Resonse to Bettelheim and Darnton Question

At first, my response to this question seemed obvious. But then, after having looked over the texts and the question a little more, I realized that one can interpret the question in two different ways.

My first interpretation of the question was that it was asking which of the two texts is more productive in helping one think about fairy tales as more than children’s entertainment, in terms of how children, specifically, learn and benefit from them. My obvious response to this interpretation of the question is that Bettelheim’s “The Struggle for Meaning” helped me to think of fairy tales, as not only a means of entertaining children, but also as a means of teaching them. Bettelheim discusses how a child can find meaning in life through fairy tales. For instance, fairy tales deal with universal human problems and the ethically appropriate solutions. Although fairy tales do not reflect modern mass society, the values and morals discussed in fairy tales do, for the most part, remain unchanged today.

Another interpretation of the question was that it was asking which of the two texts is more productive in helping one think about fairy tales as more than children’s entertainment, in terms of thinking past the most common application of fairy tales today –children’s stories, and looking at them as historical pieces which represent the culture during which they were created. My response to this interpretation would be that Darnton’s text, “Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose”. Darnton discusses original recordings of French fairy tales and how inappropriate and disgusting they were. He discusses and criticizes Bettelheim’s, as well as Fromm’s, interpretation of certain fairy tales. He also discusses how fairy tales were originally passed on orally, and how amazing it is that this technique was surprisingly pretty accurate.