Customer Reviews

The Witch Must Die: How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just learned that the author is some sort of bigshot psychologist somewhere. I suppose that should not surprise me. This book is full of modern American "education theory" and all sorts of pop child-psychology tidbits, and it grated on me immensely.

Kirkus Reviews put it best, and to that review, I will add this: Fairy tales were not written for children originally. The oldest, the most beloved ones, were written by glittering, fashionable adults, for equally glittering and fashionable adults. They're gruesome, complex, complicated, and sometimes they just don't have morals, other than the beauty of a well-told story. Sometimes they have lots of morals. They're like life, which also can be gruesome, complex, complicated, morality-laden or morality-bankrupt. But one thing they weren't, and that was kid stuff.

It took the Victorian age to turn fairy tales into morality-laden warning stories, and the modern age to sanitize fairy tales into kid stuff, and Cashdan has taken that sanitization one step further, by insisting that parents can ego-search their kids using these tales as launching points.

He takes complex and beautiful stories like Snow White and reduces them to one-line Sailormoon-style morals, tacking them onto the story like fig leaves on Greek statues ("Don't be vain!"). Chapters explore each "sin", with suggestions for parents on how to use the suggested fairy tales to explore those "sins". (Apply X story to Y child for Z condition, and voila! Kid is fixed! What better way to illustrate the shortfalls of modern education theory?)

Cashdan does make some interesting points, in all that psychobabble -- I loved reading about his thoughts on why the bad guys have to die in these stories, why the stories *are* so violent. Honestly, that's why I bought the book, and I wasn't disappointed at all with it because he does explore those issues in detail. But there's a lot of New Agey stuff to wade through to get to it.

I'd consider it a useful and thought-provoking addition to a fairy-tale researcher's library, but not a must-have resource.

As a child you are brought up on fairy tales like Cinderella,Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Pinocchio. We read aboutthe Mirror on the wall, the glass slipper, and the big bad wolf. Giants and magic beans and so many others. Now read the book that will have thinking differently about what the underlying message really means.

What Cashdan does with this book is shows you how lust, greed, sloth and other deadly sins are ways in which children can learn about themselves and how to deal with reality. Cashdan's ability to create a convincing argument lends creditability to the book. Cashdan may just have hit upon the secret and unlocked it for everyone.

Using the seven deadly sins to illustrate his points, Cashdan takes you on a magical journey down the fairy tale path to show that even the simplest good story has a message for each of us. Cashdan holds nothing back and gives the reader a complete look and in most cases also an understanding that what you read isn't always what you read.

With chapter on deceit, using the Pinocchio and Greed, lust and envy with several different fairy tales the once used bedtime stories take on a whole new meaning. Also Cashdan's trip down the yellow brick road will have looking at OZ in a completely different light.

Cashdan doesn't leave you hanging trying to figure out what to do after you have read the book, in fact he includes and appendix on using the fairy tales and choosing the fairy tales to read and explain to children. Cashdan's book is one that I found very enlightening and hove shared with several friends. The old school ideas about Jack and Beanstalk are about to be dispelled.

Early in the text Cashdan makes clear the fact that fairy tales were never intended as children's stories, nor were they meant to convey lessons. Rather, they were a source of entertainment and adventure for adults - characteristics that made the same stories viable later to be adapted for children. He asserts that, rather than teaching specific moral lessons, fairy tales do help children learn to deal with the struggles of everyday life, particularly struggles with what he terms "the seven deadly sins of childhood:" vanity, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, lust, and deceit. He asserts that the tales teach children through subtle means to resolve "struggles between the positive and negative forces in the self."

Cashdan characterizes the witch-villain as an external manifestation and magnification of the child-hero/ine's inner flaws. Later he states that good and bad female figures relate to the child's positive and negative experiences with the mother figure in her life (never addressing the fact that the good mother is almost always dead or absent in the stories). Cashdan quickly dismisses the possibility of misogyny in the negative portrayal of stepmothers and female villains simply because fairy tales aren't meant to be taken as faithfully realistic.

Later still he returns to the idea of the witch as representative of the hero/ine's sinful characteristics. The primary premise of his text is that the "Witch must die because the witch embodies the sinful parts of the self." This concept reinforces the patriarchal implication that evil is feminine in nature and suggests that it is the "negative" female aspects of the child's character which must be annihilated in order for her to live happily ever after.

Cashdan also claims that witches in fairy tales are often depicted as cannibalistic in order to identify them as fully repugnant and therefore deserving of annihilation; in fact, cannibalism was perceived as an earmark of witchcraft during the European witch hunts. This simple statement (as well as his flaccid bibliography) betrays the fact that Cashdan's text is poorly researched and that he often substitutes speculation for informed observations. Due to its inherent inconsistencies and oversights, Cashdan's text is utterly useless unless to provide points to argue against.

TWMD is an enjoyable read for one who wishes to look deeper into classic fairy tales. The suggestions for using these stories to teach morals to children seem practical and valid. I agree less though with Cashdan's theories on mythology. Viewing fairy tales only as a tool to teach morals discounts more scholarly works on mythology, such as those of Jung and Campbell which demonstrate the role of the subconscious and the ways similar myths are formed in different cultures of the world.

The style was enjoyable and the author's points made sense to me. However, even though he admits fairy tales were not originally intended as stories for children, that is the main approach of the book and there's not much discussion about how these individual tales morphed. I liked how the chapters were themed, including chapters allocated to the seven deadly sins with one tale corollating with each sin. Even though fairy tales don't have to be interpreted as moral lessons, he also pinpoints some of the pscyhological/subconscious undertones (such as the witch being essentially of the same essence/psyche/tendencies as the protagonist).

I would recommend this excellent guide to Fairy tales to everyone: parents who want to share the world of old tales with their children, teachers who want to share this tradition with their students, scholars and arm-chair folklorists alike! Over the last half of the Century, the study of folkore and fairy tales has become a game of censorship and interpretation. Unfortunately, the standards set for these practices are based soley on modern patterns of thought and emotion; it does not enter the mind of the modern commentator to consider that the people who carried these stories through the canturies thought differently than we do and had different concerns. But Sheldon Cashdan makes this the very basis of his book "The Witch Must Die". His terms are clear and logical, his approach pragmatic and realistic. Not only does Cashdan help us to understand the thoughts, feelings and concerns of those who recorded these stories, but he also accepts that the children's story of yesterday is the folklore of tomorrow. He is perhaps the first folklorist to consider L. Frank Baum side by side with the Bros. Grimm - Cashdan understands that they both did the same thing: took many folk traditions and created unfied stories from them. This is an exciting book which could breath life into the study of folklore as literature, a field which has become dead with politcally correct concerns.

I first picked up this book at a B&N while waiting for a friend. The title caught my attention of course, and the fact that I found this book in the psychology section made it all the more intriguing. That day I read about 26 pages and actually liked it a lot. I didn't buy the book that day, but eventually ordered it from Amazon. Now I'm almost all the way done with the book and I have to say that I am very disappointed. Although the principle of the book is interesting and starts out well, the majority of the book is very repetitive. I also find that the author often interprets fairy tales to fit the points he wants to make. There are many psychology books out there about "the hidden meaning of fairy tales" and I must say that if you're considering to buy this book, you might want to consider getting something else instead.

I read the book because of the interesting title and found it an excellent choice. It seems that it has been emphasized for it educational purpose, but I took it more entertaining and interesting. Something that just makes one think, sheds a new light on tales that are so familiar to so many of us. Whether or not the author is correct in all his theories (no one really ever is) I thoroughly enjoyed hearing them. I've read several other books on similar topics but none have held my interest like this one. Very well written in my opinion. Regardless of what the reviews say, pop into a bookstore to give it a peek for yourself. It's not necessarily what people are making it seem like.

Cashdan, Sheldon. 1999. The Witch Must Die: The Hidden Meaning of Fairy Tales. New York: Basic Books.
Author Sheldon Cashdan's parents read the more popular fairy tales such as Hansel and Gretel and Jack in the Beanstalk to him as a child. Still, he admits his most vivid childhood memories of fairy tales were brought to him courtesy of Walt Disney. He recalls "sitting in a darkened movie theater watching Snow White and holding (his) breath as the gamekeeper prepared to cut out the heroine's heart" (Cashdan, 1). However, as an adult, teaching undergraduate courses; particularly a seminar titled "The Psychology of Fantasy and Folklore", he became aware of fairy tales as both a teaching tool and a forum for understanding child psychological development.
In chapter one Cashdan discusses some of the myths concerning fairy tales.
* Myth 1-Fairy tales are stories written for children. During his research of fairy tales Cashdan found that many of them "never made their way into children's storybooks" (Cashdan, 2). Of the hundreds of fairy tales Cashdan unearthed only a few, those free of incest, sexual innuendo, and other perversions, were appropriate for children. Their intended use, Cashdan asserts, was entertainment at adult social gatherings.
* Myth 2-All fairy tales were written by The Brothers Grimm. Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm collected centuries-old stories, gleaned from the memories of and relatives, and created an anthology that "many consider the most comprehensive fairy-tale collection of all time" (Cashdan, 7).
* Myth 3-The intent of fairy tales is to teach children lessons. Morality in fairy tales was added later by Charles Perrault. For example, the never talk to strangers caution in Little Red Riding Hood was not part of the original story, but added by Perrault for didactic purposes. According to the author Little Red Riding Hood is about "food and cannibalism" (Cashdan, 9).
In chapter two Cashdan discusses why, although they were not originally intended for children, fairy tales are so appealing to children and why they are helpful psychologically. Fairy tales contain insight into feelings all children struggle to understand. Things such as loving and being loved, fear of abandonment, and even where they stand in the hierarchy of the family find a voice and a release through fairy tales.
Chapters three through ten provide a breakdown of inappropriate behaviors and feelings all children struggle to overcome and compares them to the seven deadly sins; vanity, gluttony, envy, deceit, lust, greed, and sloth. Cashdan points to the witch-like character in various fairy tales; the evil step-mother in Snow White is vain, the witch in Hansel and Gretel is gluttonous, the evil step-mother in Cinderella is envious, the maid-servant in The Goose Girl is deceitful, the Sea Witch in The Little Mermaid is lustful, the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk is greedy, the evil step-sister in Mother Hulda is slothful; and associates the witch's death in each story with a child's ability to overcome inappropriate feelings and behavior.
As a method for understanding the inner workings of a child's mind and an historical index of both well and lesser known traditional tales The Witch Must Die is an excellent resource for parents, teachers, and child psychologists attempting to help children navigate some of the more terrifying impulses, feelings, and actions associated with childhood.

Fantastic book exploring the dynamics of fairy tales and child psychology. Very informative, an excellent read!