Fairy Tales 2010

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Ebony and Ivory Living Together in Perfect Harmony

Well, we already had someone else bring music into the fold so here's my selection. Sing it, Stevie!

EDIT: Whoa! Embedded Youtube Video!

On to the essays:

The real difference between Darnton and Bettelheim comes in how they approach the stories. Bettelheim, as a psychologist, is going to look for Freudian examples in Little Red Riding Hood. It's what he does for a living and it is what he is interested in. Similarily, Darnton, as a historian, will view the ever-changing stories as examples of the cultures of the peasents at the time. Neither are wrong but neither are completely right either.

Darnton is wrong to complain about Bettelheim's analysis of only one version of the story because Bettelheim only needs to care about one version. Consider Darnton's logic for a moment. He believes that the details of the story are changed throughout time by the cultures they exist in. If Bettelheim is interested in how fairy tales affect children today, which it seems is his main focus, then why wouldn't he pick the most prevalent and well-known version of the story currently? Why should he care what the version was in the 1500s? That version holds no meaning for the children he seeks to help and analyze.

Bettelheim's theories have their own problem. The entire idea of the subconcious and the symbols are based on unprovable facts. If we could prove it, then it would be part of our normal conciousness. Many of Freud's claims have been debunked in the modern era, partly because anything can be a Freudian symbol if you look at it closely enough. Looking around my dorm room, I see many potential Freudian symbols for female sexuality--a bowl, a drawer, a red blanket--as well as many ones for males--a water bottle, a lacrosse stick, the dorm I live in itself (Towers). With that in mind, I am not impressed by Bettelheim's ability to find such symbols in fairy tales. Like a lot of literary criticism, you can find whatever you want if you look closely enough.

Sure, some believe that texts are their own product away from the author so Bettelheim should be able to look for symbols as close as he wants but I happen to side more with Darnton, who seems to be more interested in authorial intent. What I mean here is Darnton cares why the peasants thought to tell these fairy tales while Bettelheim is more interested in why the peasents' subconcious told them too. In that regard, their articles are both similar yet very, very different.

3 comments:

  1. Very interesting post! I completely agree that "Darnton is wrong to complain about Bettelheim's analysis of only one version of the story because Bettelheim only needs to care about one version." However, I want to challenge your position with Darnton, "who seems to be more interested in authorial intent." I have an idea of what you mean, but I think by considering Zipes' (in one of the course’s first readings) emphasis on the “contamination” of the folk fairy tale (by the Brothers Grimm), the idea of “authorial intent” may not even exist (meaning Darnton’s work is hardly as pure as he thinks Bettelheim’s work is). Granted, I realize that the French peasant telling of “Little Red Riding Hood” was not necessarily transcribed by the Brothers Grimm; however, the transcription found in Darnton’s essay likely found its way through centuries of early transcriptions and alterations.

    What does this mean for anthropological research into fairy tales, then? Can we ever truly learn “authorial intent”?

    (Sorry for picking on that one phrasing, but I thought it was an important key.)

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  2. I actually was going to comment on the same thing. Authorial intent is a tricky business. We don't have access to the author and his or her internal and (perhaps even more important) subconscious thoughts, so we can't ever, ever know for sure (even if we were to ask the author) what all the symbols represent or decipher sort of underlying message. There are many, many authors who have written seemingly contradictory pieces or whose intent has been criticized by two opposing sides (for example, Harriet Beecher Stowe's two novels, Uncle Tom's Cabin and Dred, have been criticized by abolitionists as well as anti-abolitionists). I would validate Darnton's work as far as it generally examines symbols for overarching themes or historical moments in time, but I don't think he is (nor would I think many would support his ideas if this was the case) looking to specific authors (if it were even possible to do so) to find their precise intent for including certain signs or motifs. The broadness of Darnton's examinations in looking at tales in a certain period is what appeals to me and what I think ultimately gives his work some credibility.

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  3. This quote really hits it home..." If Bettelheim is interested in how fairy tales affect children today, which it seems is his main focus, then why wouldn't he pick the most prevalent and well-known version of the story currently? Why should he care what the version was in the 1500s? That version holds no meaning for the children he seeks to help and analyze." I agree wholeheartedly with this claim. Simply because he disregards their historical roots, Bettelheim is not wrong is his analysis of fairy tales. Rather, it would be neglecting his area of study to focus on the archaic versions of fairy tales, because these tales are no longer in circulation--the most up-to-date versions should and do concern him, because these are the versions that modern children are receiving. I also agree, however, that subjecting fairy tales to a psychoanalytical study is somewhat foolish on Bettelheim's part. I agree with your idea that the reader can easily assign any meaning he or she wants to a work, no matter how outlandish or far-fetched that meaning may be, and to uncover Freudian symbols in, say, Little Red Riding Hood is a real stretch. For his part, at least Darnton is concerned with preserving the authorial intent of the fairy tales and doesn't want to detract from their simple magic by complicating them with hidden meanings and symbols.

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