SLFK 211 - October 15, 2002
Bettelheim focus on developing faculty for thinking out problems
Such as violent and other unacceptable feelings
WITHOUT acting out
Need to develop a fantasy world is what helps little kids develop this facility
And, of course, tales help little kids by providing images
Narrative structures and the like
As an adult, I can think that I want to do something harmful to someone and not do it
Thoughts can be quite DIRECT
Grandma and the electric chair
Child - something that direct may not be a good idea
Child may fear that something like that may come to pass
Needs fantasy world where the destructive thoughts can be directed against a witch
The whole thing is quite tenuous
You want child to be non-violent, but if you withhold exposure to violent material, you fail to provide the child with the means for dealing with inevitable violent thoughts
You provide inappropriate violent material and you scare the poopy out of the kid and make him incapable of dealing with anything, or fail to communicate
Those adult stories for kids that are supposed to be cute, like the little mouse story
So what you need is folklore
And for the age group in question, magic tales
Please note that some folklore, while good for older kids, like dead baby jokes, may be quite scary to little children
Bettelheim mentions myths as being inappropriate because they do not have a happy ending, a positive resolution
But other folklore forms can inappropriate also
Magic tales, unlike some other folklore forms, have an appeal to MANY age groups
Adults like them, whether for a sense of comfort
And they are used in adult therapy, found among prisoners
Or to escape into a fantasy world
Fairytales are the place where THINGS GO RIGHT
The wicked get punished and the just are rewarded
And this is pretty pleasant for adults, as well as kids
Anyway, kids most certainly need to develop a fantasy world on their way to developing an integrated personality
One where there is a balance between internal (thoughts) and external (actions)
But those who fear the violence in tales and clean them up may create kids who have had fantasy deprivation
Results of fantasy deprivation
Fantasy in teenagers who have not had development of fantasy world in childhood
They become obsessed with fantasy worlds of their own
Dungeons and Dragons
Myst and other computer games
Simcity, Simant, Sims
Age of empires
Various Nintendo and Playstation games
Zelda
Card games like Magic where there was a whole cult and tournaments and the like
Also - unusual interest in the gross and disgusting
Interest in gross cartoons - Southpark
Bevis and Butthead
Interest in web sites like Joe Cartoon
Some of these are extreme (and gross) fantasy substitutes
Some are not extreme at all, in fact quite nice
What can be extreme about them is if teenager becomes obsessed
All he or she does is play Myst or Morrowind, or Halo
Possible also to have teens with NO FANTASY at all
No ability to distinguish internal and external worlds
MUST act out angry feelings
Parallel to deprivation of dreams (even if not of sleep) in adulthood - used as torture device (How to tell when someone is dreaming)
You have to have dreams; you have to have fantasy
Deprivation of dreams leads to:
Emotional disturbance
Same effect for tales
Tales provide content, images for dreams?
Problems of deprivation of fantasy:
At U Va: Echols couple who kill her parents
The various high school massacres
Jonesboro
Columbine
Case in Loudon County where girl has dad killed with swords
Reaction - get rid of all violent stuff
Me - no, develop outlet for violent feelings
Second part of Bettelheim and the second aspect of the Bettelheim controversy, namely his insistence on sexual feelings in the little ones
THE STAGES
Hansel and Gretel - orality
Little Red Riding Hood - sex and girl's Oedipal
Jack and the Beanstalk - boy's Oedipal
Snow White - parent/child Oedipal conflict and Freudian inversion - attribution of own desires to usurp onto parent
Also latency and symbol of sleep
Cinderella - post-Oedipal and sibling rivalry
Animal Groom cycle - puberty
Hansel and Gretel
Children forced out into the world because of lack of food in house
Mark path with food
They are oral, eating, all devouring
Eat house of witch
Parallels of "house" of witch and body of mother
Fantasy, wish-fulfillment - everything good, all cookies and candy
Reaction of witch - tries to eat in turn
Final outcome - witch cooked like food
Return to parents and harmonious life with them
Male/female roles and boy and girl taking turns being in control of self and own impulses - being representation of ego
Boy with marking of path
But not with eating
Boy target of witch's oral aggression and girl to the rescue
(aside on Erikson -- boys, girls and anatomy is destiny - differences in children's play by gender)
Little Red Riding Hood
Sexuality, but contrast to Perrault where sexuality explicit
Here more subtle and multiplicity of function
Little Red Riding Hood leaves home willingly (unlike Hansel and Gretel) - she is older
Has basket of food, but food not primary concern
Male figure important (wolf)
Versus female witch/mother of earlier childhood and H and G
Wolf - male seducer and animal, asocial aspect of self
Color red
Given by (grand)mother - premature attractiveness
Comments on how pretty she is in red, will wear nothing else
Wolf sent to grandmother
Both tryst aspect and
Go to mature woman who can deal with sexuality
Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood in bed
"Grandma what big ---- you have"
Arms and legs to hold …
Hunter as mature and desirable male
Controls id impulses - desire to shoot wolf
Controls impulse for later gratification and thus able to rescue two females - LRRR and grandma
Jack and the Beanstalk
According to B. - two parts
The trades
7 cows
First 3 trade for - magic stick
Singing bee
Fiddle
Jack uses these three to win princess
Task to get princess - must make her laugh
Bee and fiddle make her smile
Stick beats up other suitors - she laughs
They marry and go to bed - for 3 nights Jack does nothing
Princess complains and Jack thrown to wild beasts
Stick beats up beasts
Jack and princess live happily ever after
Jack shows control of stick (esp. over beasts)
Not just power and aggression; prowess = control
Princess recognizes live happily ever after
Beanstalk part
Milky White - cow, also symbolizes mother
Jack now alone with mother, father gone
Traded for some beans
Beans thrown out window by mother
Beanstalk grows at night and Jack's journeys up beanstalk occur at night
Journeys to utopian, narcissistic land of plenty
Comfort in own body and esp. newly discovered magical part (which grows at night)
But in land of plenty, in heaven - ogre, giant
Both angry father - angry about what Jack has been up to (note Jack's alliance with the giant's wife - like wished for Oedipal alliance with mother)
And ogre, animalistic, uncontrolled part of self
Mother/giant's wife help Jack out in various ways,
But ultimately must control (chop down) himself
Subsidiary points - insecurity in new masculine role - leads to regression to orality - Jack's behavior at table of giant
His inability to take care of mother when left alone with her and need to trade only cow
His trade of it for something that produces beanstalk
Egotistical (and fearful) regression into self - autoeroticism
Jack looking at hairy legs of giant coming down beanstalk
His fear of sexuality
Snow White and the Jealous Queen
Oedipal problems - the myth of Oedipus
Competition of parents and children, desire for opposite sex parent
The controversy surrounding Freud
Sexual desire of children for parents?
Or reverse - parents for children?
Inversion and the attribution of one's own unacceptable desires to person with whom they would most cause conflict
The symbolism of red and white - purity and sexuality
The blood on the snow when Snow White is conceived
The two halves of the apple brought to Snow White living with dwarves by step-mother, wicked and jealous queen
The seduction scene of Snow White in home of dwarves
By combs, laced-up corset, apple
Snow White falls into sleep and latency
Oedipal stage age 3-6
Then latency - period of cooties
Then sexual awakening a puberty
Latency - dormancy of sexual feelings
Focus to parent, switch-off to facilitate refocus to mate
Period of industry
The dwarves and what they do - work in mines
They are sexual and pre-sexual at same time
Go through tunnels of mine
But small men - miniature
Industry in Snow White - what she does about their house?
How she endears self or what they ask of her
Glass coffin and awakening to prince
Sleeping Beauty also has motif of latency portrayed as sleep
Her also briars around castle and thorns
Sleeping Beauty as sexuality and latency
13 fairies and menstruation
Number of times per year
Age at onset
Tower, key in door, spindle that pricks finger and blood, given by old woman
Latency and sleep
Sex and babies
Or thorns open only when she is ready
Cinderella
Oedipal fantasy and sibling rivalry
Fairy godmother is pre-Oedipal mother
All good, all-giving
And either fairy as here or the "dead" mother - who sometimes comes back to help and guide via voice, magic flute
Gives children magical agents from her grave
Sibling rivalry with the two sisters
She starts out as simpleton
Sits in ashes
How child feels - nobody appreciates me, nobody understands me
The ball, midnight and the slipper
Symbolism of slipper according to Bettelheim
As fur slipper - vagina
As glass slipper - easily broken - like hymen
Prince going around with slipper - female symbol
Indicates his desire for female organ
Parallel to symbolism of wedding ring
When one ring ceremony - old
He produces female symbol - ring
She inserts male symbol - her finger
Tried on two older sisters - no good
Emphasis on largeness of male and smallness of female
Note what sisters do to get slipper to fit
Blood and castration fears
Extension of penis envy/fear
Women bleed there because they were once castrated
Cutting/castration as making self more feminine, smaller
Recognition of the sexual message of fairytales by the folk themselves
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Someone is coming
Seven little dents
Little Red Riding Hood
Eat, eat, eat
You're going to eat me, just like in the story
Animal Groom cycle
Rediscovery of sex after early Oedipal repression and revulsion
Revulsion to sex and fear - necessary in time when focused on parent
Overcoming this revulsion and fear to deal with mate
Fairytales do it better than sex manuals
Manuals ignore fear
Help build same sorts of complexes as discussed earlier
Tales recognize fear - deal with it and help eliminate
In animal groom tales
Beast made beast by older female
Appears as beast during the day
Conscious reflection
Social pressure
At night, in midst of pleasure, appears as handsome prince
Beast gradually made man - but not too soon
Role of father in helping girl adjust to animal husband and love and respect him
Animal husbands gross and disgusting
Frog
Pig - George C. Scott as the beast in Beauty and...
Beast of Beauty and .... other versions
Animal brides cute and pretty
Swan Maiden
Discuss Frog Prince and Beauty and the Beast
Frog Prince
Stupid and egotistical, irresponsible girl
Loses ball, makes various promises to frog to get ball back
Dark, damp well
Ball goes down there
Frog lives there
B. on frog as phallus
Father makes her keep promises
Frog/male not mature either
Wants to act like child
Sit on her lap
Eat from her plate
Sleep in her bed
She hurls him against the wall