About five years ago, when I embraced a deep-hidden desire of mine to be a fantasy writer, I found the book The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim at my local library. The major thesis of the book is that the fairy tales that children are drawn to reveal and resolve the psychological entanglements that they already find themselves caught up in. I like to extrapolate this to saying that the stories we are attracted to represent our psychological entanglements. When we boil down the story to its essence in the form of a fairy or folk tale we can choose to consciously grapple with its themes and see how they apply to our lives1.
However, in the spirit of “How do we improve our culture,” an astute reader might also be interested in what stories are most important. If we read Aristophanes’ Frogs, we might prioritize stories that provide the most practical advice. Keep in mind, this post is about what I think.
When I was little, “The Princess and the Pea” was a story I came back to again and again. At its core, the message of the story is “If you tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable, you can live happily ever after.” This is reflected as a high feminine2 virtue across classical literature; I find it a lot in Shakespeare’s comedies.
One of Bruno Bettelheim’s exemplar stories is “Jack the Giant Killer.”3 He describes it a bit as the story to resolve the Oedipal complex; however, I like this story because it describes that a young and naïve hero can overthrow a tyrannical overlord through his cleverness - he can even inherit the treasures of the giant so long as he looks out for his mother and saves the princess. More plainly, we can interpret this to mean, “You can overthrow tyranny and inherit its treasures so long as you defend those who cannot defend themselves.” It’s my belief this is one of the most essential masculine2 virtues of western civilization.
In my travels, I’ve also come across a story type sometimes referred to as “Simpleton” stories. “The Golden Goose” is a great typical example of this tale: a young idiot, literally, the stupidest boy in the whole world, embarks on a quest. He is even put at a disadvantage by his parents who care for him less than they do their other children. However, because of his pluckiness, his kindness, his courage, and his generosity - he too rescues the princess and even becomes king.
How does he do this? Simpleton, out of the kindness of his heart, shares what can with strangers: including those outcasts on the fringes of society. The strange gray man in the forest turns out to have great magical powers…and so the story goes. The Wizard of Oz is technically a Simpleton story.
There is one story on my mind lately, “The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body” which combines elements of Jack and Simpleton in the form of Prince Boots, who goes on a quest to save his brothers from the giant. There is a rather hilarious moment in the story in which Prince Boots comes across a wolf dying of starvation. The wolf begs Prince Boots for his horse so that he may live and promises to repay Prince Boots. Prince Boots, exasperated after giving his water to a raven and his food to a fish, finally concedes, not knowing what else to do.
The wolf, it turns out, is the only creature in the forest who knows where the giant lives.
So what can you do with this? I don’t know. I could tell you what I do with these things, but that’d ruin whatever mystery there could be out there for you.
Thanks for reading.
Footnotes
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Bruno Bettelheim's suggestion for parents, however, was to instead simply read the story the child was fascinated with again and again until it psychologically "clicked" for them. ↩
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"Feminine" and "masculine" here are used in the psychological or postmodern sense: It is not only a virtue for women to tell the truth - obviously. But it is an actionable virtue we can practice especially when we must play a more "passive" or "receptive" role in our life's events. Because truth-telling is not a passive act, however, we cannot call these passive virtues, and so "masculine" and "feminine", in my opinion, are far more fitting. Similarly, not only can men overthrow tyranny and defend those who cannot defend themselves: to do so is, however, is considered more active. I muse for a moment that writers today may subconsciously struggle with writing stories with feminine heroines who pursue a more "active" or masculine hero's journey: perhaps the major reason why The Hunger Games franchise is so wildly successful. ↩ ↩
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His other was "Little Red Riding Hood" - which is an important story, but, in my opinion, it does not actually demonstrate sufficient actionable virtues on the part of the hero like "Jack the GIant Killer" or "The Princess and the Pea." It teaches instead cautiousness and discernment as virtues. ↩