Uses Of Enchantment: The Meaning And Importance Of Fairy Tales

Bruno Bettelheim, author of The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, explains that children’s minds work differently than an adults mind. He argues that children are searching for moral guidelines in order to have a foundation to cope with life’s inevitable problems. He believes that fairy tales, rather other texts, supplies children with that foundation. He also believes that adults should read The Grimm’s version of stories to their young children as a way teaching them the reality of the real world. In The Grimm’s version of Little Red Cap, it tells a story about a young girl, that everyone loves, who is going on a journey to her sick grandmother’s house. During this journey, she takes a path through the woods, where she meets a strange wolf. While meeting this stranger, she discusses personal information about where she is going, as well as the well being of her family. Based off of the outcome of this story, the Grimm’s version should not be read to a child as a way of teaching a lesson.
She discusses with Little Red Cap the guidelines she must follow while on this journey. One thing she says is “Walk properly like a good little girl and don’t leave the path or you’ll fall down and break the bottle and there won’t be anything for grandmother.” (p. 99). With great understanding, she is trying to teach her the rules of travelling alone at such a young age. In Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, he states “An understanding of the meaning of one’s life is not suddenly acquired at a particular age, not even when one has reached chronological maturity.” (p.1). There is no age limit as to when a child is able to do things on their own but there is a sense of security that a child, so young, needs when being out in such a dangerous