Off with Their Heads!
Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood
1st Edition
Published on 22. March 2021
332 pages
978-0-691-21481-8 (ISBN)
Description
When Hansel and Gretel try to eat the witch's gingerbread house in the woods, are they indulging their "uncontrolled cravings" and "destructive desires" or are they simply responding normally to the hunger pangs they feel after being abandoned by their parents? Challenging Bruno Bettelheim and other critics who read fairy tales as enactments of children's untamed urges, Maria Tatar argues that it is time to stop casting the children as villians. In this provocative book she explores how adults mistreat children, focusing on adults not only as hostile characters in fairy tales themselves but also as real people who use frightening stories to discipline young listeners.
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Book
10/1993
Princeton University Press
€43.80
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04/1992
Princeton University Press
€47.12
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Person
Maria Tatar is Professor of German Literature at Harvard University.
Content
- Cover Page
- Half-title Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- I. Rewritten by Adults: The Inscription of Children's Literature
- II. "Teaching Them a Lesson": The Pedagogy of Fear in Fairy Tales
- II. Just Desserts: Reward-and-Punishment Tales
- IV. Wilhelm Grimm / Maurice Sendak: Dear Mili and the Art of Dying Happily Ever After
- V. Daughters of Eve: Fairy-Tale Heroines and Their Seven Sins
- VI. Tyranny at Home: "Catskin"and "Cinderella
- VII. Beauties and Beasts: From Blind Obedience to Love at First Sight
- VIII. "As Sweet as Love": Violence and the Fulfillment of Wishes
- IX. Table Matters: Cannibalism and Oral Greed
- X. Telling Differences: Parents vs. Children in "The Juniper Tree
- Epilogue: Reinvention through Intervention
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Index
