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Fairy Tales for the Mature

by Alper Caglar

Fantasy is a part of our daily life. It governs many aspects such as entertainment, comfort and understanding of the world from morals in stories. Classic examples of fantasy are fairy tales; stories that almost all of us have had the chance to read years ago. We found morals, heroes, villains and a journey in every one of them as we were children. Who does not remember the big bad wolf in Red Riding Hood? However, this escape into the extraordinary is not limited to the young, but adults as well.

An influential psychologist, Bruno Bettelheim, in The Uses of Enchantment, suggests that children resolve their psychological issues, be it insecurities or fears, through fairy tales in order to cope with life and reach adulthood.

Like all great art, fairy tales both delight and instruct; their special genius is that they do so in terms which speak directly to children. At the age when there stories are most meaningful to the child, his major problem is to bring some order into the inner chaos of his mind so that he can understand himself better - a necessary preliminary for achieving some congruence between his perceptions and the external world. (Bettelheim 53)

An example of this theory would be Cinderella, the young lady who goes through torment and manages to triumph in the end. It is a timeless story of how one does not need ambition or has to scheme, and how even the most suffering person could hide a personality of grace and charm. It is tale that is perfect for children who are developing their personalities. It teaches perseverance, hope and most importantly the need to love and form a family. It is not only a story about morals, but also is suggestive of how a child should take action against a certain challenge.

Yet Bettelheim limits the benefits of fairy tales only towards the cognitive development of children. By this logic of his, adults do not need fairy tales, for they have already resolved their issues. Yet in the modern world adulthood is a far more complicated and grueling experience that Bettelheim presumes it to be. One out of every three adults today suffers from some sort of psychological disorder or aberration, whereas children, although more fragile in terms of being affected by outside elements, are often far less susceptible to ailments such as depression or anxiety.

Another prominent and influential psychologist, Sigmund Freud had a different idea about the unconscious which relates to people of all ages:

We have attributed three qualities to mental processes: they are either conscious, preconscious, or unconscious. The division between the three classes of material which have these qualities is neither absolute nor permanent. What is preconscious becomes conscious, as we have seen, without any activity on our part; what is unconscious can, as a result of our efforts, be made conscious, though in the process we may have an impression that we are overcoming what are often very strong resistances. (Freud 38)

Freud summarized human behavior universally, and without a certain age. Our drives were divided into three parts according to Psychoanalysis. The ID is the division of the mind that is totally unconscious and serves as the source of instinctual whims and commands for immediate fulfillment of primitive needs. The ego, which is the partition of the psyche that is conscious, most immediately controls thought and behavior, and is most in touch with external truth. The superego, or conscience, is the division of the unconscious that is formed through the internalization of moral standards of parents and society, and that represses and controls the ego.

I believe that fairy tales are more in tandem with Freudian psychology, which emphasizes the importance of the conflicts between the three motives. In Red Riding Hood, the main moral of the story is about the young girl wasting time because of frolicking pointlessly and being harmed by the outcome of her mistake. It is suggestive of how a child must act responsibly as if they were an adult to be safe from the evils of the world. We could say that, Red Riding Hood was dominated by her ID, her desires to waste time and endanger herself, and paid the ultimate price and the directions that were given to her was some sort of an outside superego. The wolf was obviously in touch with his ego to accomplish the nefarious plot.

Since this tug of war between the conscious and the subconscious governs daily life, adults also have a need for fantasy. Adulthood is far from perfect and is rife with dilemmas and insecurities that are usually far more intense than childhood examples. It is a time of life in which you have the chance to fulfill your ideals but are faced with obstacles. Purpose in adulthood is created through examples. Action movies, although lacking is solid morals, are a perfect example of adult escape into imagination. A passive and collected individual gets to express their suppressed feelings adventure and heroism in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. We cheer for the underdogs and the triumphs. Powerful emotions that we never thought we would express are invoked during our interaction with stories of modern quests. Thus adult fairy tales are about connecting with our childhood again. For although our behavior might change, we all carry an aspect within us that likes to hide behind a corner of our mind and contemporary fiction, whether it be on film or on paper, brings out this aspect; our childhood. One such adult fairy tale is The Matrix, every human's dream; to break through boundaries, in a world that never was quite real and become the dominant power through noble deeds. The movie plays with our sense of reality; to create a journey that we all wished we could be a part of. Who wouldn't want to learn that they were destined to be the chosen one like Neo, and become great heroes?

Freud also talks about desires which we tend to hide deep within ourselves such as our want for quests and our desire for glory:

The reason why [repressed ideas] cannot become conscious is that a certain force opposes them, that otherwise they could become conscious, and that it would then be apparent how little they differ from other elements which are admittedly psychical. The fact that in the technique of psycho-analysis a means has been found by which the opposing force can be removed and the ideas in question made conscious renders the theory irrefutable. (Freud[2] 5)

We are all shaped by great ideals and prolific dreams when we are young, and if we fail to reach them, we may opt to satisfy ourselves by watching the accomplishments of others. It is similar to the present day adults gazing at World War II movies with awe because they feel they would never be as courageous as that generation. The fact that modern fairy tales are able to manipulate our emotions and desires is uncontestable if we examine the success of mainstream movies.

There are few movies which are almost exclusively geared towards being fairy tales for adults. In one such example, the movie Hook, Robin Williams plays an aging Peter Pan who does not remember his past. He is almost entirely materialistic and has lost his sense of joy from life. He believes in little and is very cynical, and goes through problems with his family. It is as if Peter is completely superego. Obviously he has lost the balance between desire and control. Thus he embarks on a quest which takes him back to Neverland to once again. He learns to believe, act on impulse, and suddenly regains his memories of childhood as well as learning to fly again. Flying acts as a metaphor for the sudden enlightenment and freedom he experiences by rediscovering his more primitive wants. Through the entire experience, Peter learns to be a leader and appreciates life. He begins giving more importance to little details. He turns out to be a fighter rather than a person who is herded. In contrast with Bettelheim's claim, Pan has not resolved his issues as an adult, but rather solves it the completely opposite way; through combining the two aspects of his life.

Although Hook was not a box office hit, it was not a failure either by collecting 300 million dollars worldwide (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0102057). Although the antics of Spielberg definitely made it appealing for younger audiences, it is a fact that adults enjoyed the movie more than children since two and a half hours in length is far longer than most children would like to endure.

Adults in the present world are subject to fantasy in some form or another, and just like children they take meaning and are influenced by these stories. Being human is a test, and perhaps there will never be a moment when we are completely content with the results of this ordeal, but I believe that by imagining just like we did as children we are one step closer to our goal.

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. An Outline of Psychoanalysis. London and New
York: Norton, 1949

Freud, Sigmund. The Ego and the Id. London and New York: Norton, 1960

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment. New York: Knopf, 1977

Hook, Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman. Video-cassette. Universal Home Video.

The Matrix, Dir. Wachowski Brothers. Perf. Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. Video-cassette. Warner Bros. Home Video.