Bruno Bettelheim: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales

The dominant culture wishes to pretend, particularly where children are concerned, that the dark side of man does not exist... This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence – but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious ...

This book attempts to show how fairy stories represent in imaginative form what the process of healthy human development consists of, and how the tales make such development attractive for the child to engage in. This growth process begins with the resistance against the parents and fear of growing up, and ends when youth has truly found itself, achieved psychological independence and moral maturity, and no longer views the other sex as threatening or demonic, but is able to relate positively to it...

In fairy tales, internal processes are translated into visual images. When the hero is confronted by difficult inner problems which seem to defy solution, his psychological state is not described; the fairy story shows him lost in a dense, impenetrable wood, not knowing which way to turn, despairing of finding the way out. To everybody who has heard fairy tales, the image and feeling of being lost in a deep, dark forest are unforgettable ...

One must never "explain" to the child the meanings of fairy tales. However, the narrator's understanding of the tale's many levels of meaning facilitates the child's deriving from the story clues for understanding himself better ... . The adult's sense of active participation in telling the story makes a vital contribution to, and greatly enriches, the child's experience of it. It entails an affirmation of his personality through a particular shared experience with another human being who, though an adult, can fully appreciate the feelings and reactions of the child.

Jack and the Beanstalk

The tales of the Jack cycle are of British origin; from there they became diffused throughout the English-speaking world. By far the best-known and most interesting story of this cycle is "Jack and the Beanstalk." Important 5 elements of this fairy tale appear in many stories all over the world: the seemingly stupid exchange which provides something of magic power; the miraculous seed from which a tree grows that reaches into heaven; the cannibalistic ogre that is outwitted and robbed; the hen that lays golden eggs or the golden goose; the musical instrument that talks. But their combination into a story, and the foolishness of a mother who belittles this, is what makes "Jack and the Beanstalk" such a meaningful fairy tale ...

Loss of infantile pleasure is a central issue in "Jack and the Beanstalk." We are told that the good cow Milky White, which until then had supported child and mother, has suddenly stopped giving milk. Thus the expulsion from an infantile paradise begins; it continues with the mother's deriding Jack's belief in the magic power of his seeds. The beanstalk permits Jack to engage in conflict with the ogre, which he survives and finally wins.

The mother in "Jack and the Beanstalk" fails her son because, instead of supporting his developing masculinity, she denies its validity. The parent of the other sex ought to encourage a child's sexual development, particularly as he seeks goals and achievements in the wider world. Jack's mother, who thought her son utterly foolish for the trading he had done, stands revealed as the foolish one because she failed to recognize the development from child to adolescent which was taking place in her son. If she had had her way, Jack would have remained an immature child, and neither he nor his mother would have escaped their misery. Jack gains great fortune through his courageous actions. This story teaches that the parents' error is basically the lack of an appropriate and sensitive response to the various problems involved in a child's maturing personally, socially, and sexually.