Darnton

Robert Darnton's essay is more productive in helping me think of fairy tales as more than children's entertainment. While Bettelheim's essay clearly explains how fairy tales help children to develop and learn important lessons, Darnton's essay goes deeper into the various parts of the tales. He explains the sexual symbols that can be found and the history of how they changed through the oral tradition but maintained the basic plot lines and motifs. Darnton shows how each tale can be analyzed to learn about different cultures depending on how they adapt them and that they were not created simply for their entertainment value.

Right On Darnton

If you are to look at both Bettelheim and Darnton's essays, it is easy to see that Darnton's view on fairy tales is of a much more intellectual, and less insipid view than Bettelheim. Bettelheim views fairy tales as a vessel of knowledge to reach adulthood. He talks of how they teach children to deal with growing up, and their place in existence. That may be so, but these stories should not just be viewed as symbolic lessons to relieve children of part of the burden of maturing. Darnton's message gives a more broad and academic view of fairy tales. He traces them back to their roots of oral tradition, and their many different primary authors such as Perrault and d'Aulnoy. He tells about how tales are not from one specific area, but rather many different cultures have the a similar basis for their version of the tale. Darnton's essay in general seemed much more informed and rooted in scholarly knowledge, rather than Bettelheim's pseduo-psychological use of psychoanalytic nonsense (not that I am bitter about psycho-analysis, just that I don't think people really apply it to much anymore... maybe they do?). At any rate, the essay which helps me think of fairy tales as more than children's tales is the one whose main purpose is Not to show how fairy tales help enrich and broaden the lives of children.

Assignment: 13 January 2009

Please respond to the question below by midnight tonight.

Which of the following essays do you find more productive in helping you to think about fairy tales as more than children's entertainment? Why?

• Robert Darnton's “Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose”
• Bruno Bettelheim “The Struggle for Meaning,”

(both in Tatar, The Classic Fairy Tales)