Posted: November 27th, 2022

Exercise 9.8

Exercise 9.8

Read the below piece closely, compose two paragraphs. The first paragraph should summarize the passage; the second paragraph should be evaluative, stating whether you agree or disagree with the author’s position and the central comparisons and contrasts made. Be specific about why you do or do not agree, and use examples for support.

Fairy Tales and Modern Stories

The shortcomings of the realistic stories with which many parents have replaced fairy tales are suggested by a comparison of two such stories — “The Little Engine That Could” and “The Swiss Family Robinson” — with the fairy tale “Rapunzel.” “The Little Engine That Could” encourages the child to believe that if he tries hard and does not give up, he will finally succeed. A young adult has recalled how much impressed she was at the age of seven when her mother read her this story. She became convinced that one’s attitude indeed affects one’s achievements — that if she would now approach a task with the conviction that she could conquer it, she would succeed. A few days later, this child encountered in first grade a challenging situation: she was trying to make a house out of paper, gluing various sheets together. But her house continually collapsed. Frustrated, she began to seriously doubt whether her idea of building such a paper house could be realized. But then the story of “The Little Engine That Could” came to her mind; twenty years later, she recalled how at that moment she began to sing to herself the magic formula “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . . ” So she continued to work on her paper house, and it continued to collapse. The project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees) ended in complete defeat, with this little girl convinced that she had failed where anybody else could have succeeded, as the Little Engine had. Since “The Little Engine That Could” was a story set in the present, using such common props as engines that pulled trains, this girl had tried to apply its lesson directly in her daily life, without any fantasy elaboration, and had experienced a defeat that still rankled twenty years later.

Very different was the impact of “The Swiss Family Robinson” on another little girl. The story tells how a shipwrecked family manages to live an adventurous, idyllic, constructive, and pleasurable life — a life very different from this child’s own existence. Her father had to be away from home a great deal, and her mother was mentally ill and spent protracted periods in institutions. So the girl was shuttled from her home to that of an aunt, then to that of a grandmother, and back home again, as the need arose. During these years, the girl read over and over again the story of this happy family who lived on a desert island, where no member could be away from the rest of the family. Many years later, she recalled what a warm, cozy feeling she had when, propped up by a few large pillows, she forgot all about her present predicament as she read this story. As soon as she had finished it, she started to read it over again. The happy hours she spent with the Family Robinson in that fantasy land permitted her not to be defeated by the difficulties that reality presented to her. She was able to counteract the impact of harsh reality by imaginary gratifications. But since the story was not a fairy tale, it merely gave her a temporary escape from her problems; it did not hold out any promise to her that her life would take a turn for the better.

Consider the effect that “Rapunzel” had on a third girl. This girl’s mother had died in a car accident. The girl’s father, deeply upset by what had happened to his wife (he had been driving the car), withdrew entirely into himself and handed the care of his daughter over to a nursemaid, who was little interested in the girl and gave her complete freedom to do as she liked. When the girl was seven, her father remarried, and, as she recalled it, it was around that time that “Rapunzel” became so important to her. Her stepmother was clearly the witch of the story, and she was the girl locked away in the tower. The girl recalled that she felt akin to Rapunzel because the witch had forcibly worked her way into the girl’s life. The girl felt imprisoned in her new home, in contrast to her life of freedom with the nursemaid. She felt as victimized as Rapunzel, who, in her tower, had so little control over her life. Rapunzel’s long hair was the key to the story. The girl wanted her hair to grow long, but her stepmother cut it short; long hair in itself became the symbol of freedom and happiness to her. The story convinced her that a prince (her father) would come someday and rescue her, and this conviction sustained her. If life became too difficult, all she needed was to imagine herself as Rapunzel, her hair grown long, and the prince loving and rescuing her.

“Rapunzel” suggests why fairy tales can offer more to the child than even such a very nice children’s story as “The Swiss Family Robinson.” In “The Swiss Family Robinson,” there is no witch against whom the child can discharge her anger in fantasy and on whom she can blame the father’s lack of interest. “The Swiss Family Robinson” offers escape fantasies, and it did help the girl who read it over and over to forget temporarily how difficult life was for her. But it offered no specific hope for the future. “Rapunzel,” on the other hand, offered the girl a chance to see the witch of the story as so evil that by comparison even the “witch” stepmother at home was not really so bad. “Rapunzel” also promised the girl that her rescue would be effected by her own body, when her hair grew long. Most important of all, it promised that the “prince” was only temporarily blinded — that he would regain his sight and rescue his princess. This fantasy continued to sustain the girl, though to a less intense degree, until she fell in love and married, and then she no longer needed it. We can understand why at first glance the stepmother, if she had known the meaning of “Rapunzel” to her stepdaughter, would have felt that fairy tales are bad for children. What she would not have known was that unless the stepdaughter had been able to find that fantasy satisfaction through “Rapunzel,” she would have tried to break up her father’s marriage and that without the hope for the future which the story gave her, she might have gone badly astray in life.

It seems quite understandable that when children are asked to name their favorite fairy tales, hardly any modern tales are among their choices. Many of the new tales have sad endings, which fail to provide the escape and consolation that the fearsome events in the fairy tale require if the child is to be strengthened for meeting the vagaries of his life. Without such encouraging conclusions, the child, after listening to the story, feels that there is indeed no hope for extricating himself from his despairs. In the traditional fairy tale, the hero is rewarded and the evil person meets his well-deserved fate, thus satisfying the child’s deep need for justice to prevail. How else can a child hope that justice will be done to him, who so often feels unfairly treated? And how else can he convince himself that he must act correctly, when he is so sorely tempted to give in to the asocial proddings of his desires?

(Bettelheim 44-46)

Order | Check Discount