Definitions for A Fairy Tale

A fairy tale is a made-up story usually designed to mislead involving fantastic forces and beings (as fairies, wizards, and goblins), in which improbable events lead to a happy ending. This is the definition of a fairy tale in the dictionary and the way most of the people perceive fairy tales nowadays. We all heard, watched and read many of them in our childhood and are familiar with most of the existing plots (which keep repeating themselves even in contemporary literature and cinematography). With the appearance of the Disney Company in the early 20s, the new interpretation of fairy tales has spread around the world. Nowadays, they are thought to be more about princesses, dragons, magic, and happy-endings than about morals and underlying issues wrapped up in a magical story for children.
However, this is the exact opposite of what fairy tales used to be. Fairy tales have always been an essential part of growing up. Not only they develop children’s imagination, but also play an important role in the process of developing one’s psyche. They teach us morals and help to understand and accept certain things about life. They demonstrate us the existence and importance of birth, life, family, friendship, love and death. Stories are a necessary part of one’s life in the adulthood as well. We all gain experiences from narratives by identifying ourselves with the characters and situations or just learning what the life is like, and fairy tales are especially important, since they are the narratives we read on the very early stages of our psychological development.
In my paper, I am going to analyze the importance of fairy tales in one’s live and in children’s psychoanalysis. Throughout the paper, I am going to discuss the ways children pe...

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...ts in the so-called penis envy, “They are bound to value their charms more highly as a late compensation for their original sexual inferiority.” Hence, the narcissistic queen orders the Huntsman to bring Snow-White’s internal organs (lungs and liver), which symbolize Snow White’s genitals and attractiveness that the stepmother wants to use in order to become more beautiful and get the father’s attention. Bettleheim thinks that the Snow White is also occupied with her beauty. Little girls usually believe that their mothers are the most beautiful women in the world, and that is what the mirror tells the stepmother in the beginning of the fairy tale, “You [the stepmother] are the fairest of all!” However, when girls grow up and narcissism develops, they start considering themselves more beautiful than their mothers. And this is what the mirror tells later in the story.