A psychoanalytic study of the fairy tale with special reference to the inferiority complex

Abstract

The universal and never failing appeal exercised by myths and fairy tales is a fact so old and established that, for the most part, people have been accustomed to take it for granted without a thought. Until Montessori and other modern educationists began their campaign against burdening the child-mind with false beliefs, parents and teachers seemed to feel it almost a duty - and certainly found it a pleasure - to pass on to the children all the old tales and legends and superstitions which they themselves had enjoyed. The reason usually given - if reason were demanded - was that such material helped to cultivate and develop the child's imagination. "The belief is very common," Montessori writes, "that the little child is characterized by a most vivid imagination and that because of this a particular education should be brought to bear upon him in order to cultivate such a special gift of nature. His mentality differs from ours; he goes beyond our vigorous and restricted limits and delights in wandering through the fascinating world of the unreal, as is the case among savages". "The Imagination in Childhood." (Times Educational Supplement, 1915 ?). The child's apparent likeness to the savage has been frequently noted and it is generally held that, just as the developing embryo passes through many phases resembling stages in the evolution of man, so the child, in its development, passes through the same stages or "culture epochs" as those traversed by the race in its gradual transition from savagery to civilization. For this reason, it is held, the child is the representative of the modern savage and also of primitive man. Thus Jung writes: "Childhood rehearses, according to the phylogenetic principle, reminiscences of the past history of the race and of mankind in general. We have grown up out of the dark confines of the earth." - "contributions to Analytical Psychology." p. 119.