A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflict - Essay Example

The fairy tales provide children with an outlet for their thoughts. And it is for this reason that parents and teachers try to relate life to children by using and applying fairy tales in real life. Just like the Cinderella story children cannot wait for their freedom from their parents. They yearn for the day that they will be independent of their parents. The essay by Bettelheim has points which I liked and other worthy of criticism. The author downplayed the original purpose of a fairy tale.

When reading a fairy tale, the whole idea is entertainment (Hentz, 2002). Fairy tales as the most beautiful stories a child can relate to without relating them to their difficulties in life. The author takes beauty from them as he argues that children should find more than entertainment when reading fairy tales. It is an obvious assumption that children only relate to fairy tales to beautiful things. For my case attending weddings when I was young was my best definition of the Cinderella story.

The glamour and glitter at weddings was my imagination of Cinderella. The author gives a general perception about children striving to have their parents’ attention which is not the case (Hentz, 2002). However, Bettelheim’s idea that children hope for a prince charming to come someday was true and appropriate. Above all children go through in their lives, they always have an inner spirit which hopes or a savior. This notion is further heightened when they read fairy tales and experience happy endings.