Research Catalog

Title

The uses of enchantment : the meaning and importance of fairy tales / Bruno Bettelheim.

Author

Bettelheim, Bruno

Publication

New York : Knopf : distributed by Random House, 1976.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

vi, 328, xi p.; 24 cm.

Summary

Discusses how fairy tales are used to educate, support, and liberate the emotions of children; how the tales reveal the child, subconsciously to himself.

Alternative Title

Meaning and importance of fairy tales

Subjects

• Folklore
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Psychoanalysis and fairy tales
• Children's stories > Psychological aspects
• Fairy tales > History and criticism
• Psychoanalysis and folklore
• Folklore and children
• Psychoanalysis

Genre/Form

• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• Folklore
• Folklore.

Note

• "A Borzoi book."
• Includes index.

Bibliography (note)

• Bibliography: p. [325]-328.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Introduction: The struggle for meaning -- Part One: A pocketful of magic -- Life divined from the inside -- "The fisherman and the Jinny": fairy tale compared to fable -- Fairy tale versus myth: optimism versus pessimism -- "The three little pigs": Pleasure principle versus reality principle -- The child's need for magic -- Vicarious satisfaction versus conscious recognition -- The importance of externalization: fantasy figures and events -- Transformations: The fantasy of the wicked stepmother -- Bringing order into chaos -- "The queen bee": achieving integration -- "Brother and sister": unifying our dual nature -- "Sindbad the seaman and Sindbad the porter ": fancy versus reality -- The frame story of "Thousand and One Nights" -- Tales of two brothers -- "The three languages": building integration -- "The three feathers": the youngest child as simpleton -- Oedipal conflicts and resolutions: the knight in shining armor and the damsel in distress -- Fear of fantasy: Why were fairy tales outlawed? -- Transcending infancy with the help of fantasy -- "The goose girl": achieving autonomy -- Fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation -- On the telling of fairy stories -- Part Two: In fairy land -- "Hansel and Gretel" -- "Little Red Riding Hood" -- "Jack and the Beanstalk" -- The jealous queen in "Snow White" and the myth of Oedipus -- "Snow White" -- "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" -- "The Sleeping Beauty" -- "Cinderella" -- The animal-groom cycle of fairy tales.

ISBN

0394497716

LCCN

^^^75036795^//r82

OCLC

• 1945414
• SCSB-14246317

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library