Bettelheim And Cinderella

Fairy tales offer children a look in the world of magic, fantasy, and adventure to serve a good intention of teaching a life lesson or a moral. At a young age, a curious state of a child’s mind has exposure to learn many different facts and the fairy tales could help children to explore their imagination and to know right from wrong. In “The Uses of Enchantment”, Bruno Bettelheim, a child psychologist describes the value of fairy tales - how they confront emotions of children to have a better understanding of their real world. Cinderella, one of the most famous fairy tales, written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and many other authors portray the struggle of a girl who goes through many hardships to accomplish a beautiful life. The story of Cinderella
Many fairy tales state a natural dilemma that the protagonist has to undergo and withstand the difficulties on the road to success. In Cinderella, Grimm brothers describe the death of Cinderella’s mother and says, “[Cinderella’s mother] called her only daughter to her bedside…[Cinderella] went out to her mother’s grave every day and wept” (_). Cinderella loses her mother and her father marries another woman to continue his married life, but she does not lose a hope of living. Cinderella accepts the fact of losing her mother and continues to live in the world in which she does not have control over anything. As Bettelheim describes one of the purpose of fairy tales that, “the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form: a straggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence” (Bettelheim 6). Living through life is unpredictable; people do not have control over natural consequences. At a very young age, understanding the uncertainty of the life is crucial and the knowledge gained from the fairy tales undoubtedly helps children to rise up and accept the hardships of the
Cinderella faces a similar situation after her mother’s death, she has to work as a servant of the new stepmother while her two new stepsisters receive all the luxuries. In Cinderella, “[Cinderella] had to work from morning until evening, get up before daybreak, carry water, make the fires, cook, and wash...in the evening, there was no bed for her” (_). Cinderella does not receive any better treatment from her father and stepmother, she works for everyone and also takes care of her own need of food by herself. At the age of playing, Cinderella manages to do chores because there is no one on her side to help her, she would also want to play, but household responsibilities are on her so she has to keep herself away from playing. For children, understanding the situation and adapting the environment where they live in is hard. Children want their needs to be satisfied without wanting to do the work. As Bettelheim describes the psychological problems of children, he says, “[In order to] relinquish childhood dependencies; gaining a feeling of selfhood and of self-worth...a child needs to understand what is going on within his conscious self so that he can also cope with that which goes on in his unconscious” (Bettelheim 5). A child has to control his emotion and needs based on the situation, but it would be hard for him to