a poisoned comb, then a poisoned apple. Three different times she
comes back. The dwarfs save Snow White the first and second time by cutting
open the bodice lace and removing the comb but could not do so the third time.
What’s important to note here is that Snow White was drawn to tools of vanity
and womanhood. Laces and hair combs show her need to maintain her own beauty.
Bettelheim argues that Snow White’s inability to resist temptation shows her
growing sexuality. The final apple, especially the red part, can be interpreted
as sexuality and the loss of innocence (213).
Snow White tells the disguised apple-selling queen she cannot accept
anything because “the dwarfs don't want me to" (Grimm).
It’s not because she herself was afraid or learned anything from the first two
near-death experiences, but rather she didn’t want to disobey the dwarfs. Bettelheim
would argue that this episode is symbolic of the tensions of growing up:
childhood, loss of innocence, sexuality, adulthood; psycho-developmentally,
Snow White is progressing through these stages.
It is also here that finger-wagging
to children in order to teach them not to open doors to strangers comes at its
strongest. Parents need to resist interpreting for the child certain moral lessons. Instead, an open question of
what the child thinks about this section will let the parent in on what is
going on in the child’s mind. The greater topic of curiosity, or attraction to
beautiful things, or the use of disguise can be reflected on without concluding
the simplistic cautionary tale of ‘don’t talk to strangers.’ It is the opening,
complicating and graying of ideas that is needed, not a straightforward answer
of what this fairy tale is supposed to teach. This section offers a springboard
for children to begin to think about greater themes very relevant to their own
lives (as mentioned above), and keeping those topics on reflection and
discussion mode is ultimately the most beneficial to a learning and thinking
child.
Finally, in the last section, a
prince stays with the dwarfs for shelter one night and sees Snow White in her
glass coffin. He begs the dwarfs for him to have the coffin because “he could
not get enough of her beauty…he could not live without being able to see her,
and he would keep her, and honor her as his most cherished thing on earth” (Grimm).
The dwarfs “took pity on him” and gave him the coffin with dead Snow White (Grimm).
The prince couldn’t go anywhere without her, so he had servants carry the
coffin around wherever he went. The servants were disgruntled by such a task
and opened the coffin; one hit Snow White on her back. The apple was dislodged
and she and the prince were together. On their wedding, the queen came and saw
it was Snow White. She was forced to put on a pair of burning iron shoes “and
dance in them. Her feet were terribly burned, and she could not stop until she had
danced herself to death” (Grimm).
From a psycho-developmental point of
view, marrying the prince represents full adulthood. Children who consciously
or unconsciously relate to Snow White’s growth will view life with the prince
as a new hopeful beginning. The deep sleep she was in lead to rebirth
(Bettelheim 214). Bettelheim also notes that children have a strong sense of
retaliation when wronged, so they may find the final death scene with the queen
satisfying. However, some children may find the violence too graphic and painful.
Writer Kay Stone’s own five-year-old son didn’t like the cruel ending and
changed the story himself, an ending that had the queen sleep 100 years and
“wake up a nice lady” (Stone 61). Indeed, the spectacular aspect of dancing,
burning feet may cause fear in children. This is exactly what Tatar warns about
violence in stories. The graphic nature in fairy tales could be due to medieval
concepts of torture or the entertaining value of violent revenge, but taken
into contemporary culture, it can seem gratuitous and out of place. Asking
children what they thought of the ending or if they would do anything to revise
it provides a space for reflection and imagination like in Stone’s son’s case.
The adult can tell the child about the nature of medieval violence or violence
as entertainment during peasant women story-telling times. Historicizing violence
or seeing it as a literary device can make the ending less shocking or
grotesque for children.
Conclusion: Towards a More Reflective and Thoughtful Childhood
As
seen above, fairy tales like “Snow White” can open up greater reflective,
contextual, and moral thinking for children on a vast array of complex themes.
However, the key is in the efficacy and sensibility of the adult teacher. The
adult not only has to be knowledgeable of the context of the stories, she also
needs to be keenly aware of the psycho-developmental happenings of the child.
Then, nuanced awareness of how the child and the stories can be linked together
in various and interesting ways will guide the types of questions and
contextual knowledge provided while reading the stories.
History shows too vividly bad
examples of how the stories have been manipulated by parents and ideologues
alike for morally convenient purposes. From the flowering of 19th
century children’s literature morality to Nazi Germany’s political uses of the
Grimms’ fairy tales, the stories continually are further removed from their
original peasant, working women, medieval source. Ignorance of context as an
adult leads to a similar ignorance and tinting of the tales for the children
they read to. Bettelheim calls for an almost adult-free reading of the tales,
where children select the ones they want to be read to based on interest, where
insights and lessons come from unconscious psycho-developmental forces that map
on to similar tales. Tatar goes a step further in being a proponent of exposing
adults and children to the political, economic, socio-cultural, and literary
forces that influence the events and characters in the stories. She warns
against finger-wagging morality as well as letting children completely interpret
stories on their own. Critical and contextual knowledge can be taught to
children, and with a fuller grasp of what went in to the making of each story,
children and adults alike can begin to fully and fairly interpret the story.
Reading fairy tales to children this
way exercises their imaginative, reflective, and moral thinking. When guided in
a fruitful way, children are open to critically and analytically seeing not
only the world of the story but also the reality around them. Here, I will
stress again the element of guidance. Without an informed and perceptive adult
who is able to pedagogically lead and open up discussions on the text, children
will not be able to gain insight from the rich context of each story nor
re-evaluate their own interpretation or judgements. Even though Bettelheim and
Tatar write about how children should read fairy tales, implicit and crucial to
their arguments’ success is first the education of the adult. Without a teacher
who is cognizant of psychology and the historical, literary context, who is
able to fuse the child’s life and mind with in-depth knowledge about fairy
tales, the opportunity for reflective and moral thinking is lost or greatly
reduced. A thinking child begins first with a thinking adult; the psycho-developmental,
critical and contextual approach to reading fairy tales not only benefits children,
but is just as relevant for the adults who are reading to them.
Works Cited
Bettelheim, Bruno. The
Uses of Enchantment. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.
Grimm, Jacob, Wilhelm Grimm. “Little Snow White.” trans.
D.L. Ashliman. Snow-
White
and Other Tales of Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 709. 1998. University
of
Pittsburg. 11 June 2012. <http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm053.html>.
O’Neill, Thomas. “Guardians of the Fairy Tale: The Brothers
Grimm.” National
Geographic.
Dec. 1999: pages 102-129. 11 June 2012.
<http://www.nationalgeographic.com/grimm/article.html>
Stone, Kay. “Three Transformations of Snow White.” The
Brothers Grimm and
Folktale.
Ed. James McGlathery. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois
Press,
1988.
Tatar, Maria. The Hard
Facts of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales. New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1987.
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