Week 14 Discussion

Some Observations, in Bettleheim’s oriented reading of there that I have learn and that are relevant to the reading, are, the way how fairy tales are important and should be more taken seriously or read seriously, because they have important readings or messages. For example in the story, where are you going, where have you been,” the messages that it wants to tell us, or talk about is sometimes people are more worry about the importance of how other view them or judge and how these act or way of been brings negative results. Also in the Snow White fairy tale, the message that the author wants us to observe is the good vs evil, or the bad and danger of one self vanity. These are examples of how some of these fairy tales are actually important, or bring important messages for us to see and learn. Even though parents feel, that these are awkward, or bad readings for the kids or a bad influence for everyone it is really not.

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.

“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?

Some observations I made Between both stories is that they both show the innocence of childhood and having to follow this traditional way of being ladylike, it also goes on to show how much materialism is expected in Snow White specifically it shows thy at material things (the Apple in this case) leads her to wickedness similar to the story of Adam and eve. Both stories seem to have somewhat of a religious connotation to it as well which is shown specifically in Snow White with the Apple.

My observation in Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story that stroked me as insightful and relevant to “Little Snow White.” was realizing that there is  a pattern of people not being able to let things go. In “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by Anne Sexton, and “Little Snow White,” even though they’re the same story one is a lot different for children. the step mother wouldn’t let Snow White live, the step mothers jealousy couldn’t let Snow White live. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, the grandmother refused to shut her mouth and let the serial Killers do what they intended to do but instead she had to prolong it because she couldn’t fathom the fact that they would kill her. that goes to say people don’t know how to accept things for how they are. I would like to include my observation from Bettleheim psychologically oriented reading is “all children are jealous, if not of their parents, then of the privileges the parents enjoy as adults.” I do believe all children are jealous of their parents, I feel like it stems from the children not being able to do what they want to do when they want to do it but they watch their parents do any and everything they want and it can me a little upsetting until you get older and/or have kids of your own then those children start to understand life isn’t what is seems.

Reading Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented story and also reading both of the stories “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, or the poem “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by Anne Sexton have changed my perspective view of fairy tales. Fairy tales are for children, which are meant to bring joy and bring them fantasies with magical and imaginary characters and land. After reading Bettleheim’s stories and being an adult, now I see what message these fairy tales show. Bettleheim basically talks about how fairy-tales help to improve children’s cognitive development. For example Snow White shows how insecurities don’t justify your mean attitude. Also teaches about the dangers of greed and how a young woman goes throughout adulthood, and for the story Where Have You Been it message is for children not to talk to strangers. These are stories and topics I would like to discuss with children and show them how to understand life through fairy tales.

One thing that strikes me as relevant from Bettelheim’s Fear of Fantasy to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs By Anne Sexton’s poem is the nativity and broad imagination of young adults and children. Bettelheim’s in-depth analysis of child psychology goes into the openness of their imagination. How children will accept what you tell them as true and believe in it wholeheartedly. Whereas adults, as they get older, become more jaded and less inclined to believe things. This innocence of the child mind is shown in Snow White. As shown in the poem, when she manages to escape and live with the dwarfs, they tell her to not leave the house and only to trust them. However, when her step-mother tracks her down, she disguises herself on numerous occasions to try to kill Snow White and every time, Snow White falls for her tricks. Just like in Bettelheim’s analysis, Snow White has a very open mind and is accepting of new ideas,

In the poem “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by Anne Sexton, each of the stanzas shows how important it is to be ladylike and follow the rules of chastity. This poem was more centered around being a pure woman and untouched. As well as, being a quiet girl and saying yes to everything. “The virgin is a lovely number” (Sexton). It is good to not have too many sexual partners, and everyone would be more attracted to you and like you more. Rumors won’t is spread around. When she encounters the seven dwarves Sexton specifically says “..walked three times around Snow White, the sleeping virgin” (Sexton). She says this to show how important it is as it was described to her when saying her name. There could have been other characteristics that she could have been addresses with, but she chose virgin, which stood out the most of Snow White.

Something that stood out to me in the analysis by Bruno Bettleheim, when he explained that fairy tales aren’t really about possibilities, they’re more about their desirability.  The connection between the 3 readings, “Where are you going, where have you been?” by Joyce Carol, or the poem ” Snow White and the Seven Dwarf’s” By Anne Sexton, is the desirability.  After reading the analysis, it became the easiest thing to spot because it was my own desires. One was to watch evil fail and good to prevail.  I found myself day dreaming about entering the story to protect snow white too. In the day dreams, I was in full knights uniform ( I like to fit the part) and stood hundreds of feet tall.  But in reality, would I have wanted to be there? absolutely not. Would I have been the knight who took down the witch? no, that’s terrifying.  However, I loved the idea of being in this world of a family of dwarfs who were wholesome and caring and brave enough to offer Snow White sanctuary from her evil step-mother.

It was intriguing to read Bruno Bettleheims comparison of Snow White to Oedipus, but it makes complete sense. It’s interesting how the events of both stories are set into motion by parents who are jealous of their children, one being biological (King Laius Oedipus father) the other being Snow Whites stepmother (The Queen). In the end this becomes the undoing of both. That same narcissism that brings forth the King and Queen of their respective stories’ demises; It also is the obstacle that kills Oedipus and almost kills Snow White as well…Twice! With Oedipus it comes from his disbelief in his fulfillment of the prophecy. Snow Whites narcissism is shown when she opens the door not once but twice after the first time, she is nearly killed by her stepmother and being explicitly forbade from letting anyone in by the Dwarves. It’s interesting that this same narcissism is the driving force in “Where are you going, where have you been?”  Connie (The protagonist) Is vain and narcissistic, we know this because she compares her sister to herself by calling her older sister “plain looking” in comparison, she only looks into the eyes of others to see her own reflection. This Ironically is her undoing as well. Connie is set upon by Arnold Friend because of how she looks. Noticeably she tries to make herself look more “mature” when she goes to the teen diner and is spotted by Arnold. When he appears at her house instead of instinctively going into her home and calling for help when Arnold appears at her home, she instead entertains his presence until it’s too late and the threat of danger becomes more eminent. Snow White does the same. Despite being poisoned the first time she fails to recognize the danger by falling into the […]

The story of Snow White is a story we all know very well. From a young age, we are exposed to this story of a beautiful young lady living out in a hut with dwarves. Following them as the story goes along the dwarves take her in as a part of their own. The story till I read Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story was the innocent and rather light-hearted story. One of the best examples that Bettleheim talks about in the beginning is “Here the problems the story sets out to solve are intimated: sexual innocence, whiteness, is contrasted with sexual desire, symbolized by the red blood. Fairy tales prepare the child to accept what is otherwise a most upsetting event: sexual bleeding, as in menstruation”. I had never thought about Snow White in such a way where sexual innuendos would come to mind. As a kid, I did not have that active of imagination but as people get older and learn of these things I can see how these stories become significantly less innocent.

Renown psychologist Bruno Bettelheim has implied that Disney’s work is nothing more than, “empty minded entertainment” , and fully expresses that “children now meet fairy tales only in prettified and simplified versions which subdue their meaning and rob them of deeper significance”. Bettelheim is very adamant that fairy tales are nothing short of quintessential for a child’s development. However, despite Disney’s vast array of fairy tale interpretations, Bettelheim argues that the only way for these stories to truly inspire a child’s imagination it must be told from the direct source: “The true meaning and impact of a fairy tale can be appreciated, its enchantment can be experienced, only from the story in its original form”.   In Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” By Joyce Carol Oates both stories have the similarities which is quite noticeable. For example in both stories the authors empathize on parental complexes and how it affects the main characters. One of the most interesting thing I noticed between those stories is how the role of father is entirely cut from the story and they don’t hold any power.

The observation in Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading I find insightful and relevant to “Littie Snow White” was “before a child can come to grips with reality, he must have some frame of reference to evaluate it” this is relevant because Snow White didn’t have that frame of reference to evaluate before coming to grips with reality which made her have a lack of sense of danger. This led to snow white continously falling for her stepmother traps.

What specific observations in Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story strike you as insightful and relevant to “Little Snow White,” “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, or the poem “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by Anne Sexton? In Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” By Joyce Carol Oates both stories touch on parental complexes and how they affect the main protagonist in both stories. In Bettleheim’s psychological reading of Snow White, he touches on the Oedipus complex the stepmom imagines is going on between Snow White and her father which creates this jealousy and motive to get rid of Snow White. The father does nothing even though traditionally and culturally the father is supposed to be the head of the household and is supposed to protect their children, especially their little girls. Snow White’s father is nowhere to be found and very absent in all the cruel things that are happening to Snow White, just like with Connie in “Where are you going, where have you been?” where Connie’s father chooses to be absent and Connie’s mother is jealous of Connie’s looks perhaps also a nod to an Oedipus complex where Connie’s mother thinks if Connie is too attractive it might attract her husband as well.

The psychoanalytic view on this story plainly addresses the dangers of narcissism not only in children, but adults as well. This was one of the more prominent themes between both Snow White (Grimm’s Fairytale Version) and Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment. The paragraph that stood out to me as a theme between the two follows as: “The story of Snow White warns of the evil consequences of narcissism for both parent and child. Snow White’s narcissism nearly undoes her as she gives in twice to the disguised queen’s enticements to make her look more beautiful, while the queen is destroyed by her own narcissism” In this quote, Bettelheim connects the queen’s successful attempt to entice Snow White to the fact that Snow White fell for it because she was blinded by her own narcissism.

Bettelheim states, “The answer to the puzzle may be found in the fact that psychoanalysis also revealed the child’s ambivalent feelings about his parents. It is perturbing to parents to realize that the child’s mind is filled not only with deep love but also with a strong hatred of his parents. Wishing to be loved by their child, parents shrink from exposing him to tales which might encourage him to think of parents as bad or rejecting.” I want to compare Bettelheim’s quote to Connie in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, the tension between Connie and her mother. Although Connie’s mother tried to look out for her, she also insulted Connie in ways that distanced each other instead of building a friendly relationship. Connie’s mother saying, “Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you’re so pretty?” is showing the mother’s jealousy towards her own child and Connie knows this so she tries to distance herself from her mother in order to be independent and do what she pleases. Connie completely ignores her mother’s criticism but importantly ignores her mother trying to protect her from getting into trouble with boys at such a young age. Connie doesn’t realize the reality and she lives in her own fantasy based on her attitude if she had just listened to her mother, her turnout wouldn’t have happened. 

I found the following observation by Bruno Bettelheim interesting and relatable for both “Snow White” and specifically “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates : “A weak father is as little use to Snow White as he was to Hansel and Gretel. The frequent appearance of such figures in fairy tales suggests that wife-dominated husbands are not exactly new to this world. More to the point, it is such fathers who either create unmanageable difficulties in the child or fail to help him solve them.This is another example of the important messages fairy tales contain for parents.” (207). I think it’s a very relatable issue for Connie’s upbringing and how she practically had no father figure growing up. It was made pretty clear that her father chose to stay out of her life for the most part and just ask mechanical questions. He neither was genuinely interested in his daughter’s life nor was he involved in educating her and sharing his wisdom as a parent. From the story we get a sense that he was just living under the same roof and being a breadwinner, leaving it up to his wife to be the educator. Unfortunately for Connie her mother’s character has a strong resemblance with the Quinn’s  narcissistic tendencies, where as a parent she showed a clear preference to Connie’s older sister who was less pretty. Which in itself is very odd as no parent should differentiate the amount of love they have for their children.

There were many observations that I found insightful to “Little Snow White” but the ones that I thought were very insightful were the use of the colors red and white and what the animals who visit snow white when she is in the coffin represent Although, I know that white is usually put hand in hand with innocence I didn’t know what red was supposed to symbolize. So when I saw that red represented Snow White and her sexual desire I didn’t believe it until I read more. The step mother showing how she eats specifically the white part of the apple had new meaning to me and it showed the step mother taking away Snow Whites innocence. This can be taken further with the animals who visit and the order they do so, The owl being wisdom then the raven being a consciousness that is mature and finally the dove being love. With Snow White eating the red part of the apple and awakening her sexual desire the animals showed how Snow White while in the coffin was maturing by becoming smarter, then having a more mature mindset, and finally she was ready for love which would not be possible in the romantic sense if innocence was still around.

In the analysis of “Snow White,” Bruno Bettleheim refers to the hunter as the father character in the story. He writes that “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”. The hunter obeys the queen’s order and takes snow white to the woods to kill her. He decided not to do that and let her go but didn’t try to save her (he thought that if he’s not going to kill her, she would probably get eaten by a wild animal in the woods). According to Bettleheim’s interpretation, the hunter comes out as a weak character, or as he claims a weak father figure. He’s not trying to save the kid from death in the woods, and also bringing back a dead animal’s lungs and liver instead, so the queen would think he killed snow white. This observation reminds me of the story from last week’s reading “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates. In both stories, the father captures as weak, and as he “fails to take a strong and definite stand” character, while the wife has the power and is more present in the story, and the child’s life. Also, both stories put a strong emphasis on beauty and it has a connection to the mother’s love. Bettleheim states that kids who don’t have strong, protective parents have to find a way to manage on their own in life, unfortunately, in the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Connie, the child couldn’t save herself.

The specific observation in Bettelheim psychologically oriented reading of the story that stroked me as insightful and relevant to “Little Snow White, by Brothers Grimm was, “The readiness with which Snow White repeatedly permits herself to be tempted by the stepmother, despite the warnings of the dwarfs, suggests how close the stepmother’s temptations are to Snow White’s inner desires” I also found this observation insightful to “Where Are you Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates. Snow White desire for the material things set forth to her by the evil queen and wanting to be around people led her to her attempted murder three times. The shiny apple led her to be foolish, although being warned multiple times already that there was nothing good for her in the world. The look of how appetizing the apple looked and the evil stepmother who was disguised, words deceived her. Just like Connie. She loved attention, and unfortunately, she fell prey to evil because of the attention she was receiving from a guy, ignoring the previous warning signs.

Although Snow-white is a familiar fairy tale, there was some different parts in it. This read was interesting, Walt Disney’s version was very cute for children, but this version was more for adults. The evil stepmother tries to kill snow-white because she was jealous and vain, the evil stepmother went as far and told the hunter to bring snow-white into the woods and kill her and to return with her heart as proof. She wanted to eat her heart because she wanted the power of immortality. The queen was tricked with a wild animal’s heart instead. When the step mother found out that snow-white was indeed alive she disguised herself as an old woman, a peasant woman to trick and killed snow-white, the poisoned comb and the poisoned apple were what she used to kill her or so she taught, but snow-white had help by the seven dwarf who was her protector. I think snow- white was very kind and trusting why she believed  the evil step mother disguised as the old woman.

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.