Every historian is a “johnny-come-lately”. Folktales and fairy tales have only been talked about as such for about, oh… 200 years or so, if we date the academic study of folktales back to the Grimms. So Bettelheim wrote in the 1970s? Zipes has also been writing on folktales since at least the early 80s. But so what? Bettelheim wrote in the 70s; let’s pack it in. Nothing more to say here.

I’ve got nothing against psychoanalytic theory per se, but Zipes approaches fairy tales from a social perspective. Those paths will meet, naturally, but I favor Zipes’ social-historical perspective, even if I think his point of view is too ideological at times. It’s just too easy to find phallic objects and ersatz-vaginas in fairy tales.

Max Ross’s review, poised on Zipes’s study, mentions several of the “standard” scribes of what we erroneously call fairy tales. Presumably, these stories illustrate Zipes’s Marxist thesis. In fact, to mix a metaphor of these metaphors, it’s a mixed salad. Carlo Lorenzini, who wrote under the pseudonym Carlo Collodi, was an Italian nationalist whose children’s tales are generally (though not exclusively) allegorical. Matteo Bandello, the best known and most polished of the 16th-century novellieri, really doesn’t fit in the “fairy tale” category; he is much closer to the Boccaccio of the Decameron. The tale which Shakespeare adapted as Romeo and Juliet, for example, is hardly about class struggle.

Apparently,Zipes also conveniently passes up collections of Scandinavian tales, among the many other ethnic funds. (Carl von Sydow–Max’s father–did an extensive and very well regarded study of this material). And what of non-European tales? There is a Chinese “Cinderella” which has been claimed to be the original of the Perrault version. Whether this is true or simply a collateral dressing of a model that independently arises among various peoples is a question worth exploring if one wishes to make the kind of claim Zipes insists upon.

Bettelheim’s “”The Uses of Enchantment”" caused quite a stir when it was issued. It shouldn’t have. For one thing, the psychoanalytic evidence is much broader than the little he relies upon, and even in those tales he cites, his interpretation tends to be rather constricted. For another, his thesis was obvious long before he promulgated it.

What qualifies a story as a fairy tale needs to be established before a broad theory is proposed as to its generic font. Washington Irving, the father of the short story, drew on two Marchen (and was viciously–and wrongly–attacked for plagiarism); is “Rip Van Winkle” a fairy tale? (See Phillip Young’s essay on the many resemblances between Irving’s version and tales from all over the world. –No, I can’t remember the title off hand, but Young later included it in one of his books.)

If any thesis can be said to hold generally true about “folk” tales, I would say the psychoanalytical foundations should be given high priority. Kinder und Hausmarchen, in every language, tended to be told by grandmothers (or older women) to children, and unconsciously expressed hidden wisdom about navigating their course toward adulthood–usually in its sexual aspects. This motif persists in much “adult” fiction In a real sense, Fifty Shades of Grey is a fairy tale–and it expresses not a class struggle but the freedom from moral strictures imposed on female desires. When, years ago, I showed Lena Wertmuller’s “”Swept Away”" in one of my courses, most of the women students berated me for encouraging the values of female submissiveness.After almost half an hour of protest, I asked the women to answer honestly whether they entertained rape fantasies. (Most indicated that they had. Their answer does not,m of course, mean that they actually wished to be raped.)

But as a college instructor who teaches Folklore I must say that the author seems to have missed many previous analysis of fairy tales and applied modern standards on the interpretation.

Furthermore the Author lumps different. Types of folktales together. I suggest taking a look at Stith Thompson’s updated “The Types of the Folktale.” Thompson’s classification breaks tales down into “Type-Index” and “Motif-Index”. For example a folktale such as “Cinderella” is classified at Type 510A but “identification by fitting of Slipper” is Motif H36.1

I would also suggest reading the work of Svend Grundtvig -early classification of Danish folktales- and Kaarle Krohn, founding father of modern folktale research.

Long live Märchen!

For my part, as a child the role of the wolf was taken by government functionaries: whenever I misbehaved I’d be threatened with: “Careful, or the social workers will come and take you away”.

That worked pretty well.

Nothing against this Zipes guy, but he’s something of a johnny-come-lately in this field, and an article that goes into the level of detail that this one does about the origins of the stories (the Grimms, et.al.) should *really* mention the 20th century anticendents who did vital work in analyzing the underpinnings of these fascinating tales!