The Four Skillful Brothers ': The Struggle For Meaning'

The Meaning of Wife

As the world of literature expands each and every day, it is the responsibility of the reader to preserve the value of old tales and writings from the roots of our established society. Although the details of trends and genres become blurred in a whirlwind of new ideas (or lack thereof), the worth of a classical fairy tale cannot be contested by any other form of literature; especially when concerning the youth of our society. In the Grimm Brothers fairy tale known as “The Four Skillful Brothers”, value is found beneath the words of every line as four brother’s travel down four unique paths to find their place in the world. Not only does this fairy tale prove its own worth, but it also closely follows the assertions
If his assertions are taken into consideration when reading “The Four Skillful Brothers”, it isn’t hard to realize that examining literature based on Freudian influenced theories may be the best way to analyze the work. For example, Bettelheim strongly believed in the consistent story-board of traditional fairy-tale that appeals to the young mind in a productive way. According to Bettelheim in “Introduction: The Struggle for Meaning”, “It is characteristic of fairy tales to state an existential dilemma briefly and pointedly. This permits the child to come to grips with the problem in its most essential form, where a more complex plot would confuse matters for him. The fairy tale simplifies all situations. Its figures are clearly drawn; and details, unless very
He believes that this aspect matches the importance of the direct confrontation of the dilemma in the child’s subconscious. Bettelheim states, “…a child can achieve this understanding, and with it the ability to cope, not through rational comprehension of the nature and content of his unconscious, but by becoming familiar with it through spinning out daydreams-ruminating, rearranging, and fantasizing about suitable story elements in response to unconscious pressures.” (Bettelheim, 213) This means that it would be impossible to reason with a child by attempting to explain the workings of his subconscious but it is possible through the thought provoking attributes of fantasy. In the Grimm Brothers tale, when the brothers are proving themselves to their father, the father demands that the fourth son stitch back together five eggs as well as the birds inside of them so that they may live again. This is clearly impossible, but because of the added fanatical task, a child may understand more clearly that the brothers task was to mend the damage done by the third brother rather than actually resurrecting the