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The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales

Bruno Bettelheim

3.88 · Rating details · 4,486 ratings · 372 reviews

The famous child psychologist, Bruno Bettelheim, explains how fairy tales educate, support, and liberate the emotions of children.

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Paperback, 352 pages

Published April 12th 1977 by Vintage (first published 1975)

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Nov 27, 2011 Trevor rated it it was amazing

Shelves: education, psychology, children-s-literature, literature

I’ve been meaning to read this for years. This isn’t quite what I was expecting, though. And given this was published in 1976 it seems much too Freudian than it ought to have been too. There were times when I would have been sure it was written in the 1950s.

Now, saying this is a Freudian analysis of fairy tales might be enough to put some people off. And that would be a real pity. There are few things more suited to a Freudian interpretation than literature – as a teacher of mine once said, ‘ ...more

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Dec 16, 2017 Fran rated it it was amazing

Shelves: psychology, non-fiction

I absolutely love this book. Of lately--few past decades--fairy tales have gotten a bad reputation, often cited as examples of horrible role models for girls and boys. However, it seems we--modern us--are in part responsible for turning fairy tales into those kind of stories because they weren't like that originally.

In this book Bettelheim explores how deeply significant these seemingly out-of-touch with the present world stories are for children's development.

One of the things we need to ...more

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Sep 13, 2011 Nandakishore Varma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: myth-fairy-tales, favourites

This was the first book which assured me that my enduring interest in fairy tales was scholarly and not something to be scoffed at as juvenile. Until then, I have been blissfully unaware of the psychological depth of fairy tales and how a lot of major literary works are inspired by them. Now there are fairy tale studies by the dozen, and many are fascinating: but Bettelheim is the first person who opened the door for me, therefore this book holds a special place in my heart.

I have read that, in ...more

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Dec 14, 2009 Manybooks rated it did not like it

Shelves: book-reviews, literary-criticism

I had to read Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment many years ago for a university-level course I was taking in the summer (on specifically Charles Perrault's and the Grimms' fairy tale collections as pscho-drama therapy for children). And while Bettelheim does indeed have some interesting takes on what fairy tales as a literary/oral genre can mean, and that they are important for children and their psychologic development, the massive Freudianism of Bruno Bettelheim's analysis and that he I had to read Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment many years ago for a university-level course I was taking in the summer (on specifically Charles Perrault's and the Grimms' fairy tale collections as pscho-drama therapy for children). And while Bettelheim does indeed have some interesting takes on what fairy tales as a literary/oral genre can mean, and that they are important for children and their psychologic development, the massive Freudianism of Bruno Bettelheim's analysis and that he basically sees sex, penis envy, oedipal complexes and the like in the majority of the fairy tales he attempts to interpret, this does not only tend to get a bit stale after a while, it also has made me feel almost a bit dirty and a potential sexual deviant simply because I enjoy reading fairy tales and much liked having them read to me as a child. Well, to be entirely fair, I did feel pretty strange and uncomfortable mostly the first time I read The Uses of Enchantment for that course I was taking, and now, more than thirty years after that university level perusal, I no longer really feel all that massively uncomfortable, I just feel as though Bruno Bettelheim is a bit over-the-top with his Freudian fairy tale analyses and I can at least partially enjoy and also find some rather perverse humour in just how sexually charged the author seems to consider many if not most fairy tales to be and in their entirety (in other words, I find Bruno Bettelheim’s one-sidedness of interpretation rather hilarious and yes also a bit sad, as The Uses of Enchantment really does not seem to show much if any possibility that there are different manners of interpretation possible and probable, that everything is somehow psychologically based on sex and on Freud's attitudes towards sex).

Now if I were just ranking The Uses of Enchantment for its text and only for its text, I would most probably be rating it with a low three stars (readable but with some definite potential issues and problems). However, after Bruno Bettelheim's death in 1990, it has been suggested (and also now been pretty much proven without a doubt) that he callously plagiarised from colleagues and that even many of his supposed academic credentials were in fact at best misrepresented and fudged a bit. Now plagiarism is often a problematic accusation in and of hope itself, as sometimes (and even often) an author can be accused of academic dishonesty when he or she has in fact not actively copied another person's work at all (and sometimes, plagiarism is used as a weapon when really, all that has happened was that a few quotation marks or footnotes have ended up being forgotten). However, this does not unfortunately appear to have been the case with Bruno Bettelheim, as in his The Uses of Enchantment he almost verbatim uses entire passages from especially Julius E. Heuscher's A Psychiatric Study of Fairy Tales (but even worse, the latter book is NOT even mentioned in the presented bibliography of The Uses of Enchantment, something that I for one absolutely consider as NOT in any manner even remotely forgivable, for Bruno Bettelheim has not just made use of Julius Heuscher's work without showing him as a source via quotations and/or footnotes, he has also subsequently and majorly insulted him by not even listing Heuscher's work in the bibliographical section of The Uses of Enchantment).

And therefore, and for me personally, Bruno Bettelheim is absolutely and no longer in any manner an individual I can even remotely academically respect (especially since it has also been revealed that Bettelheim was often both physically and verbally abusive to the students he was teaching at his Orthogenic School), and The Uses of Enchantment will and can from now on only ever be considered a one star book for me, and one to only consider as at best rather majorly problematic (and as an example of how NOT to write an academic tome of literary or of any type of analysis). ...more

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Feb 13, 2015 Jason rated it liked it

I don't think I could have taken much more of this. It has a definite entertainment value, absolutely, but come on - how can anyone take any of this stuff seriously? Part of me thinks Bettelheim is pulling our leg, he just has to be, but no - he's a straight-faced Freudian scholar of the reductive and ridiculous sort, and he's deadly serious about all of this. Here, check this out: the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk represents a penis. Jack's climbing up the beanstalk represents Jack's I don't think I could have taken much more of this. It has a definite entertainment value, absolutely, but come on - how can anyone take any of this stuff seriously? Part of me thinks Bettelheim is pulling our leg, he just has to be, but no - he's a straight-faced Freudian scholar of the reductive and ridiculous sort, and he's deadly serious about all of this. Here, check this out: the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk represents a penis. Jack's climbing up the beanstalk represents Jack's discovery of masturbation. The giant's wife hiding Jack in the oven when the giant gets home? That's the wife putting Jack back in the womb (Jack is regressing, you see.) When Jack asks his mother to get the ax and chop down the beanstalk, that's Jack actually asking his mother to chop off his father's penis. The number three in fairy tales is always a reference to the penis with its two testicles. See? Count 'em - one, two, three. The snake in the Garden of Eden, incidentally, is also a penis. Oh, and the dwarfs in Snow White? Penises. You know why? Because, as miners, the dwarfs, and I quote directly, "skillfully penetrate into dark holes."

Okay, this is funny stuff, admittedly, and I thought I would just finish the book for some ironic purpose. But the annoying thing is, every once in a while, this crazyhead says something strangely apt. For some of the fairy tales, there clearly is an Oedipal dimension, especially when the tale involves intensely unhealthy relationships between the child protagonist and the parent of the opposite sex. And whenever Bettelheim is analyzing those tales, he seems to be on firmer ground. As the book went on, I grew fearful that I had become convinced. Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, and The Frog King are indeed about sex, and you know what? The frog in that tale being a metaphor for a penis - it actually makes a lot of sense, in context. Ghah! I know, I know. The Frog Penis. Jesus. So okay - this has some interesting and convincing analyses in it. A few. And yes, some of this, I said SOME, might be about penises. Maybe.

But then, just as you're getting pulled into one of these readings of something, and you're starting to feel like the book is getting better, you're digging it, you're digging it, you're nodding along, all at once part of your brain clicks in and SPLASH, it hits you suddenly like a bucket of cold water, you shake your head, you take a breath, and you realize that everything you've just read, literally everything, every single word, is pure undiluted unqualified craziness. How can I have been taken in by this?? It's like I was hypnotized, like he did a Jedi mind trick, "these are all the penises you're looking for." Mice and doves all represent penises! Penises everywhere! All the penises you could ever possibly want! Wheee!

This book is an important stepping-stone on the path of fairy tale scholarship, and should be read for that reason if you're interested in the subject. Just keep your sense of humor about you, take much of what he says with a grain of salt, and you'll likely find a few gems in here. Just don't stop there - go on to other fairy tale scholars (Jack Zipes is another big one, with an entirely different approach), and find different readings of the tales. The worst, the absolute worst thing a person can do if he or she is interested in analyzing the content of fairy tales is to have this be the only book they ever read on the subject. As long as that isn't the case, it might be worth a gander, if only for a few laughs. ...more

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Mar 30, 2009 Nicole rated it really liked it

Bettelheim has totally schooled me on the phallic symbol. I have learned, in reading about how to read fairy tales, that I am woefully under-educated about penises and their manifold symbols, which there are exponentially more of than I ever could have dreamed about or hoped for.

This is an amazing and amazingly flawed book. His points about the function of fairy tales, how children and adults read them and what children get out of reading them on pre-, sub-, and conscious levels, is convincing. Bettelheim has totally schooled me on the phallic symbol. I have learned, in reading about how to read fairy tales, that I am woefully under-educated about penises and their manifold symbols, which there are exponentially more of than I ever could have dreamed about or hoped for.

This is an amazing and amazingly flawed book. His points about the function of fairy tales, how children and adults read them and what children get out of reading them on pre-, sub-, and conscious levels, is convincing. His understanding of the child-brain, its id, and ego, and super-ego, and how it develops, or doesn’t, and the way fairy tales dis- and enchant it will make you want to go out and grab a kid and read it Cinderella--not the Disney version--the real one where the step-sisters cut their toes off to fit the glass “slipper-vagina,” and not feel weird about doing it.

But. Before you grab that kid, bear in mind that all fairy tales, according to the Freud-trained Bettelheim, are pretty much Oedipal conflicts that arouse too many unmentionable sub-conflicts to mention here, that you are really reading him or her stories about fathers and daughters and mothers and sons, and their vaginas and penises. He acknowledges this, and, as such, one of his most compelling overall arguments is that fairy tales allow children to work through multiple, and very normal, psychological conflicts about relationships and their bodies (and their psychic growth and biological development) that, if addressed directly, would horrify and stunt.

Though I’m unsure how scholastically responsible this is, one of Bettelheim’s more entertaining tacks is to slip out-of-nowhere psycho-phallic associations in as evidence and, other than letting them hang there, not do much anything else with them. In reference to Cinderella’s footmen (magically created of mice and rats, remember) he drops in ever so casually “Mice and rats…also arouse associations to the phallus.” For me they didn’t, but, now that he mentions it, they do; I can't help but think "penis" whenever rats and mice are referenced. I’m not sure if that association was always there dozing in sub-conscious dormancy, or if I just find his knack for phallic-symbol dropping especially good red herring.

To his credit, he challenges phallocentric psychoanalytic interpretations, and upends misogynist penis-envy readings as critical thematic, which is oddly un-new critic of him given that he is a new critic (wearing psychoanalytic glasses).

Upshot: all the above might be true. Problem is we have no way to verify other than to take his word for it. And a lot of those words—this says a lot more about me than it might you--I do.
...more

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Jan 22, 2011 Amy rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Ugh. This book was a nightmare to read. It was assigned for my Storytelling class, otherwise I would've dropped it after the introduction. Bettelheim is a famous psychologist who worked a lot with children. This book details (and I mean DEATAILS) his view of the importance of fairy tales to children's subconscious. Think Freudian fairy tales. I'm serious. And so is Bettelheim. He's completely serious about his ideas, which come off as far fetched and laughable some times. Much of what he writes ...more

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Feb 05, 2015 Amy Rae rated it it was ok

Shelves: fairy-tales-told-and-retold, read-for-school, nonfiction

I can't believe I'm going to start this review with a Neil Gaiman quote, which is both incredibly pretentious and apt to make you think I think far better of Gaiman than I actually do, but here goes:

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

eta: It turns out Gaiman lifted that particular line from an author I respect far more, so let's start this over again with a G.K. Chesterton quote:

Fairy tales do not

...more

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Dec 07, 2011 Jacqueline rated it really liked it

Anyone who needs to be convinced that the protagonist of a children's story should always solve his or her own problems without adult help should read this book. If you can get past the outdated Freudian theory, this book is a fascinating examination of fairy tale motifs and how they help children come to terms with sibling rivalry, fear of abandonment, and other anxieties children face on the road to maturity. Bettelheim compares various versions of familiar tales and discusses theme at length. ...more

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Feb 01, 2020 Morgan Blackledge rated it it was amazing

Bruno Bettelheim was a Austrian born Jewish psychoanalyst, and Nazi holocaust survivor who was interned in both Dachau and Buchenwald.

He immigrated to America after WWII and became a prominent intellectual in the field of child psychoanalysis.

He was controversial for his harsh opinions of fellow Jews in Nazi Germany, who he infamously referred to as “going like sheep to the slaughter.”

He was also controversial for his (now discredited) parent blaming etiological hypothesis of autism spectrum ...more

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May 25, 2015 Sahel rated it really liked it

Shelves: fairytale-criticism

I really liked the book since it was so informative on the subject of fairy tales and how they can be beneficial to children. I also did not know how to start reading about fairy tales' criticism, so as a beginning it helped my initiation to the subject.I'd recommend it to people who want to write something on fairy tales and how they can help children get over their psychological and also oedipal problem, if there are any.

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Apr 05, 2014 J. Mulrooney rated it it was amazing

Recommended for anyone who deals with children

Bettelheim was an old-fashioned Freudian psychiatrist -- the kind who talked to patients instead of drugging them -- and a Holocaust survivor. After the war, he emigrated to Chicago, where he did terrific work with children suffering from serious psychological problems.

The book uses a Freudian framework, but you don't have to believe in a literal id, ego, and superego to appreciate the insight Bettelheim brings to stories and how they are absorbed Recommended for anyone who deals with children

Bettelheim was an old-fashioned Freudian psychiatrist -- the kind who talked to patients instead of drugging them -- and a Holocaust survivor. After the war, he emigrated to Chicago, where he did terrific work with children suffering from serious psychological problems.

The book uses a Freudian framework, but you don't have to believe in a literal id, ego, and superego to appreciate the insight Bettelheim brings to stories and how they are absorbed by children.

Bettelheim believes that fairy tales -- he focuses on the Grimm brothers', but any real fairy tale -- are terrifically helpful to children as they work through the problems (large and small, real or imagined) in their lives. He also believes the converse -- by depriving children of fairy tales, you deprive them of a strong resource critical to their psychological maturation. He hates the edited, tidied up, sweet versions of the tales: it's important that the evil stepmother in Cinderella be made to dance in red hot shoes until she falls down dead. "Children feel real rage, children have real experience of evil. If well-meaning people remove the rage and evil from stories, children believe they alone experience these feelings. They will grow up believing that they are monsters."

Bettleheim distinguishes between real fairy tales and other kinds of stories -- "In a fairy tale, all the characters -- the princess, the prince, the wicked stepmother, the witch, the little boy and the little girl -- are all the child hearing the story. And what happens? The child learns that his evil part will be overcome by his goodness, that his helplessness, his sundered, alienated inner princess, will find the other half he longs for, his inner prince, he learns that he may be lost and alone in the hairy forest but it is just there that he may find the stream whose waters turn his hair to gold."

A great antidote for your friends who think that fairy tales are too violent, that the witch is just misunderstood and a victim of poor communication, that the princess's helplessness is some kind of plot against women. ...more

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Jan 09, 2018 Nikki rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, fairytales

In terms of the psychoanalysis here, which is heavily based on Freud’s work, it sounds like a lot of rubbish to me. And if you know Bettelheim’s work from his work on autism, you’re not entirely safe from that here — he only mentions it once or twice, but it’s still jarringly wrong. Still, some of his analyses of the texts on a literary level do make sense, and his suggestions of how some people might apply their own lives in understanding and interpreting them are fascinating. As a literary ...more

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Jun 07, 2012 Kaycie Hall rated it liked it · review of another edition

I suppose this book was ground-breaking when it was first published, but honestly, I thought it focused way too much on the idea of all children having an oedipal complex and maybe not enough on how the violence and darkness in original fairy tales address something in a child's imagination (which the sugarcoated Disney tales leaving wanting).

I also disliked Bettelheim's analysis of Charles Perrault and his tales in general---to say that they're flippant and mocking is not really fair and it ...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Peter rated it it was ok

Shelves: mind-spirit, read-2012, unfinished, non-fiction

I'm about halfway through and have given up on this. It's as dry as a piece of old toast. I'm sure it was all very revolutionary when it came out, and probably influenced the likes of Marina Warner or Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood with their modern takes on fairy stories, but it all feels very dated and 60's Freudian. There are a lot more recent interesting books on both fairytale analysis and child development out there. 'The Child in the Mirror' and 'They f##k you up' on child development ...more

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Feb 25, 2012 Amar Pai rated it liked it

Shelves: enjoyed-flipping-through

Good in that it gets you interested in the original versions of stories like Cinderella, Snow White, etc. It's nice to see someone think at length about the meaning, import, structure and significance of fairy tales, and there are definitely some good tidbits in here. One of my favorites-- instead of:

"And then they all lived happily ever after."

some stories end with:

"If they have not died, they are still alive."

Haha grim but true, that!

The main problem I had with this book is Bettelheim s ...more

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Sep 05, 2019 Giorgio rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Beautiful excursus through some of the most meaningful fairytales, their symbols and their significance in our growth process. You can look back at your own childhood through this (Freudian) lens, to see what you had to fix and how you (with or against your parents) did it, and maybe find something that you still have to fix today.

Main learnings:
–The classic form of fairy tales was shaped in centuries and sometimes millennia, by storytellers who adjusted to children's reactions and their own ...more

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Dec 24, 2009 Mallory rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction

I'm actually not longer sure why this book was on my To Read list, although I'm guessing it might have come up while reading one of Joseph Campbell's books. Also, as a disclaimer, I pretty much skimmed the last 100 pages or so. The large scheme of the book I enjoyed: the exploration of the similar themes expressed in fairy tales that reflect the human race's views on morals and the human experience. I also enjoyed the small parts that talked about the origins/history of some of the fairy tales ...more

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Apr 29, 2015 Katherine Sas rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, reference, fairy-tale

Bettelheim's Uses of Enchantment is one of those classic pieces of criticism that are both absolutely essential and hopelessly outdated. There is a lot of useful analysis and history, and there are some really lovely passages about the universality and applicability of fairy tales. He even quotes Tolkien on the subject, seeming to agree with him in his distaste for didactic, allegorical, and condescending stories (for children and adults). Unfortunately, as he gets into the nitty gritty of ...more

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Jan 26, 2018 Mistie rated it liked it · review of another edition

While I did enjoy some of the historical information regarding the origin of various fairy tales, this is not a book that I enjoyed or would recommend. Bettelheim is clearly knowledgeable and has studied fairy tales for quite some time. However, I found his dependence on the psychological beliefs of Freud too heavy. He claims that what is special about fairy tales is that they meet a child where he/she is and gives them whatever it is that they need at the time. This, I do agree with. He then, ...more

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Sep 20, 2009 Karen Floyd rated it liked it

Shelves: psychology-mental-health

Are all psychiatrists obssessed with sex? This one certainly seemed to be. It would seem that all fairy folk tales (as he calls them)are telling us on a subconscious level how to grow up to become psychologically mature and have good sex lives. He has some valuable things to say, but he belabors his sexual ideas so these get drowned out.
And he says that in the genre of animal/monstrous spouses, women are always beautiful animals while men are usually fierce and repulsive. I beg to differ: ...more

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Feb 14, 2009 Anthony Buckley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy, anthropology

An interesting and important book, indeed, a classic. The points he make concerning the role of narrative (especially what we call fairy stories) in the development of children are definitely important. My feeling is, however, that Bettelheim is a bit rosy-spectacled. Eric Berne in "What do you say when you have said 'Hello'?" discusses a similar topic, but his argument has a harder edge. We maybe use narrative of whatever kind in forming our individual identities, but sometimes our identities ...more

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Mar 30, 2011 J.Aleksandr Wootton rated it liked it

Heavily Freudian, but a teaspoon of salt will help the Bettelheim go down. Offers much insight into the positive ways children interact psychologically with fairy tales and fairy tale tellers.

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Jan 25, 2016 Peter rated it it was ok

Shelves: myth-and-religion

I have two young children, and most of the time I have no idea what is going on in their heads. They struggle, no doubt, with fears, concerns, and disturbing behaviors in others. They may worry about whether they will succeed in the future, and how they can cope in the world. But most of the time they don’t. They just take things as they come. Or so it seems to me.

On the existence of the subconscious, I have no doubt. Through years of observation of myself, I realize that my own actions I have two young children, and most of the time I have no idea what is going on in their heads. They struggle, no doubt, with fears, concerns, and disturbing behaviors in others. They may worry about whether they will succeed in the future, and how they can cope in the world. But most of the time they don’t. They just take things as they come. Or so it seems to me.

On the existence of the subconscious, I have no doubt. Through years of observation of myself, I realize that my own actions unconsciously affect my feelings about myself and (or, hence) my feelings and expectations about others, and without conscious effort these feelings can go uncontrolled. And so, surely, children must also wonder about this. And they must wonder about how they will get along in life. They must wonder about who they are, how they should act, and what is the right thing to do?

You can answer these questions outright. But sometimes that doesn’t dispel the worry or answer the question. Or you can entertain them, you can take them on a trip in their mind, hint that there might be magic, or simply incredible possibilities, give them a reason to hope that they too, will be an amazing adult. Oh the places you will go!

This book points out that you can get the same effect of hope with trolls, witches, glass mountains, talking animals, egotistical kings, evil brothers, dim witted boys, nasty stepmothers and flakey girls. The fantasy and enchantment approach takes the whole band wagon out to a safe distance where it can be observed and laughed at. And it is so entertaining to boot. My boys, surprisingly, loved the fairy tales I started reading to them some time ago. All the challenges, risks, adventures, impossible tasks in order to inherit the kingdom—they eat it up.

There is, though, a lot of Freudian analysis in this book. There are oedipal cravings, oral anxieties, oral cravings and oedipal conflicts. There are sibling rivalries, early pubertal conflicts and inter- generational sexual rivalry. At a point quite early on, it gets to be ‘too much already’. For me, that peak of overload was reached with a discussion of Little Red Riding Hood, namely, the assertion that Little Red Riding Hood intentionally ratted out her grandmother’s location to the wolf because the girl was jealous of her grandmother as a sexual rival.

Give it a rest!
...more

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Dec 28, 2015 Va Le rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: psychology

When I first opened this book I thought how I would read about the real meanings of the stories you are told when you are a child when analised. What I found was a book on childrens development through fairy tales and stories, and their meaning to the childs subconscious world.
The further you dive into this book you realize how much of a child still lives in you, and, personally it brings some insight for young people leaving home and experiencing how the first steps away from your parents home ...more

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Oct 15, 2014 Maria rated it did not like it

Shelves: borrowed, reviewed, for-study, science-academic

FI-NAL-LY!! I've read it all!!
This is one of the few books I wanted to put away as soon as I started reading. Optimistic as I was, I read on and hoped it would become better. It didn't. It only got worse and worse, but I'm too OCD to stop reading any book I started reading.

Bettelheim's approach is hardly scientific and leaves too less space for alternate conclusions. On top of that, he sounds like someone who knows the child's mind like nobody else and has taken some time to teach all this ...more

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Jan 13, 2014 Gideon rated it really liked it

An incredible layman's intro to child developmental psychology, this is an absolutely vital read for storytellers of any stripe or any parent looking to peek inside the emotions and ideas of the important little people in their life.

I became aware of 'Uses' after reading an essay by Martin Scorcese which talked about how Stanley Kubrick used Bettelheim to compose the screenplay for 'The Shining' (side note: The Shining is a terrible, terrible bedtime story for children and not recommended by ...more

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Oct 05, 2014 Sunny rated it liked it

Shelves: childrens-literature

I thought this book dragged on a little bit and was very sexual in its explanation of most of the fairly tales we have grown up with. The first half of the book is an explanation of some of the best known fairly tales we have grown up with and in some places was really insightful but in others quite repetitive and boring. The chapters cover myth, the pleasure principle, importance of externalisation, brining order into chaos, our dual nature, languages, the youngest child, why some fairy tales ...more

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Feb 25, 2014 Rebecca Richardson marked it as to-read

Cate Blanchett Favorite - I read this in drama school. It's an analysis from a psychologist's perspective of the meaning and power of fairy tales. One example that sticks in my mind is the metaphor of a child going into the forest. Bettelheim makes the point that the structure of this story parallels children's experiences in life—how you can be frightened but eventually make it through to the other side. One can feel expendable—particularly in this day and age, and especially working in film— ...more

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Jun 26, 2008 Jason rated it really liked it

Great book. Was a revelation when I first read it as a student, but now I'd take issue with some of his ideas. Well maybe that's being a bit grand: I'd like to talk to him about the thinking behind some of his arguments...I could be convinced. Overall:life-changing ideas

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About Bruno Bettelheim

Bruno Bettelheim

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Bruno Bettelheim was an Austrian-born American child psychologist and writer. He gained an international reputation for his views on autism and for his claimed success in treating emotionally disturbed children.

Books by Bruno Bettelheim

Freud and Man's Soul: An Important Re-Interpretation of Freudian Theory

A Good Enough Parent: The Guide To Bringing Up Your Child

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“The child intuitively comprehends that although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue ...” — 109 likes

“The unrealistic nature of these tales (which narrowminded rationalists object to) is an important device, because it makes obvious that the fairy tales’ concern is not useful information about the external world, but the inner process taking place in an individual.” — 26 likes

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The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales

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Preview — The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim

The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

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Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Bruno Bettelheim

Books by Bruno Bettelheim

Trivia About The Uses of Encha...

Quotes from The Uses of Encha...

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