SLFK 211, Thursday, October 10, 2002
Bettelheim review
Last lecture &endash; placed Bettelheim in context of Freud and talked about some of the work with child development issues after Freud
In brief &endash; Freud's focus was on pathology in adults and his theory is that this pathology may very well step from an unresolved problem in psychological development that occurs in childhood.
Pathology part of Freud's work goes to biochemical research and use of drugs to cure chemical imbalance in the brain
Development part becomes big issue and people study children to see what happens when
As we said many times
There is a point when kids will eat all sorts of crap, including things off the floor
Then there is the white food stage
Then kids eat more or less normally
If they don't, probably something went wrong
Other eating issues are things like sharing food
Eating in a polite fashion &endash; knife and fork, not hands
Eating quietly
Bettelheim: tales aid in this development because they have evolved
Over a long period of time
Through oral telling, and thus in response to child reaction
To meet the needs of the child
To speak in child language
To offer a multiplicity of possible meanings in every tale
Briefly: issues like splitting of mother into mother/step-mother reflect child thought
Split personality, multiple personality as the result of child abuse
Tales not real, but true and help develop an internal/external distinction
Where kid can think about doing things that are unacceptable without actually doing them
Tales have generic characters and child can identify with the hero
Tales are multifunctional and can talk about sex to one kid and staying up at night to another &endash; the Sleeping Beauty example
Tales deal with issues of concern to the child &endash; like aggression and controlling own angry thoughts
This is distinct from the sort of violent acts that occur in the trickster material I discussed earlier
There, wolf too stupid to know that you can't use your tail as a fishing rod; fox does not realize that tail is part of her body
In the tales that Bettelheim is talking about, this is the violence that is born of anger
As in being angry at mom
And tale having an ending where the stepmother is tied by her braid to a horse; the horse is made to run around the field until only the braid is left.
This is expression of a desire to punish mom
This is where tales tell child that having angry thoughts is okay, but doing harmful things as a result of angry feelings is not
This is the sort of thing when Jennifer runs over Melissa's arms in one direction and back over her legs in the other.
She is angry at Melissa because of sibling rivalry and has not learned to control this anger &endash; she acts out
Kid who said to mom: tell me a story about wanting to bash J.J.'s head in is trying to control find an outlet for angry thoughts so that they do not lead to angry actions
And this is what tales help do
Adults often fail to see this &endash; because their mode of thinking is different from that of the child
One approach &endash; you withhold violent material from the child and the child will never had any angry thoughts and everything will be fine
No more war, no more crime, no more kids beating up other kids
Bettelheim: wish that this were so, but aggressive feelings are natural and inevitable
Trick is learning how to deal with them
Id/ego conflict must, of necessity, lead to some angry thoughts
Or: in addition to libidos or eros, the erotic and creative drive, there is a drive called thanos, which is a destructive drive
It is a necessary and inevitable part of living because it helps you accept inevitable things life death, including your own
And note all of the VERY destructive children's rhymes
Which were probably once composed by children and are now purely children's lore, transmitted from one child to the next
As in kid version of Barney song:
Kid version:
I hate you
You hate me
Let's get together and kill Barney
With at 38 and a 44
No more purple dinosaur
Joy to the world, for Barney's dead
We barbequed his head
But what about the body?
We flushed it down the potty
Round and round it goes
Or: On top of Old Smokey
Glory, glory Halleluiah
Deck the halls with kerosene
Show the 3 Red Riding Hoods
Other reasons for adult objection to violent material in tales:
Want to see children as sweet and innocent
Do not want to admit that they can have aggressive and violent thoughts
Adult ideal is those pictures of the children with the huge sad eyes
Or things like Hans Christian Anderson
Little Match Girl
Little Mermaid
Tin Soldier
Very sad &endash; which is how ADULTS feel about their own childhood &endash; something that is lost and dead
Child reaction: Greg and Tin Soldier
Little Mermaid gets cleaned up
And Little Match Girl might well upset kids
Show the Marshak books
Adults object to the violence in tales because, at some level, they realize that the giant that gets creamed in the tales is a symbol for dad
And the witch who gets it is a symbol for mom; even more so with the step-mom
Adult protection from kids at Halloween which takes extreme measures
Or parents harm children for the sake of protecting them
These may be adults who had developmental problems themselves as kids
Did not get the messages of tales
Bettelheim: kids' aggressive thoughts natural
And they KNOW that they are bad &endash; should not be acted out
But need help in dealing with these thoughts
Furthermore, since there is all this pressure to have pure thoughts and kid can't help having nasty ones, kid needs ADULT REASSURANCE that the thoughts are okay as long as they are not acted out
Thoughts, as long as they are thoughts and not acts, do not come true
Tales provide exactly this
In the fact that an adult tells
Thus providing tacit approval
In the animal head message:
In tales, children with angry or libidinal thoughts are okay
Adults tend to get punished and often pictured with animal heads
Their bodies may have grown out of the animal tales phase (as in they have grown up physically)
But their minds are still in the animal stage: they have not grown up mentally
Note characters with animal heads
Beebop and Rocksteady in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The various characters around Jabba the Hut in Star Wars
Ass's Head folktale
Cauldron-Headed, Ax-Toothed Sister
Tales deal with other issues of concern to the child and, because they are age-appropriate, they do so better than other folklore forms, which are more suited to other age groups
Tales are better than games, as in kid playing house with a big dolly being the mommy and a little dolly being the baby and the teddy bear being the daddy
This works well with OLDER child who can come up with this configuration
But smaller child cannot and tales provide him the necessary imagery
At that point can act stuff out
Parent toys reprimanding child
Tales not only better than games, at least at a certain, early level
Better than other oral material &endash; like jokes
Again, this is older kid stuff
Told by one kid to another when they are in school
Note how concerns of children expressed in tales, versus same expression in jokes
Smallest child as simpleton
Appears stupid, triumphs in the end
Often as a result of stupidity
Unconventional and effective approach
Cuts through screen erected by social norms
Tale offers reassurance for child's feelings of stupidity and inadequacy
Another concern &endash; desire for children
Tales offer reassurance again
All sorts of people want children
Go to all sorts of extremes to get
Old couple without any children &endash; very tragic
Various creatures in the wild and witches want human children for selves (and not necessarily as food)
Jokes deal with same concerns
Proliferation of dead baby jokes
Birth control, abortions
Or perennial (not periodic) concern
Expression of fear (rather than reassurance)
Little moron jokes &endash; expression of same fear as simpleton stories
But again, expression rather than reassurance
Microwave oven urban legend
Please note unintentional aggression
Also trickster type content
And substitution poodle/baby
Not only are jokes told by somewhat older kids not too great for younger kids, but not all adult-generated stories with violence good for kids
Recall Aesop's fables
Grasshopper and Ant &endash; who is kid going to identify with, how will he feel
Hans Christian Anderson and Little Mermaid
Little Match Girl
Adult perspective of death of part of self, death of own childhood
Greg and the Little Tin Soldier on TV
Marshak stories &endash; so cute!
NEED FOR FANTASY
Tale offers reassurance for child's feelings of stupidity and inadequacy
Many things that are of concern to child much better handled in fantasy world
Not only violent feelings, as above
But sexual feelings &endash; kid not ready to handle association of love of horses and horse-riding with sex
Much less explicit articulation of Oedipal feelings
Fantasy better because child wants to win out over parent and does not want to at same time
If kid can win out over parent, who will protect kid?
Kid knows damn well that he not too capable of caring for self
Much better to have character in tale kill giant
(And thus permit release of angry feelings against father)
Than have realistic little boy in photo book outsmart adult
Wise-ass kids on TV, taking care of parents (esp. single parents)
The terror of the latch-key kids
Picture books shown to me by Aldrich &endash; book where you write in your own name and all sorts of other relevant data as applies to you and your family
Nice moral lessons, nice photographs, but …
Kids fascination with dinosaurs &endash; violent and horrible and VERY FAR REMOVED
Critique other cartoons
Already mentioned Barney
Old cartoons had LOTS of animals
Animal actors removes story from reality and lets it deal with those things that are important to a kid, but can't really be handled except in symbolic form
The fact that it is a CARTOON is also a method of removal
Current cartoons
Arthur the Aardvark &endash; and the situations are those of concern to kids, like sibling rivalry, but treated in too realistic a fashion
Recess and Pepper Ann &endash; cartoon, but children, not animals and fairly realistic situations
Contrast to Southpark &endash; VERY flat and cartoon
Bettelheim would argue that this is for those who were deprived of fantasy in childhood and need to get their dose as teenagers
Other stuff that kids watch
Mutant League
Pokemon and Monster Rancher
Starship Trooper Chronicles