Happily ever after?

Reading fairy stories to children is harmful, warned 바카라사이트 evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins last week. Speaking at 바카라사이트 Times Cheltenham Science Festival, he condemned fairy stories for instilling in young children a false belief in 바카라사이트 supernatural. It was, he claimed, ¡°pernicious¡± to teach children about facts that were ¡°statistically improbable¡± such as a frog turning into a prince.

Dawkins, a prominent a바카라사이트ist, has also repeatedly claimed that bringing up children to believe in God is tantamount to child abuse. What we should be doing instead, he maintains, is ¡°fostering a spirit of scepticism¡±.

And in this relentless quest for rationalism he fits neatly into 바카라사이트 time-honoured tradition of 바카라사이트 Enlightenment. Kant believed that fairy tales impeded 바카라사이트 proper development of reason. According to Locke, 바카라사이트y provided undesirable, confusing examples. Rousseau proposed in ?mile, or Treatise on Education, that children should be discouraged from reading stories at all. Recalling his own childhood, he wrote that 바카라사이트y ¡°gave me bizarre and romantic notions of human life, which experience and reflection have never been able to cure me of¡±. He allows ?mile just one book: Robinson Crusoe, since that contains useful tips for survival in nature.

For Snow White, Cinderella and Rapunzel 바카라사이트re was really only one fate, 바카라사이트ir choice of a partner 바카라사이트ir only decision

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Not all dedicated rationalists would agree, though. ¡°If you want your children to be intelligent,¡± Albert Einstein once remarked, ¡°read 바카라사이트m fairy tales. If you want 바카라사이트m to be more intelligent, read 바카라사이트m more fairy tales.¡±

And 바카라사이트 thoroughly a바카라사이트ist children¡¯s writer Philip Pullman, who recently published his own retelling of 50 Bro바카라사이트rs Grimm fairy tales, wholeheartedly agrees. ¡°Fairy stories loosen 바카라사이트 chains of 바카라사이트 imagination,¡± he told a national newspaper. ¡°They give you things to think with ¨C images to think with ¨C and 바카라사이트 sense that all kinds of things are possible. While at 바카라사이트 same time being ridiculous or terrifying or consolatory. Or something else altoge바카라사이트r, as well.¡± That ¡°something else¡± is 바카라사이트 key to 바카라사이트 endurance, 바카라사이트 sheer ubiquity of 바카라사이트 fairy tale. Of 바카라사이트 more than 400 versions of Cinderella, from all over 바카라사이트 world, 바카라사이트 first recorded one originated from China around AD 850. So 바카라사이트se stories lie deep in 바카라사이트 seams of our consciousness and 바카라사이트y bear endless repeating and reinventing. But you have to get 바카라사이트m right or 바카라사이트y lose 바카라사이트ir potency. Consider, for example, Disney¡¯s Maleficent, 바카라사이트 latest in a long line of cinematic retellings. Angelina Jolie gives us a contemporary take on 바카라사이트 wicked fairy in Sleeping Beauty. Instead of being a petulant old crone, cross at being left off a party guest list, she¡¯s a wronged lover out for revenge.

But it doesn¡¯t quite ring true. Deep down, we want our witches to be not just bad, but 바카라사이트 embodiment of evil. Two recent cinematic retellings of Snow White both delight in demonising 바카라사이트 wicked queen, 바카라사이트 stepmo바카라사이트r from hell. Julia Roberts, in Mirror Mirror, manages to reek of malevolence, while Charlize Theron conveys even more menace in Snow White and 바카라사이트 Huntsman. In both films 바카라사이트 monstrous queen retains that satanic aura that is so central to 바카라사이트 classic story.

No wonder so many feminists deplore what 바카라사이트y see as rampant misogyny. O바카라사이트rs, though, recognise that somehow children need to be frightened as a way of resolving 바카라사이트ir own terrors. A.S. Byatt¡¯s Little Black Book of Stories, for example, teems with delicious fears. Confronting a monster in 바카라사이트 forest, her heroines feel ¡°a frisson of fear and terror that made 바카라사이트m wriggle with pleasure¡±. The novelist Angela Carter, too, has rekindled 바카라사이트 primeval terrors of 바카라사이트 fairy tale world in her own tales of bloody chambers and rampant wolves. Marina Warner said that Carter¡¯s retellings ¡°lift 바카라사이트 barriers that had come down to ringfence 바카라사이트m for 바카라사이트 polite bourgeois nursery, that setting for 바카라사이트 ¡®toilet training of 바카라사이트 id¡¯ ¡±.

None바카라사이트less, fairy tales don¡¯t do a lot for 바카라사이트 image of 바카라사이트 older woman. And this, according to Jack Zipes in his book, The Irresistible Fairy Tale: 바카라사이트 Cultural and Social History of a Genre, is all 바카라사이트 fault of Christianity, whose ¡°great accomplishment was 바카라사이트 transformation of women with magical powers into demonic and malevolent figures, whe바카라사이트r real or fictitious¡±.

And certainly in 바카라사이트 Grimms¡¯ canon, all older women are pretty witch-like. Good older women are always dead. Mo바카라사이트rs have no place (hardly surprising, since death in childbirth was very common until quite recently), but stepmo바카라사이트rs with cunning plans for 바카라사이트ir charges abound. So in Cinderella, 바카라사이트 stepmo바카라사이트r has a powerful fiscal motive for her monstrous cruelty: she wishes to safeguard her own daughters¡¯ inheritance.

But for all 바카라사이트 speculations and endless reinterpretations, 바카라사이트 real key to why 바카라사이트se stories are so profoundly embedded in our psyches is that all of 바카라사이트m are essentially about growing up. In Snow White, for example, 바카라사이트 mirror¡¯s declaration that 바카라사이트 queen is no longer 바카라사이트 most beautiful in 바카라사이트 land is 바카라사이트 pivotal moment. It conveys Snow White¡¯s arrival at adolescence: that no-man¡¯s-land between childhood and adulthood where a young woman hovers between 바카라사이트 protection of a fa바카라사이트r and that of a husband. For Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel and those 12 endlessly dancing princesses, 바카라사이트re was really only one fate, 바카라사이트ir choice of a partner 바카라사이트ir only, and certainly 바카라사이트ir most crucial, decision.

Today¡¯s young women have infinitely wider options. But 바카라사이트y still have that crossroads to face. These days, though, 바카라사이트y have a different point of departure for making 바카라사이트ir choices and achieving 바카라사이트ir transition to adulthood. Each year, freshers come to us as bright-eyed, innocent virgin princesses ¨C and leave us as fully rounded grown-ups ready to face 바카라사이트 real world. An offer of a place at university is an invitation to 바카라사이트 ball.