Lalita Drepaul FIQWS 10008 11/19/2018

Fairytale Teachings; A Connection to Life

Throughout history fairy tales have been made to enhance a child’s imagination. Childrenneed fairy tales so they can understand right from wrong in life and in society, this helps them understand their emotions and knowing how to cope with them appropriately. Fairy tales givechildren a creative environment for them to acknowledge life’s challenges that are being toldthrough them. Dreaming or daydreaming allows children to resolve problems or obstacles they face with themselves and or families in real time. A child can confide themselves to fairy tales. Freud and Bettelheim see fairy tales as a way for children to have an outlet for wish fulfillment, these children can properly develop into adulthood and use the Brothers Grimm stories to understand and express their emotions in an appropriate way for them to have a positive approach to societal issues.

Sigmund Freud’s theory of wish fulfillment describes the satisfaction of desires through an outlet. The individual’s unconscious ego and super ego eventually repress their desires so that it can be accepting into societal morals. Dreaming for children is a way for them to have an emotional discharge of thoughts from their day to day life. Freud states in his interpretation,“The wishes which are fulfilled in them are carried over from daytime and as a rule from the daybefore, and in waking life they have been accompanied by intense emotion.” “Even when the content of children’s dreams becomes complicated and subtle, there is never any difficulty inrecognizing them as wish fulfillments”. (Freud 22). Children’s dreams are clear and concise so

they can understand their feelings by the events that go on in their daily lives. These feelings can show in up in their unconscious to fulfill their needs. In order for an individual to feel comfortable in society without letting their desires feel exposed, they diverge themselves from reality to fulfill their wishes. This protects their ego from the negativities in societal taboos.

Freud’s theory of identification can also relate to how children read and admire thesestories in a way that they can classify themselves as the characters in the stories such as princesses, or heroes. Identification as Freud states in his dissection is described as, “that is tosay, the assimilation of one ego to another one, as a result of which the first ego behaves like thesecond in certain respects, imitates it and in a sense takes it up into itself.” (Freud 62). Theprocess of identification allows children to divulge themselves into fictional characters, so that they can be similar to them and fulfill their emotions. Children who can relate their feelings to others have a sense of belonging in a society they do not yet understand. Becoming or acting like the fictional characters they love, give them a fulfilled desire of wanting an acceptable lifestyle.

Bruno Bettelheim’s ideas are that using fairy tales can be beneficial for children in their developing years. Fairy tales are essential for children to understand the rights and wrongs within society. They also provide a sense of fulfillment of wishful desires because children have innocent fantasies. By using fairy tales, they can satisfy their wishes in contrast from their egos.Bettelheim states, “Further, the fairy tale offers solutions in ways that the child can grasp on hislevel of understanding.” This means a child can decipher the good from the bad, and to be able torecognize their actions which can lead to consequences or not. This includes acknowledging theirfeelings as being normal reactions when they are faced with life’s challenges. (Bettelheim 10)

The Brothers Grimm fairy tales “Rumpelstiltskin” and “Hansel and Gretel” were writtenfor children, to have a release, to express, and relate their emotions to the storyline being told and the characters in the tales. The original Brothers Grimm “Rumpelstiltskin” and “Hansel and Gretel” are stories children can read and have a safe area to imagine and understand the problemsportrayed. Fairy tales illustrate the idea of ‘the good guys win, and the bad guys don’t’. Fairytales were written for the purpose of entertaining, but mainly for teaching a lesson to childrenthat their feelings aren’t worthless. Children have desires such as love, affection, and or evenacceptance from one or both of their parents but don’t always receive it, so they use these storiesto have some sort of fulfillment to satisfy themselves.

The story of “Rumpelstiltskin” is a story about a girl who tells a lie to a king that she can spin thread into gold, the girl is incapable of doing such a task, so she begs for help and appears a little man, who helps her spin the thread in exchange for her treasures. She inevitably has nothing left to offer him, so he asks for her first-born child. Years later the she marries the greedy king and bares a child and forgets the bargain, when the little man comes to take the child, she refuses, and he compromises that if she finds out his name within three days, she can keep her child. She gives many names to him but lastly, she says his name ‘Rumpelstiltskin’.

The story of “Hansel and Gretel” is about two siblings whose parents don’t have enough money to take care of them so they take them to the woods so they wouldn’t find their way backhome. They initially find their home the first time, but their parents neglect them another timemaking sure the route in the woods wouldn’t be easier for them to find their way back. Thesiblings get further lost in the woods and stumble upon a house made of pure sugar, where an old lady resides, who welcomed the children into her home, unbeknownst of her cruel plot. She entraps the children with a plan in mind of eating them both. The children scared, they strategize an escape, rid the evil women and are free.

These stories bring on life lessons that can teach children the consequences for their actions. For example, in a secure environment they learn to interpret how the world works and begin to understand that there are people with deceitful motives and cruel ambitions. Fairy tales give a positive approach to understanding these situations. Some parents believe that children should be sheltered to certain things that goes on in the world to prevent them from being traumatized or saddened by reality. This idea can be mostly harmful to children, children need tobe exposed to society because if they are sheltered then they won’t be cautious or prepared fromthe harms and negativity society brings. Although the majority of the Grimm’s stories are harsh and gruesome, children can still come to learn from them and relate themselves with the characters and their situations. This helps them know that their feelings such as anger, sadness, anxiety, or even happiness which can be seen as unacceptable behavior, are actually normal in society.

In modern day, children don’t know how their emotions can affect them or whether theyare perceived to be acceptable or not. They hide their emotions but come to learn that they can associate themselves to the characters in fairy tales. This allows them to understand that their feelings are not wrong or abnormal. They can relate their experiences and problems to the ones in the books. Children are also naive to what they read, they can be impressionable to either the‘evils’ or the ‘good’ to storylines. The quote, “Fairytales help children be more expressive, he discovers that he is not the only one in the world who harbors fears or hatred or spite, emotionsthat are socially unacceptable.” (Peller 415) show the effect fairy tales have on children’s abilityto express themselves.

Fairy tales are a way of growing up, every child needs a fantasy or wish to understandtheir desires and grasp their feelings. Fairy tales enhance a child’s development and growth by letting them imagine, understand the world properly, and by knowing that the world isn’t always pleasant and that there are harms they shouldn’t be sheltered from. Stories prepare children to besusceptible to the realities of society. Freud’s idea of wish fulfillment consists of repressed wishful desires that are satisfied through an outlet, such as fairy tales. These tales are a way for children to understand the meaning of life. Many fairy tales offer lessons, the ones of the Grimm stories allow children to know that they are not alone in a dark world, and that they should always be true to themselves no matter how society perceives you.