The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim
My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery…
GK Chesterton, “The Ethics of Elfland” in Orthodoxy
Quoting the above comment, Fr. Stanley Jaki, noted Benedictine physicist and theologian explores Chesterton’s insights into the metaphysics of science, in his book aptly named Chesterton, A Seer of Science.1 Dr. Bruno Bettelheim (1903 – 1990), distinguished for his teaching in psychiatry and work with autistic children, quotes the same phrase and particularly cites “The Ethics of Elfland” in his study of the value of fairy tales for healthy child development. His book The Uses of Enchantment, resonates with Chesterton’s insights in “Elfland” and a number of other works, and would suggest that we could label GKC as a Seer of Psychology.
Agreeing not only with GK Chesterton, but with CS Lewis, Dickens, Tolkien and others whom he cites, Bettelheim argues for the special value of fairy tales in expanding the child’s consciousness of the world about as an exploration “divined from the inside”. The imagination, Bettelheim argues, is a most effective means for reaching the child and for speaking a language that engages the child most innately. The richness of the imagination that begins with recitation of the age-old fairy tales has an enduring value and helps to develop the whole, healthy person — with, of course, a healthy imagination.
We adults, who think we “know better” might dispute Bettelheim and the other authorities just mentioned; we may be skeptical about fairy tales having more than entertainment value, may think they are a waste of time that would be better spent in learning the multiplication tables as early as possible. We might expose them to informational literature that teaches about the planets, life cycle of insects, and how copiers work…And then, wonder why the “little sponge” is bored or bewildered.
In his discourse, Bettelheim makes some distinctions that are illustrative of what fairy tales are in the first place. To note a number of them:
- Fairy tales are not myths. In the classic myths, the weaknesses of the protagonists destroy them. Myths generally have sad endings and give the child no hope or chance for betterment, rescue, more control over oneself and one’s environment.
- Fairy tales are not cautionary tales, in the sense of the little boys who, warned not to skate on the farmers pond, went anyway “and did. And drowned” 2
- Fairy tales are not “morality tales” as such. Dickens raved against this abuse of the great tales in Victorian circles.
- Fairy tales are not “practical” tales intended to reinforce the child’s sense of mastery over fears and obstacles that prevent his achievement. 3
These distinctions made, we can briefly consider a few characteristic attributes of the classic fairy tale, developed by Bettelheim with some instructive examples:
- The hero of the fairy tale is always someone (child of either sex) in a state of development, somewhere midstream, or even stymied, in terms of growth toward wholeness and the potential for happiness.
- Others in the fairy tale are most often unnamed. The poor woodcutter, the hunter, the giant, the prince…are understood by the child, but nameless, leaving to the child the imaginative possibility of filling in the blanks.
- Images correspond to the child’s strong feelings, including characterizations that relate to the same parental relationship. So that supplanting the kind and nurturing mother, who provides for every need, on demand, is the wicked stepmother who cruelly denies the child what should be provided. (Reflective of the weaning process, or denying candy before dinner.)
- Evil must be killed absolutely. Making the wicked giant into my nice big friend may seem more tolerant, but is not satisfactory. He wants to eat me. The old witch that wants to cook me and my sister must be tricked and thrown into the pot herself, and not just for a scalding. The evil in me must be killed in order to free me from its bondage.
- All ends well for the hero. The happy ending, with the dragon slain, the prince or princess freed, the love of another — this is necessary for the fairy tale to have value for the child.
Fairy tales come to us through a rich oral tradition and have survived the rise and fall of civilizations, nations, and cultures because they work; because they have inherent value in them that children intuitively recognize. Whether in book or film or cartoon form, the age-old tales seem continuously subject to “bowdlerization”, (a term often used in Bettelheim’s book)—in order to make them less gory, less scary, more socially correct. This modification of the traditional elements tends to strip the stories of their essential meaning, and, not surprisingly, often leaves little to the child in terms of value or enjoyment. And, likely, bores the adult teller in the process.
As to the scary parts, let’s defer to Chesterton again, because he says it best:
If you keep bogies and goblins away from children they would make them up for themselves. One small child in the dark can invent more hells than Swedenborg. One small child can imagine monsters too big and black to get into any picture, and give them names too unearthly and cacophonous to have occurred in the cries of any lunatic. The child, to begin with, commonly likes horrors, and he continues to indulge in them even when he does not like them.
…The fear does not come from fairy tales; the fear comes from the universe of the soul. 4
Dickens, as a small child had a nurse named Mary Weller 5 who, he recalls, would deliberately (with what he later recalled as “fiendish enjoyment”) make the stories she told him particularly scary, which frightened the little Dickens (and with no little enjoyment on his part).
Chesterton suggests:
The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. 6
Bettelheim’s analysis of the classic tales helps to show what he sees at work inside the tales and the book is richly illustrated with his dissections and insight. We readily see what transpires, on the surface, for classic tales such as Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, to cite only a few. But we can easily miss details that we may not consciously note, but that influence us at subconscious levels and often hint at deeper meanings.
Among details, why does the number 3 recur in so many tales? Why are there 3 sisters in Cinderella, two older, who are haughty and abusive to the littlest one, who is yet more lovely and kind than they? Why does the little brother Simpleton, who is friendly to unseemly little creatures like toads and accepts his limitations, exceed the accomplishments of his two older brothers, who are much more clever? Why does the child innately grasp and appreciate the position of the third child—does being number three relate to sibling rivalry or, perhaps, to being powerless and between mom and dad?
In many tales there are 3 trials, successively more difficult. Why does Jack climb the beanstalk 3 times, each time taking back a different stolen gift? And note what Jack steals from the giant: first, a bag of gold that gets his family out of the immediate crisis. Second, a hen that magically lays golden eggs. But lastly, because material needs and powerful magic are not quite sufficient, a golden harp. Is beauty, perhaps, an ultimate pursuit? Obtaining this, why does Jack then need to cut down the beanstalk and kill the giant in the process? Why do Hansel and Gretel foolishly eat away at the gingerbread house and allow themselves to be trapped by this fixation? Why did they end up in the woods in the first place, and how do they successfully work their way out of the woods? Why do away with the old witch instead of just fleeing her? Why does the prince need to undergo terrible trials before he meets Snow White?
Details such as these add spice to Bettelheim’s exposition of the content, dynamics, and inner workings of a number of classic fairy tales. The reader certainly comes to appreciate how children, young and old, are reached subconsciously through the imagination and how fairy tales, following this tack, address fundamental development, not merely of the mind, but of the whole, developing person.
Noted for his lifelong dedication to treatment of child autism, work he began in pre-WWII Vienna, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim emigrated to the US in 1939 after release from Dachau and Buchenwald. His discussion of the psychoanalytic dynamics of child development relative to this subject necessarily includes some terms and concepts of a more Freudian bent than many of us are comfortable with. However, as a quick review of the book will show, his descriptions are quite clear and his use of terminology peculiar to psychoanalysis is not overbearing. In fact, a footnote in his text explains the use of id, ego, superego concepts as analogous, in his view, to what the fairy tale achieves with its imaginary characterizations. The reader can easily adapt to wading through some psychoanalytic language and may even see where and why, from a practical point of view, it can be useful. (And even– as in his quick assessment of the seven dwarves who were added to the Snow White story at a late date– rather enjoyable.) 7
Bettelheim crowns his descriptions of fairy tales and something of what they might mean by describing an enduring favorite, “Beauty and the Beast” and relating his assessment of its dynamics and inner meaning. Assuredly, Bettelheim would concur with Chesterton’s comment on this particular story:
There is the great lesson of “Beauty and the Beast”; that a thing must be loved before it is loveable.8
With Chesterton, Bettelheim sees the Beast story from the inside. For Bettelheim, this tale shows imaginatively what he holds as most important in child development: when the parent’s love, recognized and reciprocated by the child, leads to that child’s ability to grow, ultimately for loving another; this love, properly ordered, transcending oedipal dynamics and complications, so that the fruitful outcome is a person now able to provide and share real love, for whom all ends well.
1 University of Illinois Press, 1986.
2 Dylan Thomas in A Child’s Christmas in Wales.
3 Bettelheim criticizes such tales, e.g. where the Little Engine huffs and puffs “I think I can…I think I can…” which can easily lead to frustration, disillusionment, and feeling blame for failure.
4 GK Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles
5 Readers of Dickens’ Pickwick Papers can witness the favorable connation of the Weller name.
6 Tremendous Trifles, ibid.
7 There is more about the use and abuse of Freudian terminology than could possibly be introduced here. In his book Freud and Man’s Soul, (Vintage Books, 1984) Bettelheim argues that the American translations of Freud’s writings are deplorable and highly tainted by a behaviorist and materialistic agenda. For example, Freud’s use of the German word for “soul” was systematically excised or replaced by “mind” or “mental apparatus”, or similar phrasing. Nor did Freud, who was educated in Latin and Greek and very careful with language, use Latin terms like id, ego, super-ego or adapt Greek words to generate impressive and vague technical-sounding terminology (e.g. “parapraxis”).
8 GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy.
