Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood / Maria Tatar.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tatar, Maria, 1945-

Contributor:

Princeton University Press., Publisher.

Series:

Princeton Paperbacks

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fairy tales--History and criticism.

Fairy tales.

Folklore and children.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxviii, 295 pages) : illustrations

Manufacture:

Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2021

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1992

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

PREFACE

I- Rewritten by Adults: The Inscription of Children's Literature

II- "Teaching Them a Lesson": The Pedagogy of Fear in Fairy Tales

III- 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

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [273]-288) and index.

Description based on print version record.

Druk na podst.: first Princeton paperback printing, 1993.

ISBN:

9780691069432

0691069433

9780691214818

0691214816

OCLC:

1227051176