What are fairy tales for, anyway?

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The final exam essay question seems harder already:  we have to analyze the fairy tale (it's called The Three Ravens, and we won't see the video until Wednesday!) using a critical model (Toffee is absolutely obsessed with critical models) from the handout she gave us last week.  The handout is a short reading by Bruno Bettelheim, who apparently was a very controversial guy.  I get most of what he's saying, I think, but without knowing The Three Ravens, I'm not sure what I can apply to the story.  She showed us Hans My Hedgehog (it's kind of a Beauty-and-the-Beast story) yesterday, which was pretty weird, and I figured out a few things from the handout that could apply to that.
For one thing, Hans's father doesn't love him, which is why Hans leaves home.  I can see where a kid whose father is kind of cold might get some help from the story, since we find out that the father realizes he cares about his son after he leaves AND since Hans does live happily ever after in the end.  The story also shows that you have to keep trying if you ever want to be happy, which is something that is mentioned in the handout.  There is one thing that I wish the model did explain, which is why Hans has a horse-sized rooster that he can saddle up and ride!  No help there. 
It is interesting, to look at fairy tales this way, I mean, and I can see where they can give kids a way to think about stuff that bothers them.  It just never occurred to me that the stories had a purpose.

The article below has a really good discussion of kids and fairy tales (and it talks about Bettelheim, too).

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