The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim 1977 Fairy Tales and the Existential Predicament (Review/Questions)

1. How might Bettelheim's ideas help us to understand the purposes of fairy-tales?

"A child needs to understand what is going on within his conscious self so that he can also cope with that which goes on his unconscious...daydreams - ruminating , rearranging , and fantasising about suitable story elements in response to unconscious pressures... By doing this , the child fits unconscious content into conscious fantasies , which then enable him to deal with that content. It is here that fairy tales have unequaled value ...they offer new dimensions to the child's imagination... they can structure their daydreams and with them giver better direction to their life".

Bettleheim is attempting to say that fairy-tales offer new ways and methods of thinking  to the child's imagination ... giving better or more appropriate direction to their lives. He suggests here that traditional fairy tales, with the darkness of abandonment, death, witches, and injuries, allowed children to grapple with their fears in remote, symbolic terms. If they could read and interpret these fairy tales in their own way, he believed, they would get a greater sense of meaning and purpose. Bettelheim thought that by engaging with these socially evolved stories, children would go through emotional growth that would better prepare them for their own futures.

However Bettelheim's is also trying to provide a perspective opposed to Freud's prescription that struggling courageously against overwhelming odds and severe difficulties finds success. Fairy-tales show a struggle against the ascendancy of evil which is an intrinsic part of human existence; steadfastly meeting obstacles head on provides victory at the end in all cases of the traditional fairy-tale. It is meant to oppose the 'safe stories' facing death and aging but also demonstrate crime doesn't pay. The virtues of the victorious struggling hero 'imprint morality' on the child. Natural human desires may not be fully unpunished , but it's a close shave for the girl in TBC a she comes so close to suffering for seeking forbidden knowledge against the ascendancy of the Marquis. 



2. How do Bettelheim's ideas help us to understand the purposes of gothic?

Nourishing a child's mind with only one sided affairs creates the idea that life is all sunny. Consistent pleasant thoughts and wishful thinking doesn't expose the darker , more sinister aspects of our daily lives. Parents attempt to divert their child away from this , but that is perhaps why the Gothic is important; it provides an escape or opportunity to reach the unconscious perhaps. Dominant culture does not want the dark side of man to be exposed and professes a belief in optimistic meliorism.

However fairy-tales provide propensities for both good and evil and which they are present in all. It is this duality which poses the moral problem and requires struggle to solve it as a convention to the genre of the gothic. The gothic will expose the omnipresent good and evil virtue. The gothic illustrates an acceptance of the marring , accepting human nature as it is to allow evil elements.

3. Why do you think Angela Carter mixes the fairy-tale and gothic genres in 'The Bloody Chamber'?

The bloody chamber doesn't juxtapose opposite characters for the purpose of stressing right behaviour as it is not a cautionary tale. The characters are drawn more true to life which carries more complexities including elements of the gothic and the exponential  lows that life brings. Carter mixes the 2 together to ensure polarizations of the fairy-tale are not so obvious and the boundaries are not drawn so clearly. To enter the chamber for example provides a realisation and would help a person 'make choices about who one wants to be', but the evil , and sadistic brutality of the Marquis however grim provides the enlightenment for the girl to make a choice.