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.
- ISBN10 0691000883
- ISBN13 9780691000886
- Publish Date 24 October 1993 (first published 6 April 1992)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Princeton University Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 332
- Language English
- URL https://press.princeton.edu/titles/5049.html