A good way to explore Bruno Bettelheim's argument is to simply consider the title of his work: The Struggle for Meaning. Bettelheim's primary goal here is to find some medium that will help children to understand themselves and gain some meaning in their early life. Fairytales become the favored method of transmitting meaning to children's lives because Bettelheim ranks one's cultural heritage (when transmitted in the right way) as second important to helping children find such meaning. And while he writes that his main task is to "restore meaning" to "severely disturbed children," I don't sense that he is at all not considering other "ordinary" children. This is mainly because his motivation for restoring meaning is so that children will not need special help, in a sense, making them normal. In this light children are not casts into separate categories and collectively, children can find meaning. Literature emerges as cultural heritage and specifically fairytales are the best type of literture for children to read. This is because fairytales tell life as it is and does not make children believe that life will go on without any trouble. While children are often victors in fairytales, there is still some obstacle they must overcome for this to be so. So for Bettelheim, fairytales are important for children to read because they present true human predicaments.
Robert Darnton, however, focuses on the fairytale as a story. He considers different versions of the same tales and explores the similarites and differences in order to find out how these interpretations reflected peasant culture during the enlightenment. Darnton notes that no one tale can have one set meaning because no one story are alike. As far as comparing Darnton's writing to Bettelheim's, I feel as though because the nature of the texts are so different, this idea would not prove beneficial. Darnton is not concerned with the importace of fairytales or children's grasp of meaning, he is more concerned with the historical and cultural value of such stories.
Personally, I better enjoyed Bettelheim's writing because I agree that children need to learn the realities of life: that most things in life don't come easy. It also though makes me wonder if and how these early fairytale traditions have influenced modern children literature. Nowadays many children's books are good tools to help children gather some meaning of themselves and others. In fact, most employ some effort on the child's part in order to achieve some goal. That's something worth thinking about.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Hans My Hedgehog: An Incoherent Musing on the Staying Power of Certain Themes and What Lets Some Fairy Tales Be Forgotten
When viewed from a broad angle, the similarities between "Hans My Hedgehog" and "The Frog Prince"—here not as a reference to any particular version of the tale but simply the general basis that has become so ingrained in the modern culture—seem to be such that the disparity in how recognizable the two are for any layman selected off of the street becomes inexplicable. I will argue here, however, the importance of two key differences in themes that very much affect the staying power of the two tales and why those differences, however minute, have had such a profound influence on the longevity of the two tales.
Because both have a happy ending, it is here taken for granted, but it is undeniable that the stories most celebrated by our society end in such a disgustingly happy way that the happier and more "complete" the ending the better the chances of surviving the test of time and memory.
1) Princes are better than normal people:
Let us face the facts. The vast majority of fairy tales that have been embraced by our society have princes as the main characters because princes, in our culture, have somehow become synonymous with goodness and desirability on all levels—perhaps as an effect rather than a cause. Because princes are seen as being on a higher level (much more so than princesses) the value of a character that is a prince drastically increases, likewise increasing his chances of being celebrated. The only other type of male character that is typically celebrated is the "everyman" that is witty and uses his cunning to get ahead, which Hans My Hedgehog cannot be on the grounds of his deformation.
2) Fathers love their children and are irreproachable:
The primary moral conflict that is presented between the two is that, in the Frog Prince tales, whether the frog is automatically accepted, accepted through a trick, or accepted through an act of duty, he is only ever rejected in his humbled form by those who hold no ethical obligation. In contrast, the father and mother of Hans My Hedgehog who hold the paramount obligation to him reject and repel him twice. This undermines the important image of the parental figure which is almost always protected in children's literature. This is the very reason that the evil mother is always a stepmother instead of simply being a mean mother.
I am not currently in the mood to expand much further on the topic, so I shall leave it at that. I'm sure you can make the necessary associations remaining in order to finish affirming the claim, or else you can go on living your life eternally unfulfilled and in a perpetual state of anxiety as you struggle to complete the circle.
You can choose to agree, disagree, or whatever… It doesn't matter…
Either way I'm right…
Because both have a happy ending, it is here taken for granted, but it is undeniable that the stories most celebrated by our society end in such a disgustingly happy way that the happier and more "complete" the ending the better the chances of surviving the test of time and memory.
1) Princes are better than normal people:
Let us face the facts. The vast majority of fairy tales that have been embraced by our society have princes as the main characters because princes, in our culture, have somehow become synonymous with goodness and desirability on all levels—perhaps as an effect rather than a cause. Because princes are seen as being on a higher level (much more so than princesses) the value of a character that is a prince drastically increases, likewise increasing his chances of being celebrated. The only other type of male character that is typically celebrated is the "everyman" that is witty and uses his cunning to get ahead, which Hans My Hedgehog cannot be on the grounds of his deformation.
2) Fathers love their children and are irreproachable:
The primary moral conflict that is presented between the two is that, in the Frog Prince tales, whether the frog is automatically accepted, accepted through a trick, or accepted through an act of duty, he is only ever rejected in his humbled form by those who hold no ethical obligation. In contrast, the father and mother of Hans My Hedgehog who hold the paramount obligation to him reject and repel him twice. This undermines the important image of the parental figure which is almost always protected in children's literature. This is the very reason that the evil mother is always a stepmother instead of simply being a mean mother.
I am not currently in the mood to expand much further on the topic, so I shall leave it at that. I'm sure you can make the necessary associations remaining in order to finish affirming the claim, or else you can go on living your life eternally unfulfilled and in a perpetual state of anxiety as you struggle to complete the circle.
You can choose to agree, disagree, or whatever… It doesn't matter…
Either way I'm right…
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
What's the use of a Fairy Tale?
In two strongly contrasting, opinionated essays, Bruno Bettelheim and Robert Darnton explore the many interpretations of fairy tales. These interpretations can be categorically described as the ‘scientific’ fairy tale and the ‘historical’ fairy tale. The scientific interpretation of the fairy tale is what would probably be most valued in the world today, because it could produce usable (and sellable) ideas about the mental state of children and their development. However, I think that the historical interpretation is actually far more important because it teaches us about the cultural significance of a segment of the population we know very little about: the illiterate peasant class in 17th, 18th, and 19th century Europe.
In Bettelheim’s essay, he believes that fairy tales should be used to help discover psychoanalytical truths behind child development. What he is missing is the rather large factor that many of these tales were actually composed for adults, not children. Most of the tales compiled by the Brothers Grimm and other chroniclers were simply the adaptation of an oral tradition directed at entertaining the illiterate adult peasant class. This simple fact throws most of his argument, because the target audience is not who he needs to psychoanalyze. Granted, if using the watered down, children specific, modern versions of many tales (aka Disney movies), then his argument is entirely valid because those are actually meant for childhood development.
Bettelheim also neglects to take into account that these tales were compiled from oral traditions hundreds of years old; modern children cannot relate to many aspects of Grimm’s fairy tales: the rural setting, landed aristocracy, strict patriarchal society, and belief in magic, among others. The fact is that society has changed from when these tales were compiled. While they are still fantastic stories, sometimes with good morals still applicable in modern life, using them to reach psychoanalytical goals is simply not going to work.
On the other hand, in taking the tales in context a historian can learn a great deal about the society in which they were prevalent. Darnton explains this in an anthropological application: modern historians can study the tales and thus realize the values which guided these historical cultures. In applying the anthropological lens to the differences between versions of the stories, modern scientists can also see how societies changed over time. As an oral tradition, the fairy tales compiled by the Brothers Grimm had gone through a long process of slow change and revision before they were ever written down. In each retelling, a different part of the story may be emphasized to better relate to the current society. By looking at the same tale evolve over time, one could easily see how the society changes.
Since the peasant class through most of history has been illiterate, there are very few ways in which modern historians can learn about the daily life of the majority of the world’s population. Oral tales are one of these methods, because the peasants were able to hear and interpret them without need for a literate middleman. The tales are constantly changing to reflect a given time; almost every generation or two a new storyteller will come along and create a new interpretation of the old tales. Most recently, this niche has been filled by Walt Disney. Just as studying Disney’s movies could (and does) lead to social commentary on current society, so does studying the Grimm Brother’s tales reflect on the culture of the time.
Hulloo
So, introduction time. My name is Ryan Ingraham, I'm a senior majoring in Religious Studies and going to Law School next year. Ummm.... not really sure what else to say.
I'm writing my Senior Honors Thesis in Religious Studies on Muslim American Immigrant women and the specific issues they face regarding sexual abuse and spousal abuse (one day I'll actually conjure a more concise title...). Anyway, so that gives you some idea of one of the issues I'm passionate about. Beyond that... I look forward to blogging with yall!
I'm writing my Senior Honors Thesis in Religious Studies on Muslim American Immigrant women and the specific issues they face regarding sexual abuse and spousal abuse (one day I'll actually conjure a more concise title...). Anyway, so that gives you some idea of one of the issues I'm passionate about. Beyond that... I look forward to blogging with yall!
An Impossible Project
Robert Darnton—Although I support, in spirit, his project and methodology, there is from the selection in "The Meaning of Mother Goose" to be analyzed through it. Apart from briefly explaining his methodology, in cursory manner to be sure, Darnton does relatively little aside from express the futility of the psychoanalytic method of analysis and show how, in two particular cases, it failed—a project which I have addressed elsewhere and verified*. This shortcoming is, of course, through no fault of his own but that of the collector, Maria Tatar, and her motivation for including the excerpt, which, as demonstrated by its proximity to the Bettelheim selections and the limitations of the content, was clearly to offer an academic contrast to and argument against the psychoanalytic analysis of fairy tales.
His explication of the project of Aarne and Thompson was a very worth while and important to the understanding of folk tales as well as the way that they are interpreted from a folklorist's perspective; however, there is great difficulty and subjectivity in the project of comparative analysis in order to find the important or relevant aspects of a given group of people. Problems in this approach arise from a few primary sources, which must be addressed.
First, the use of fairy tales as a medium through which to understand a culture, although it recognizes fairy tales as dynamic, fails to respect the dynamic, incongruous nature of a culture, resulting from the use of an article to help define a culture at a given time even though the artifact is of far more ancient origins. This form of analysis runs the risk of attributing achronistic details to a specific snapshot of a culture at a specific time—assuming that the cultural artifacts are present and correctly interpreted. This undermines the aim of the project and reduces the ability to infer cultural patterns in the motifs and symbols.
Second, the differences in tales' versions, however clear they are, cannot be directly translated into cultural difference. This process is a very subjective process and makes almost impossible any ability to verify the conclusions drawn.
The real productivity of this process is in analyzing the effects of literary tradition on the oral tradition of the fairy tale genre and vice versa. By analyzing tales that were not directly influenced by the literary fairy tale, the intent and purpose of the author of the literary fairy tale, as well as his/her society's biases or projects, become clear. Of course, it must be taken still with a grain of salt, since the author of a tale is not always indicative of the society as a whole, and quite frequently is the counterculture's response to the mainstream. These distinctions are important to note, though hard to decipher without a very clear a priori context being established.
*See "Psychoanalysis: What Everyone Knows and Has Heard Repeatedly"
His explication of the project of Aarne and Thompson was a very worth while and important to the understanding of folk tales as well as the way that they are interpreted from a folklorist's perspective; however, there is great difficulty and subjectivity in the project of comparative analysis in order to find the important or relevant aspects of a given group of people. Problems in this approach arise from a few primary sources, which must be addressed.
First, the use of fairy tales as a medium through which to understand a culture, although it recognizes fairy tales as dynamic, fails to respect the dynamic, incongruous nature of a culture, resulting from the use of an article to help define a culture at a given time even though the artifact is of far more ancient origins. This form of analysis runs the risk of attributing achronistic details to a specific snapshot of a culture at a specific time—assuming that the cultural artifacts are present and correctly interpreted. This undermines the aim of the project and reduces the ability to infer cultural patterns in the motifs and symbols.
Second, the differences in tales' versions, however clear they are, cannot be directly translated into cultural difference. This process is a very subjective process and makes almost impossible any ability to verify the conclusions drawn.
The real productivity of this process is in analyzing the effects of literary tradition on the oral tradition of the fairy tale genre and vice versa. By analyzing tales that were not directly influenced by the literary fairy tale, the intent and purpose of the author of the literary fairy tale, as well as his/her society's biases or projects, become clear. Of course, it must be taken still with a grain of salt, since the author of a tale is not always indicative of the society as a whole, and quite frequently is the counterculture's response to the mainstream. These distinctions are important to note, though hard to decipher without a very clear a priori context being established.
*See "Psychoanalysis: What Everyone Knows and Has Heard Repeatedly"
Monday, January 18, 2010
Psychoanalysis: What Everyone Knows and Has Heard Repeatedly
Bruno Bettelheim—barring the historical criticism provided by Robert Darnton on the grounds of inappropriate source material—falls into the same trap that all other psychoanalytic thinkers fall into—attribution of privileged position to the psychoanalyst as interpreter. The unreliability of any analysis—in that the subjectivity of that analysis makes it nearly impossible for two similarly trained, similarly skilled psychoanalysts to independently reach the same interpretation—reduces even the most minute of possibility for any meaning to be generated and grasped from such an exercise to a puddle of mush. Since there can be, in the psychoanalytic method, no verification nor reproducibility, the entire system collapses in on itself and loses any significance that it ever could have had. Although, to some extent, it is true that psychoanalysts tend to agree on certain aspects of interpretation, this is more an artifact of the blatant structure that they have subscribed to than to any actual similarity of interpretation, since they have been equipped with very limited symbols that they are meant to arbitrarily distribute (id, ego, & superego and anal, oral, phallic, & one more which I cannot recall off hand and is unimportant-enough not to warrant the extra 27 keystrokes it would take to look it up on Wikipedia) upon the objects, subjects, and actions of the story, and this overt structure has very little correlation to the actual interpretation of the story. All other aspects of the psychoanalytic method tend to be little more than the attempt to link every action and symbol to some object of sexuality and in turn reduce the entire field of psychology to little more than a game played by middle school children wherein they attempt to make any thought or word or symbol "dirty" as a leisure form of bemusement and humor.
Now that I have said what everyone already knew, I will move on to a more interesting and informative topic: "The Struggle for Meaning".
Bettelheim starts rightly by presenting his background, biases, and project, but that is about the extent to which his article is praiseworthy. His extremely unique experience, similar to that of Freud, in working with "severely disturbed children", to at least a slight extent, negates his ability to prescribe to the general case because "severely disturbed children" would clearly be an exceptional case, from which the common case could not be extracted. This is another important systemic problem of psychoanalysis in general: although there is some small group of applicable cases the attempt to generalize those cases in order to apply them to the average or common case. This distorts the system by analyzing the extraordinary as ordinary and deteriorating the application as a comprehensive project.
His primary flaw in argumentation, however, is that he evokes two primary and contradictory ends as the internal motivation for children to read: immediate and future gain, both of which, he inaccurately assesses. For immediate gain, he posits that the experience of reading is only enjoyable in a situation such that the material is both interesting and entertaining, an assertion that is far less than likely on account of two major factors: that parents, teachers, and other mentors to children offer direct positive reinforcement of the behaviors in means of attention and praise and that children create for themselves a form of intrinsic motivation that trumps—both positively and negatively—the perceived gain of entertainment. Here it should be noted that much of the content of children's literature has changed since the writing of his essay and that integral to the genre at that time were works as those that were meant to didactically instruct on the proper exercise of hygiene or deportment, making the need for his argument much less in the modern context anyhow. But still, his argument is rather weak on point, or else children would never have learned to read or literacy rates would have been so significantly waning that teaching children to read in such a setting would seem a futile and impossible effort. Let it not be mistaken, however, that I here support and defend the use of tedious texts or meaningless dribble as children's reading materials. I, above all, am an avid proponent of presenting children with meaning and purpose as well as imaginative exercises, even to the extent that I endorse the creation of literature for children that is equally worth-while for adults and nourishes the mind through an analysis of philosophy or thoughtful deconstruction of social values. These maxims are, however, in no way necessary—a conclusion reached with great relief, for they are quite rare in nature (and allow me to clearly state that fairy tales rarely meet the standards I have just outlined unless they tend from the recent movements that satirize, reassess, and recreate them in hopes of presenting some important aspect of society in a new light and deconstructing the form of fairy tales—a much more difficult genre to adapt to "child-appropriate" themes).
Fairy tales, in their attempt to moralize the world and stories, are also, far less than helpful to children. As he correctly asserts, the children will start to assume the moral code presented by the tales, but at what cost? The morality presented by the Grimm's tales is so far outdated and backwards as to be appalling—and can unilaterally be blamed for the sexual anxiety in the Modern era that Freud and many others rightly noted though wrongly assessed. The tales demonize women if they are not beautiful, which tends to be the highest value they are judged by and the source of all good qualities in women of the tales. It also sets marriage (subjugation) as the highest and most sacred obligation and achievement a woman can attain. These along with other values presented in the Grimm's tales reduce the self worth and esteem of children who, in finding the disparity between the good presented in fairy tales and themselves can only justify the discontinuity by blaming themselves. Herein lies the source of modern self esteem issues that are only fed further by the industries of media that overload youths with the images of "beauty" that are linked to a rare body type that few can possess, no matter how hard they strive to attain it (short of surgical procedures), but these magazines and movies cannot hold the sole blame because the destructive value had to be put in place prior to the essentialization of the form of beauty endorsed by the society.
The only point on content where he has hit the mark is that parents need to refrain from sugar-coating the world and presenting only happy ending stories. There is great value in children learning to comprehend tragedy and imperfection—that the good guy sometimes loses and sometimes no one wins. In this insipid world, there is no right or wrong, no hero or villain, no joy or pain, and children need to be allowed to see the truth once in a while…
I know that you are all so glad to have such a long-winded dissertation on the topic… No need to thank me?
Now that I have said what everyone already knew, I will move on to a more interesting and informative topic: "The Struggle for Meaning".
Bettelheim starts rightly by presenting his background, biases, and project, but that is about the extent to which his article is praiseworthy. His extremely unique experience, similar to that of Freud, in working with "severely disturbed children", to at least a slight extent, negates his ability to prescribe to the general case because "severely disturbed children" would clearly be an exceptional case, from which the common case could not be extracted. This is another important systemic problem of psychoanalysis in general: although there is some small group of applicable cases the attempt to generalize those cases in order to apply them to the average or common case. This distorts the system by analyzing the extraordinary as ordinary and deteriorating the application as a comprehensive project.
His primary flaw in argumentation, however, is that he evokes two primary and contradictory ends as the internal motivation for children to read: immediate and future gain, both of which, he inaccurately assesses. For immediate gain, he posits that the experience of reading is only enjoyable in a situation such that the material is both interesting and entertaining, an assertion that is far less than likely on account of two major factors: that parents, teachers, and other mentors to children offer direct positive reinforcement of the behaviors in means of attention and praise and that children create for themselves a form of intrinsic motivation that trumps—both positively and negatively—the perceived gain of entertainment. Here it should be noted that much of the content of children's literature has changed since the writing of his essay and that integral to the genre at that time were works as those that were meant to didactically instruct on the proper exercise of hygiene or deportment, making the need for his argument much less in the modern context anyhow. But still, his argument is rather weak on point, or else children would never have learned to read or literacy rates would have been so significantly waning that teaching children to read in such a setting would seem a futile and impossible effort. Let it not be mistaken, however, that I here support and defend the use of tedious texts or meaningless dribble as children's reading materials. I, above all, am an avid proponent of presenting children with meaning and purpose as well as imaginative exercises, even to the extent that I endorse the creation of literature for children that is equally worth-while for adults and nourishes the mind through an analysis of philosophy or thoughtful deconstruction of social values. These maxims are, however, in no way necessary—a conclusion reached with great relief, for they are quite rare in nature (and allow me to clearly state that fairy tales rarely meet the standards I have just outlined unless they tend from the recent movements that satirize, reassess, and recreate them in hopes of presenting some important aspect of society in a new light and deconstructing the form of fairy tales—a much more difficult genre to adapt to "child-appropriate" themes).
Fairy tales, in their attempt to moralize the world and stories, are also, far less than helpful to children. As he correctly asserts, the children will start to assume the moral code presented by the tales, but at what cost? The morality presented by the Grimm's tales is so far outdated and backwards as to be appalling—and can unilaterally be blamed for the sexual anxiety in the Modern era that Freud and many others rightly noted though wrongly assessed. The tales demonize women if they are not beautiful, which tends to be the highest value they are judged by and the source of all good qualities in women of the tales. It also sets marriage (subjugation) as the highest and most sacred obligation and achievement a woman can attain. These along with other values presented in the Grimm's tales reduce the self worth and esteem of children who, in finding the disparity between the good presented in fairy tales and themselves can only justify the discontinuity by blaming themselves. Herein lies the source of modern self esteem issues that are only fed further by the industries of media that overload youths with the images of "beauty" that are linked to a rare body type that few can possess, no matter how hard they strive to attain it (short of surgical procedures), but these magazines and movies cannot hold the sole blame because the destructive value had to be put in place prior to the essentialization of the form of beauty endorsed by the society.
The only point on content where he has hit the mark is that parents need to refrain from sugar-coating the world and presenting only happy ending stories. There is great value in children learning to comprehend tragedy and imperfection—that the good guy sometimes loses and sometimes no one wins. In this insipid world, there is no right or wrong, no hero or villain, no joy or pain, and children need to be allowed to see the truth once in a while…
I know that you are all so glad to have such a long-winded dissertation on the topic… No need to thank me?
Ger Fairy Tales
Hey all, my name is Erik Edwards. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, but was born in Fl. I'm a junior with a major of Medicine, Health and Society on a pre-med track. My favorite activities include basketball, sleeping, and eating. I'm looking to learn some fun and interesting things this semester....
Hi everyone...
I'm Lindsay Ratterman and am a senior Engineering Science and Sociology major. I am from Denver, Colorado and am very excited to get back to snow and blue skies at the end of the semester. I've always liked fairy tales, especially the way they are presented in Disney movies. I hope this class doesn't ruin any of those for me...
Talk to you all soon!
Lindsay
I'm Lindsay Ratterman and am a senior Engineering Science and Sociology major. I am from Denver, Colorado and am very excited to get back to snow and blue skies at the end of the semester. I've always liked fairy tales, especially the way they are presented in Disney movies. I hope this class doesn't ruin any of those for me...
Talk to you all soon!
Lindsay
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Wahoo for fairy tales!
Hey all, my name is Heath Chamblee. Im a biology major and a junior. Ive lived in Nashville for a while and I'm lucky enough to live off campus just me and my big dog. Im from Alabama where I grew up on a farm. My great grandparents were German and were farmers also. Unfortunately, no fairy tales were passed down, but I'm sure I will have the whole semester to catch up on them! I ran across this class somewhat by accident and it caught my attention immediately. Looking forward to it!
-Heath
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