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Bruno Bettelheim's The
Uses of Enchantment:
The Meaning and Importance of
Fairy Tales
Besides being an
eloquent argument for the universal
importance of hearing stories
(for people of all ages), Bruno
Bettelheim's The Uses Of Enchantment—psychoanalytic
literary criticism of fairy tales—has
a special relevance for screenwriters.
Approaches to teaching screenwriting
have short-changed psychology
for mythology. By bringing meaning
to the evil stepmothers, nasty
giants and fairy godmothers which
often appear in fairy tales (and
movies), he helps bridge the gap.
Instead of merely seeing these
characters as standalone archetypal
figures which exist separate and
outside of a protagonist, he shows
how these universal figures represent
projections or a fractured part
of the protagonist's psyche, or
they are the good and bad aspects
of a parent split into separate
entities. It's one thing to say
that your protagonist will encounter
threshold guardians, but what
does an ogre (or bad guy) with
a club standing in the middle
of your hero's path mean? Although
I don't want to extract some simple
paradigm from material which was
not necessarily aimed at writers
and try to make Bruno Bettelheim
into the next screenwriting guru,
I do think Bettelheim can help
screenwriters find the answer
to the above question.
The first part of
the book, besides explaining his
approach through brief summaries
and analysis of fairy tales, addresses
why it is so important for kids
to hear fairy tales. Distinctive
from myths, fairy tales focus
on normal, non-heroic people the
child can identify with. Whereas
myths deal with the outer world
and victories over opponents,
fairy tales deal with inner processes
and victories over our self. Fairy
tales' themes of recovery and
consolation embodied in the happy
ending appeal to the child's unconscious
allowing for him/her to have the
faith to charge forward and try
to master the warring parts of
his/her personality: the id and
the ego. Fairy tales bring the
protagonist and the child toward
maturity. The analysis of children's
need for fairy tales and an explication
of the child's and the protagonist's
parallel journey help screenwriters
understand what their characters
and audience need to go through
in order to have a satisfying
story.
In the second part
of the book, in Fairy Land, Bettelheim
delves deeper into a few fairy
tales including Snow White, Cinderella
and Beauty and the Beast. Bettelheim
understands that a child's brain
acts on a different level than
adults. For instance, instead
of seeing a feminist nightmare
of happy rape fantasies in Beauty
and the Beast, a child learns
that the beast can be lovable
only after he is loved. This also
assures the child that for all
of the negative, anti-social and
id-related desires inside him,
he deserves to be loved; even
if he's a monster, there's hope
for him. Bettelheim also finds
that to young girls, Beauty and
the Beast, the Disney version
aside, augurs of their eventual
transference of unnatural feelings
of love for the father toward
a suitable lover.
Readers who are
not familiar with the principles
of Freudian developmental theory
might eschew some of the deeper
psycho-sexual analysis. Sometimes
it almost seems like parody, but
most of the time, even when he
"stretches" for a meaning
or an analogy, he supports it
with a pretty convincing argument.
Once again, there's
nothing here which correlates
directly to the screenwriter,
but such thorough analyses of
how much meaning and texture can
go into a short story should inspire
writers who are aiming for higher
than Cliffhanger II.
If The Uses Of Enchantment
bears some relevance to the screenwriter,
then to the writer of children's
fiction, this book is indispensable.
Bettelheim brutally convinces
the reader how realistic and superficial
stories like The Little Engine
That Could and
psychologically incorrect tales
like Hans Christian Andersen's
The Ugly Duckling only serve to
frustrate children. Besides the
inadvertent lesson in developmental
psychology, writers will also
find a fascinating approach to
the meaning of characters and
the forces of antagonism in their
scripts.
Originally published
in Creative
Screenwriting (Vol. 6, #2,
page 57)
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