I found this observation quite insightful: “We are all expelled eventually from
the original paradise of infancy, where all our wishes were fulfilled without any effort on our part. Learning about good and evil—gaining knowledge—seems to split our personality in two: the red chaos of unbridled emotions, the id; and the white purity of our conscience, the superego. As we grow up, we vacillate between being overcome by the turmoil of the first and the rigidity of the second (the tight lacing, and the immobility enforced by the coffin). Adulthood can be reached only when these inner contradictions are resolved and a new awakening of the mature ego is achieved, in which red and white coexist harmoniously.” (Bettelheim 214)
I find it insightful because a lot of fairy tales tend to have some underlying context involving coming-of-age, maturing into adulthood and the perils of naivety. Snow white was given multiple chances to avoid danger as instructed by the seven dwarves, but she fell victim to the tricks and lies from her evil stepmother. The story serves the purpose of providing valuable lessons. The idea that one must overcome their idealistic and dewy-eyed outlook on the world because the world is designed to be chaotic and that nothing is at it seems so one should be prepared to defend from forces that wish harm especially those who you can consider family and/or friend. The other lesson is that jealousy rarely ends well for the person who is feeling it such as the stepmother who later was punished and was sentence to wear iron shoes with hot coal inside them and was ordered to dance until she died.
2 thoughts on “Alex Barrios-Discussion 14”
Alex, you have chosen an excellent quote from the Bettleheim article. You are so right that often fairytales are coming-of-age stories with a cautionary element. It is worth noting that Connie in “Where Are You Going . . .” has not been protected, nor have her parents provided education for her as the dwarfs do for Snow White. Both Snow White and Connie are the victims of their adolescent vanity and desire, but Snow White gets a chance to learn and grow up (and marry a prince).
Well put. Which makes “Where are you going..” a far more compelling story because we are not given much details as far as Connie’s outcome. Ideally, we’d hope that she’s fine to some degree and perhaps she’ll have the opportunity to learn from her mistakes but we are not given that and truthfully I enjoy that ending. We don’t know and will never know. Fairy tales while they provide some underlying lesson, they tend to exhibit some kind of “guarantee”. An example would be no matter how many snow white failed to heed the warnings of the dwarves, she somehow through luck and convenience overcome her perils. Protagonists in these types of stories often have what we call “Plot Armor” where the author at times want to give an advantage to the main character so as to maintain the protagonist’s integrity. However, Connie did not exhibit that, If anything it felt as though she was written to be intentionally despised. Not that I myself despised her as a character but the writing felt as though the author hated Connie and wanted to put her through so much mental distress that she gave in by voluntarily open the jaws of a shark and climbed right on in to be devoured metaphorically speaking. Nonetheless it was a fun read.