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Summary: an interesting, but historically inaccurate, explanation
Review: Bruno Bettelheim's ideas are interesting, but seriously flawed. For his ideas to be correct, there would have to be no pre-Victorian world. His book rests upon the assumption that fairy tales were created for children and contain hidden sexual meanings. It is only relatively recently that childhood has become an institution. Prior to the current obsession with childhood, children were veiwed simply as miniature adults, and these stories have been around a lot longer than our belief in childhood. Also these tales were told to the entire village as a group, not carefully managed childcare groups. They were designed for everyone, including the adults and the old. The contention of hidden sexual meanings is also rather odd, considering that prior to some of the later works put out by the brothers Grimm, the sexual content was quite blatant. (Some good examples of this are Sun, Moon, and Talia, an earlier version of the Sleeping Beauty we know, or some of the earlier versions of Rapunzel written down by the Grimms in which Rapunzel describes her increasing belly and morning sickness to the witch.) There is also a long tradition of fairy tales dealing with subjects like abuse and incest (though admittedly not as popular in modern anthologies). In other words, the history of fairy tales seems to present a challenge to Bettelheim's Freudian veiw of fairy tales.
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Summary: What about the Story Teller?
Review: Certainly the use of enchantment and magic (I am an amatuer magician, a member of the order of Merlin) has a deep meaning for all of us. Stories have been used to teach humanity from childhood since prehistory. The popularity of Harry Potter, Hobbits, Jesus, Oz, Snow White, Red Riding Hood (You don't talk to strangers when you are small) Moses, Sherlock Holmes and a multitude of heroes and heroines, in all branches of literature is endurable. (Some mythologists used to say science fiction is the mythology of today. We are still only scratching the surface.) The problem with this book is the story teller, himself. "The Creation of Dr. B" by Richard Pollack, and the reviews of Pollack's exposure of Bruno Bettelheim, here on Amazon.com, should be accompanying required reading for those who praise this "work?" My personal experiences, and the out- right bizarre interpretations of the mundane with Freudians have been baffling and "extremely humorous". "A cigar is always a cigar," only for those in control of a bewildered and vulnerable patient. Quackery, psycho-babble, and "pop" psychology pass for good psychiatry and psychotherapy too easily and too often, to a trusting public. (Some in control of the media will do anything to make a buck; good and bad.) To be a "real medical doctor" one should start by going to medical school. Not write questionable books and make up your past. Those who use deception for the art of entertainment and the production of wonder, learn a lot about suspicion and deception. It is part of the (witch?) craft.
Charlie Turek, Magician
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Summary: A warm and fascinating book for anyone interested in stories
Review: For those who love the written word (and that would be anyone browsing here, I suspect), we all have the desire to infect others with our same literary enthusiasm. And study after study has shown that reading to children is best way to ensure children's success in school. So the question is not DO we read to children, but HOW and WHAT do we read to children. The answer provided in this book is, I feel, the best. As parents and caretakers we have a natural and healthy instinct to protect children from harm. But if we think back to our own childhoods, we will find them inhabited by all sorts of irrational fears. And if we are realistic, we will admit that these cannot be entirely prevented. Nor, perhaps, ought they to be. Bettleheim argues that the perils and deliverance from those childhood perils are suggested in fairy tales, though only indirectly. And it is their indirectness that makes them uniquely useful, because children are not always able to consciously understand and articulate their conflicts. And it is this very unspokenness, unrealized nature of the conflicts that makes them easier to grapple with. This should give pause to any who seek to sanitize children's mythos from ALL depictions of violence. Children's thoughts are full of violence, no matter how idyllic one tries to make the child's circumstances. What we need to teach children is not that violence does not exist, but how to deal with both psychic and physical violence. And while fairy tales ARE violent, the violence is vengeful or retributive, but never senseless. Evil is punished and good wins out. And, as Bettleheim observes, adults are always punished for their rash resorts to violence and ill will, but children are always given opportunities to atone and restore. Even if (as the reader from or-id asserts) childhood as a unique stage of development was denied in Mideival times, that does not mean that childhood was "invented" by Victorians. These are the same sorts of people who insist that romantic love was invented by French Troubaours. That is absurd and easily refuted by even a cursory review of ancient texts. We see romantic love as far back as we have written texts (see the Epic of Gilgamesh, for plenty of romantic love, some of which is illegal in some states). And for those who doubt that the ancient world was ignorant of the notion of childhood, I refer you to I Corinthians 13:11. Paul, at least, understood that children thought and behaved differently from adults, and I doubt that (inspired though he may have been) he was the only one to have figured it out. Psychoanalysis has been mostly discredited in the psychological profession, but I think it has some value still. Whether Bettleheim's meanings seem obvious (red a symbol of loss of sexual innocence) or far-fetched (frogs representing sexual fulfillment), they are always thought-provoking. Even if you reject the suppositions of psychoanalysis, or have serious qualms about Bettleheim's career, I still maintain that this is a humane and fascinating book for anyone who loves children, and loves reading to children. I would go further than Bettleheim on some points, however. Bettleheim believes that the surabondance of royalty themes in fairy tales is because of the child's initial belief that he is the center of the universe. And relatedly, the step-parent motif is a rebellion against the reality principle, when the formerly all-accepting, all-providing mother now demands obedience and chores. I think it goes back to something even more fundamental, more religious and mystical than Bettleheim probably believed and certainly more than he would have dared write about. I believe that we are all children of God, and as such truly DO have a royal parentage. Our mortal parents are custodians entrusted with our growth, but our true parents are God. This understanding, though obscured through a "veil of forgetfulness" still manages to leak out as -- in Wordsworth's phrase -- "intimations of immortality": "Not in entire forgetfulness/And not in utter nakedness/But trailing clouds of glory do we come/From God, who is our home:/Heaven lies about us in our infancy!" If these intimations are correct, then ultimately all fairy tales are true. And a "happily ever after" ending awaits all of us who are just and faithful to the end.
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Summary: An insigtfull rendering of the value of fairy tales!
Review: Got kids? Want them to grow up to be as emotionally, intellectually and spititually developed as possible? Then tell them fairy tales! The world famous child phychologist Bruno Bettelheim belives that the telling of fairy tales in thier original form can be the single most powerful influence in the lives of children. After reading his book on the subject: "The Uses Of Enchantment" you would (as I have) come to percieve the value of this medium for the channeling of essential information about how to live sucessfully in society. When Einstein was asked by a concerned mother what she could do to best promote her children's intellectual development he responded: "Tell them fairy tales!" When she pressed him for what else she could do he said: "Tell them more fairy tales!" Fairy tales reach the young child on the 'enchanted' level which is his world and give acceptance and approval to the chaotic and uncontrolable emotional states which rule him. They involve him in the delemas of the 'hero' and entice him to believe that the problems that presently so overwhelm him will ultimately be resolved if he will stick steadfastly to the true path. This body of liturature was has it's roots in prehistory and has been shaped with the particular aim of the socialization of the young: for which reason it must be passed on in it's original form. Any application of this insight will ultimatley result in happier, more productive and more thoroughly adjusted and socialized sons and daughters. More importantly though, right from the moment it begins it confers a compelling and involving validation of the child that exists at it's center. A fairy tale told in it's original form is: "a love gift to a child"!
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Summary: Fascinating dissection of symbolism of fairy tales
Review: I enjoyed this book, for its symbolism, meanings attributed to fairy tales, psychology contained there in, etc. Gives you a new slant as to how past generations looked at life, and how they told of life, the passages everyone goes through, in fairy-tale form. Very interesting account, somewhat Freudian, but very interesting.
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Summary: Step Into Darker Side Of the Stories
Review: I recall reading this in early high school.It was one of the first introductions of reading adult fairy tales and I found it quite intersting.Learning some intersting facts about how the Fairy Tales have evuld over the years.Is and intersting book to be invulved in.
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Summary: Take with a LARGE grain of salt
Review: I've noticed that one reviewer pointed to Richard Pollak's biography of the author, "The Creation of Dr. B," as a source of information on Bruno Bettelheim's legitimacy as a psychoanalyst (or lack thereof). I would second that recommendation. Before reading "The Uses of Enchantment," one should be aware that large portions of this book were brazenly plagiarized from other sources, such as Julius Heuscher's "A Psychiatric Study of Fairy Tales: Their Origin, Meaning and Usefulness." Several passages were lifted directly from this work, published in 1963 (more than a decade before Bettelheim began writing "The Uses of Enchantment"), and barely even paraphrased. Heuscher was cited only once by Bettelheim, and not for any of these virtually direct quotes. I would think long and hard before taking anything Bettelheim attempted to pass off as his own work seriously.
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Summary: Behind the Locked Door...
Review: It is the mark of brilliance when something commonplace, approached from a new angle, becomes a world of startling insight and fascination. Such is the case with Bruno Bettelheim's masterwork, The Uses of Enchantment (1975). Bettelheim's book is a key to the apparently simple world of fairy tales, taking us deep inside the inner workings of many popular tales (Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Cinderella, to name a few) and unlocking the powerful psychological contents hidden within. Fairy tales, the author shows us, are actually powerful psychological messages for children, carefully packaged into a sweet-tasting pill of enchantment. Over thousands of years, Bettelheim says these stories have evolved into the best experiences (next to good parenting) that a child can have in its arduous struggle to mature into a successful adult. I often use a pen to mark the most significant ideas and discoveries I encounter while reading; in this book, I found myself squiggling, starring, check-marking, and exclamating all over the place--the pages are chock-full of surprising revelations and sudden bursts of light around dark corners. Essential for parents, storytellers, psychologists, or any student of humanity, this book is a genuine classic, a fairy-tale come true. By the way--for a discussion of archetypal elements in stories, this blows the Hero With 1,000 Faces out of the water.
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Summary: PURE GARBAGE!
Review: No one disagrees with the fact that reading fairy tales to children can teach them valuable life lessons. That is where Bettelheim should have stopped when writing this book. His ultra-Freudian persuasion leads him way off course with this work. The sexually explicit meanings he claims young children can identify in fairy tales is nothing short of ridiculous. If it were, the Brothers' Grimm and other writers of fairy tales should have been imprisoned for providing pornography to children!
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Summary: PURE GARBAGE!
Review: No one disagrees with the fact that reading fairy tales to children can teach them valuable life lessons. That is where Bettelheim should have stopped when writing this book. His ultra-Freudian persuasion leads him way off course with this work. The sexually explicit meanings he claims young children can identify in fairy tales is nothing short of ridiculous. If it were, the Brothers' Grimm and other writers of fairy tales should have been imprisoned for providing pornography to children!
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