Having decided to discuss wider influences on my writing I thought I’d continue by looking at fairy stories as the structure of the story is of vital importance. Strangely enough it was teaching children that was to lead me to a whole new field of personal investigation into the Fairy Story. Despite having limited language skills and vocabulary I found my pupils loved hearing stories. When I first began teaching children EFL there was a dearth of didactic material, nowadays there are myriads of resources most of which include to varying degrees teaching based on stories. The Oldest known fairy story is dated 1250 BC on Papyrus in Mesopotamia.
Today most of us reach the fairy story via Disney or something similar. And while one cannot detract from the quality of the production and the work of the graphic artists the modern interpretation has lead us to associate it with simplicity and happy endings. However my intuition told me there was more and my first investigations brought me to the attention of the work of the psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim (1903- 1990). His work “The Uses of Enchantment” is his study on the motives, symbolism and deeper meanings in fairy tales on the human psyche. The reading of the book has had a profound effect on me as writer and a person.
Dr Bettleheim was a survivor of the Nazi Concentration camps, and in his barracks they began telling childhood tales at night before curfew and when they could the idea was passed on though the camp grapevines. Moving to the Unites States after the war Bettelheim was to find those who survived contact him and he made an amazing discovery; the people who had told the bedtime stories had survived in better mental health than those who hadn’t. He then dedicated his life’s work to the importance and significance of the story as a healing force working with damaged children.
What he discovered though his investigation and treatment of others confirmed what Jung had said that that symbols and motifs in stories were common to the collective human psyche. Reinforcing universal ethics values, respect your parents, don’t rob, don’t steal, work hard behave with dignity.
Fairy Stories deal with two principle concepts
Deal with inner integration of person at spiritual, emotional and psychological level.
Child’s striving for maturity and independence in a healthy fashion.
However I quote Bettleheim’s own words from the conclusion of
The Meaning of Enchantment
"Each fairy tale is a magic mirror, which reflects some aspects of our inner world and of the steps required by our evolution from immaturity to maturity. For those who immerse themselves in what the fairy tale has to communicate, it becomes a deep quiet pool which at first seems to reflect only our own image, but behind it we soon discover our inner turmoil of our soul- it’s depth, and ways to gain peace within ourselves and with the world, which is the reward of our struggles."
Since Bettleheim I have gone on to read other works in the field and I quote
The fruitful darkness Joan Halifax
“Stories are our protectors, like our immune system, defending against attacks of debilitating alienation. They are the connective tissue between culture and nature, self and other, life and death, that saw the worlds together and in telling the soul quickens and comes alive
“Troublesome Things” A History of Fairies and Fairy Stories.
Diane Purkiss.( fellow of Keble College University of Oxford)
“Firstly common humanity: there are universal cultural archetypes produced by common psychic pressure in every culture.”
“A ceaseless reshaping of old stories to fit new contexts”
“To enter fairyland is to be born again, to go through birth as an adult who is conscious of the dreadful process.”
“They came from deep misery. People whose lives are a perpetual struggle to survive and suddenly faced with one burden too many.”
“A fairy story is about reaching rock bottom, in that sense a story about dying, but it is also a story about finding a way out if only in a story.”
“The stories rich complex often elliptical because to their teller their meaning is very plain because there were always inner stories.”
“If so they could easily become what Haaken calls transformative memories, memories whether authentic or not, that make sense of a life that turns its disorder and fragmentation into meaning.”
Fairy stories like their cousins Myths have a defined structure and order of things and the imposition of a structure like rhyme in poetry in fact guides the creativity, it is the recognition of the structure on behalf of the reader or the listener that gives security and satisfaction. And each person takes from the story what they need and want and that may not be the same on every encounter with the story. The storyteller has existed in all cultures in all times only the form has changed from the medieval ballad minstrels to the author of the novel as a consequence of the printing press to the cinema to the video game. All are stories
While returning to my older notes to prepare this blog entry I discovered reference to my bite plate mentioned in the previous entry. On the same day my bite plate was fitted I came across a web page for creative people whose name I can’t remember something like Get Out There but it was my first awareness as to how important the web was to become for creative people. Quite inspired by what I had discovered I began work on my first modern fairy story I was able complete the first draft in a few days to sustain momentum as I was pain free. It has since gone through various drafts and quite transformed from the original and I have developed and improved my editing and revising skills.
First drafts are curious things it is necessary to leave then and come back later as after a period of time one is aware of the functioning of the subconscious. I have always refered to my first drafts like potters clay, having finally something to work with and the realisation while editing and revising is a much more concentrated and conscious effort to express yourself rather than the outpouring of ideas. You find yourself in your first drafts. I have found them to be cathartic and therapeutic as well as raw material to sculpot with words. Fortunately the importance of stories as a therapeutic tool is becoming greater the work of Jorge Bucay in Argentina in his works such as Cuentos para Pensar (Stories to think) and Deja me te cuente (Let me tell you) and his Camino (paths) series. Though we must acknowledge the greatest and most effective story teller of all time was Jesus Christ who employed the simplicity of the story to embody the greater meaning.
Finally I would like to honour and thank my parents in this entry. As a child Brian my Daddy who I have already named in this blog told me stories from when I was very young, Ann my mum passed on her love of reading she had me enrolled in the library when I was three and her wonderful ability to cook. Thank you I love and miss you both so much
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