Q15

[tzyc]

Is this the assumption Bettlheim holds because Bettlheim thinks fairy tales can teach children lessons, which means children can throw away old thinking they have??
What is personal qualities? Did Bettelheim mention it?
Is it "children's fantasies of desire and revenge"?

Thank you

[rinagoldfield]

Hi TZ,

Thanks for your post.

Is this the assumption Bettlheim holds because Bettlheim thinks fairy tales can teach children lessons, which means children can throw away old thinking they have??

That’s precisely correct.

Personal qualities are personality characteristics, or the way someone acts. For example, Bettleheim thinks children can be "unruly." "Unruliness" is a personal quality. Bettleheim believes fairy tales can "provide a lesson for unruly children" (lines 35-36), and thinks it’s possibly to change said unruly children. In other words, he believes that children can shed certain personal qualities.

(A) is out of scope. We don’t know anything about children’s interests.
(B) is contradicted. Bettleheim wants to subject children to the moral beliefs of their parents.
(C) is contradicted. Bettleheim seems to think parents can’t be inappropriate.
(E) is unsupported. The author is in favor of fairy tales as a form of "playful pleasure," but we don’t know where Bettleheim stands on playfulness.