snow white

“Whether openly stated or only hinted at, oedipal difficulties and how the individual solves them are central to the way his personality and human relations fold. By camouflaging the oedipal predicaments, or by only subtly intimating the entanglements, fairy stories permit us to draw our own conclusions when the time is propitious for out gaining a better understanding of these problems. Fairy stories teach by indirection.” (201) This is an excerpt from Bruno Bettelheim’s “Snow …

…alas, even this memory was marred when I read part of Bettelheim’s essay which states, “Snow White’s story teaches that just because one has reached physical maturity, one is by no means intellectually and emotionally ready for adulthood, as represented by marriage.” Can’t a lovely princess just be awakened by a magical kiss instead of having to get into all the gory details of physical maturity, rites of adulthood, sex, and marriage?