English literature and culture

Histories ou Contes du temps passé, avec des moralités (Stories or Fairy Tales

1697:

from Past Times, with Morals), Contes de ma mère l’Oye (Tales of

also known as

Mother Goose).

“To sum up, Perrault's work of transcription gave an enormous contribution to the

bourgeoisification of the fairy tale: as a matter of fact, following the publication of his own

and other French collections, the genre became a weapon in the hands of the upper

classes who needed to maintain the status quo and to uphold the values of patriarchal

society. Furthermore, it was exactly in this period that, for the first time, the fairy tale

began to be used also for the education of children and young people; in fact, Perrault

changed the characters and modified the plots of the old tales in order to “civilize children

and to prepare them for roles which he idealistically believed they should play in society”

(Zipes, 1991)”

The brothers Grimm

They were born in 1785 and 1786)

Wilhelm studied law and Jacob studied Germanistics.

In 1806, they began to collect folk tales from relatives and childhood friends from their

homeland (Hessen)

Their aim was relating the tales as they were told by servants, maids, poor people.

They wanted to go back to the childhood of the country, to return to a golden age of

an innocent past (nationalistic purposes: spirit of the nation): they saw children as

symbols of purity and innocence although they did not collect the tales for children

(violent aspects):

“the contents must not be changed but the awkward wording of the informants had to

be modified” (Degh, 1979).

They eliminated vulgarities, rough language and blasphemous expressions, but not

cruelties.

The tales contain violent punishments (Hansel and Gretel, the witch eats the children).

Addition of more details and embellishments, corrections of some mistakes, use of

direct instead of indirect speech, insertion of formulas at the beginning and end of

tales. 17

13.2 The Uses of Enchantment by Bettelheim (1976)

It’s a book about the fairytales and it has two parts of introduction; it has a

psychoanalytic approach.

Bettelheim was of Jewish origins and then, at the time of the Nazi domination of

Germany, he went to the United States, where he published his major works; he also

worked in the field of medicine (interested in autism).

by addressing the unconscious of children in a symbolical

He was convinced that “

language that is similar to dreams, fairy tales would help the young deal with

unspoken fears and desires”.

He recognizes to the fairytale a healing and liberating power (transmitted by oral

tradition).

“Through the centuries […] during which, in their retelling, fairy tales became ever

more refined, they came to convey at the same time overt and covert meanings – to

speak simultaneously to all levels of the human personality, communicating in a

manner which reaches the uneducated mind of the child as well as that of the

sophisticated adult” (Bettelheim, 5-6).

Fairytales are for children but not only for them since they derive from folk tales (not

written for children); so it’s a genre which addresses both ages of men: childhood

and adult age.

These tales were orally transmitted in the same ways every time so they couldn’t be

put under discussion: they had both open and hidden (brought up by Angela Carter)

meanings (human imagination cannot be imprisoned) that were transmitted.

1. Fairy tales and the existential predicament by Bettelheim

At the center of the fairytale there is the child: fairytales concern also the

psychological problems of growing up gain a feeling of

so the need to

selfhood and self-worth.

In order to understand the conscious, he has to understand the existence of the

unconscious: this doesn’t mean that he has to abandon his self to the impulses of the

unconscious but to cope them; he has to learn to know and regulate them so how to

live with them.

The function of the fairytale is to fit unconscious content into conscious fantasies

which enable him/her to deal with that content: fairytales address and engage the

child’s imagination and they stimulate it and by doing this they try to give a better

direction to the child’s life.

Our behavior is determined by our unconscious and therefore the repressed aspects of

crippled personality, if we repress the unconscious our personality

our personality can mean a

does not develop fully and cannot reach a self-fulfillment.

Parents try to protect the child by removing what troubles the child, so sometimes

they refuse to let their child know that what goes wrong in life is due to our natures, so

they try to make the child believe that all men are good.

They try to ignore dark side of man, that it does not exist. 18

Fairytales reveal that the struggle against severe difficulties in life is an intrinsic part

of human existence: the message is not to shy away but fairytales give suggestions in

symbolic form in order to help the child grow into maturity.

Difficulties can be the death of a mother or a father (protagonist is an orphan like

Cindarella Snowhite),

or or the father might decide that is time for him to retire and he

has to choose among his sons who is the one that will take his place; usually in order

to do this he presents trials to understand the courage of his sons so the protagonist

has to prove worthy.

So in fairytales there’s a existential dilemma presented in simplified situations.

The characters in fairytales are usually clearly drawn (not ambiguous), details are

eliminated, they are typical and stereotyped, in the world of traditional fairytales there is

(duality between good and evil).

the good on one hand and the evil on the other

Characters are not ambivalent: there is a polarization.

Also evil has its attractions, the protagonists have to resist temptations of evil

characters and forces. The punishment is a limited deterrent to crime and the child

usually identifies with one of the two sides: the child is attracted to the struggles

of the hero, participates to his struggles (touches his emotional spheres).

The inner and outer struggles of the hero imprint morality on the child, he learns from

the character’s adventures. Puss in boots,

Amoral fairy tales: fairytales that lack a moral; like that is only a

celebration of the cleverness of the cat (even the meekest can succeed in life).

Fairytales address existential anxieties: the need to be loved, the fear of being

thought worthless, the love of life, the fear of death and solutions proposed in ways

that the child can grasp.

The ending of the fairytale:

“If they have not died, they are still alive

1. Brothers Grimm: ”: goes back to the

fear of death. And they lived happily ever after

2. The formula then developed into “ ”: the fear of

death is here substituted with one of the other existential anxieties, the

characters here have reached the emotional security of existence and the

permanence of relation.

This can dissipate the fear of death: they’ll live for a long time afterward, happy

and in pleasure.

“The fairytale is future oriented and guides the child – in terms that he can understand

in both his conscious and unconscious mind – to relinquish his infantile dependency

wishes and achieve a more satisfying independent existence” .

Image of the protagonist that leaves home and abandons his dependency wishes, his

path is towards a more independent existence.

Also the image of the isolated man who nevertheless is capable of achieving

meaningful and rewarding relations with the world around him: fear of loneliness.

2. Child’s need for magic “What is the world really like?”

The questions that the man and the child have are: and

“How can I truly be myself?”, so very relevant existential questions. 19

Myths give definite answers to them while fairytales suggestive ones: they do not

prescribe but leave to the child’s fantasizing whether and how to apply to himself what

the story reveals about life and human nature.

If he is able to apply what the story reveals about life and human nature, he will

progress in his educational path.

The fairy tale conforms to the way a child thinks and experiences the world, it accords

with his/her worldview: formulas are repetitive so the child can memorize the tale, the

fairytale adopts the worldview of the child.

The child, until the age of puberty, has an animistic way of thinking – said Piaget – not

a rational one; so the child assumes that his relations to the inanimate world are of

one pattern with those to the animate world of people.

The child is self-centered: expects the world to comply with him/her; he/she expects

the animals talk to him/her, understand and feel with him/her, guide him/her.

Moreover, there’s no sharp line between living and dead things (character comes back

from the dead).

The fairytale contains only statements which are intelligible in terms of the child’s

existing knowledge and emotional preoccupations carry conviction for him (style and

structure of the fairytale).

Vital (existential) questions are not in the abstract but mainly as they pertain to him:

he worries not whether there is justice for individual man, but whether he will be

treated justly (he conducts all the events to himself).

Fairy tales provide answers to pressing questions, many of which the child becomes

“Who am I?”,

aware of only as he follows the stories, as the main questions of the

tales.

14. Children literature

Perceptions of Childhood in the Victorian Fin-de-siecle

J. Sattaur, in his books

 «Imaginary Childhoods»,

quotes a critic and his essay, V. Krips, in order to say

“children’s literature bears the unmistakable traces of the social relations

that

that construct it. Written published and generally bought by adults for children,

the genre adjusts to the dimensions and particularities of its market as it

fashions itself for an ever-renewed audience, an audience which comprises not

just the child but the adult too”.

Children literature is connected with social relations and social context; it is

addressed to children but the audience includes also adults (who buy and

choose the book). “Children’s literature per se does not exist. Literature

J. Zipes (2002) said:

 intended for young readers is always written for the author him-or herself and

for editors”, who writes and publishes children’s literature are adult people.

“Even its child-directed products reflect the adult writer’s

S. Gilead (1991):

 intentions and satisfy adult readers’ notions about children’s tastes and needs

as well as fulfilling the needs of the adult societies to which the children

belong”. The stories respond to the image adults have of th