"Fairy tales are works of art which are fully comprehensible to the child. As with all great art, the Fairy Tale's deepest meaning will be different for each person! The child will extract different meaning from the same fairy tale, depending on his interests and needs of the moment" (p. 12)

  "When (one five year old boy) learned that his grandmother, who took care of him for most of the day, would have to go to the hospital because of a serious illness- his mother was working all day, and there was no father in the home- he asked to be read the story of Rapunzel. At this critical time in his life, two elements of the tale were important to him. First, there was the security from all dangers in which the substitute mother kept the child...and even more important was...that Rapunzel found the means to escape her predicament in her own body...That one's body can provide a lifeline reassured him that...he would similarly find in his body the source of his security... This shows that a fairy tale- because it addresses itself in the most imaginative form to essential human problems, and does so in an indirect way- can have much to offer to a little boy even if the story's heroine is an adolescent girl" (Bettleheim, 17).

  "The girl...felt akin to Rapunzel, since the witch had forcibly obtained her, as her stepmother had forcibly worked her way into the girl's life. The girl felt imprisoned in her new home, as the nurse who had cared little had given her complete freedom to do what she wanted. She felt as victimized as Rapunzel , who, in her tower, had so little control over her life. Rapunzel's long hair was the key to the story for her. The girl wanted her hair to grow long, but her stepmother cut it short; long hair, in itself, became the symbol of freedom and happiness to her. As an adult, she realized that the prince for whose coming she had pined was her father. The story convinced her that he would someday come and rescue her, and this conviction sustained her. If life became too difficult, all she needed to do was to imagine herself as Rapunzel, her hair grown long, and the prince loving and rescuing her. And she gave Rapunzel a happy ending. In the story, the prince was blinded for a time- this meant that her father had become blinded, by the "witch" with whom he lived, to how preferable his daughter was- but eventually her hair which the stepmother had cut grew long again, and the prince came to live with her happily ever after."

Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976

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