Week 7 MAKE UP (April 2 & 4)

Fairytales are typically geared toward children as much more than a means of entertainment- they often are used to deliver life lessons to children but have also been utilized as a model for children to look up to. In two stores, Hansel & Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood.

In Hansel & Gretel, two children are abandoned in the woods by their step-mother and poor father and must find a way to navigate to safety on their own. The psychoanalytic perspective of this story is grounded in Freud's psychosexual stages. Within the story, it becomes clear that these children must have not completed the oral stage- the first of Freud's psychosexual stages. This was exemplified by their oral fixation throughout the story. Due to lack of consistent feeding, these children became stuck on this phase and then during their journey through the woods, they act on these strong impulses that are driven by this oral fixation, like their inability to control themselves from devouring the witch's house.

In Little Red Riding Hood, a young girl is sent on her way to deliver goods to her grandmother's house and is manipulated to by the neighborhood wolf. The psychoanalytic perspective of this story is grounded in Erikson's Stages of Development. Within the story it becomes clear that the young girl is within her industry v. inferiority stage- the fourth of eight stages. This is demonstrated by her adventure alone where she begins to show that she can function independently and away from her parents.