Based on Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading, the child’s presence is what causes parental problems and in Snow White’s story, her stepmother hates her out of jealousy. Bettleheim further explores this idea by mentioning how Snow White being a little girl would only think about her father’s love without a thought to how that might affect her stepmom. I think this relates to Connie from, “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates because in the first paragraph, in Connie’s eyes, her mother is always complaining about her caring so much about her beauty because her looks have faded, and she comes after Connie because of jealousy. Bettleheim also talks about how the hunter/father figure in the story tries to placate both sides and in doing so he fails to take care of both of them. This compares to Connie’s father who is never around resulting in Connie and her mother’s disagreements.
Daily Archives: November 27, 2022
“When the tender, loving care of the parent of the same sex is not strong enough to build up ever more important positive ties in the naturally jealous oedipal child, and with it set the process of identification working against this jealousy, then the latter dominates the child’s emotional life. Since a narcissistic (step)mother is an unsuitable figure to relate to or identify with, Snow White, if she were a real child, could not help being intensely jealous of her mother and all her advantages and powers. If a child cannot permit himself to feel his jealousy of a parent (this is very threatening to his security), he projects his feelings onto this parent. Then “I am jealous of all the advantages and prerogatives of Mother” turns into the wishful thought: “Mother is jealous of me.” The feeling of inferiority is defensively turned into a feeling of superiority.” (Bettleheim 204) “In “Snow White,” as in “Little Red Riding Hood,” a male who can be viewed as an unconscious representation of the father appears—the hunter who is ordered to kill Snow White, but instead saves her life. Who else but a father substitute would seem to acquiesce to the stepmother’s dominance and nevertheless, for the child’s sake, dare to go against the queen’s will? ” (Bettleheim 204-205) I found it interesting how Bettleheim highlights the psychological aspect of how inferiority and superiority affect a child and parent relationship and the outcomes from it. In a child-and-parent relationship, a child looks up to their parent for guidance. Parents are there to help raise their children and teach them lessons that will help them grow into well-rounded individuals. Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is an example of a superiority complex between a mother and daughter […]
In Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story many parts come out to me as interesting. For example, in his analysis of the story he didn’t just view it from the children’s point of view but also different parents point of view. only from a single parent’s prospective but from many prospective. Bettleheim take from parents think negative of the story “Some parents fear that their children may get carried away by their fantasies” then reply to that view with carful research and he not only gave this one fear but many more like “parents fear that a child’s mind may become so overfed by fairy-tale fantasies as to neglect learning to cope with reality.” is another example that he gave these ideas gave very good contredition to the idea that he was getting at that the fairytale is not all bad for children. I personally agree with him because aren’don’t a lot of religious story take part away from fairtale as well?
