The Importance Of Fairytales

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Fairytales: Children’s Greatest Companion Throughout my childhood, my sister loved to write unique fairytales for me that would make my little mind soar. Although I didn’t read modern fairytales, fairytales played an important role in my childhood as they first helped me to read, gain knowledge about the world and understand myself. According to Bruno Bettelheim’s book, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairytales, fairy tales give children much knowledge about their identity, others emotions and their environment. Children gain knowledge by reading about life experiences similar to their own and use this knowledge they gain through out their development, just as I did. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, written by the Grimm Brothers …show more content…

Children often experience many difficulties concerning their families in their time of development. Children turn to fairytales during these hard times, because, “fairytales recognize children’s problems found in all cultures and societies” (Bettelheim 5). “Snowdrop” recognizes difficult periods children have with their family and that there are times children put their trust in non-parental figures. In the fairytale “Snowdrop” due to terrible events caused by her evil stepmother, Snowdrop’s trust is put in the Dwarfs who promise to care for her. Snowdrop’s evil stepmother turns to deadly ways to get revenge on Snowdrop for being the “fairest of all the ladies in the land” (Grimm 91). Snowdrop’s …show more content…

“For a story truly to hold the child’s attention, it must entertain him and arouse his curiosity” (Bettelheim 5). Fairytales are a type of literature meant to develop a child’s mind and personality in a way they can enjoy. Numerous children’s stories incorporate talking objects and animals, because as Bettelheim states, “child’s thinking remains animistic until the age of puberty” (46). According to Dictionary.com, “animism is the belief that natural objects, natural phenomena, and the universe itself possess souls”. In “Snowdrop”, the fairy-looking glass, which holds conversation with the evil stepmother, is an example of animism. The fairy-looking glass is parallel to that of a mirror, in which a child might look in and talk, but not receive an answer they are expecting. This inanimate object can’t talk, but a child might believe otherwise until they gain rationality. Fairytales often obtain figures of speech similar to that of animism to hold the child’s attention. Figure of speech is defined as, “a word or phrase used in a nonliteral sense to add rhetorical force to a spoken or written passage.” An example of figure of speech in “Snowdrop” is after the evil stepmother first attempts to murder Snowdrop, but is told she failed by the fairy-looking glass. After she was informed, “her blood ran cold in her heart with spite and malice, to see Snowdrop

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