The Uses of Enchantment

by Bruno Bettelheim

  Despite the name “sibling rivalry,” this miserable passion has only incidentally to do with a child’s actual brothers and sisters. The real source of it is the child’s feelings about his parents. When a child’s older brother or sister is more competent than he, this arouses only temporary feelings of jealousy. Another child being given special attention becomes an insult only if the child fears that, in contrast, he is thought little of by his parents, or feels rejected by them. It is because of such an anxiety that one or all of a child’s sisters or brothers may become a thorn in his flesh. Fearing that in comparison to them he cannot win his parents’ love and esteem is what inflames sibling rivalry. This is indicated in stories by the fact that it matters little whether the siblings actually possess greater competence. The Biblical story of Joseph tells that it is jealousy of parental affection lavished on him which accounts for the destructive behavior of his brothers. Unlike Cinderella’s, Joseph’s parent does not participate in degrading him, and, on the contrary, prefers him to his other children. But Joseph, like Cinderella, is turned into a slave, and, like her, he miraculously escapes and ends by surpassing his siblings.

  Telling a child who is devastated by sibling rivalry that he will grow up to do as well as his brothers and sisters offers little relief from his present feelings of dejection. Much as he would like to trust our assurances, most of the time he cannot. A child can see things only with subjective eyes, and comparing himself on this basis to his siblings, he has no confidence that he, on his own, will someday be able to fare as well as they. If he could believe more in himself, he would not feel destroyed by his siblings no matter what they might do to him, since then he could trust that time would bring about a desired reversal of fortune. But since the child cannot, on his own, look forward with confidence to some future day when things will turn out all right for him, he can gain relief only through fantasies of glory—a domination over his siblings—which he hopes will become reality through some fortunate event.

  Whatever our position within the family, at certain times in our lives we are beset by sibling rivalry in some form or other. Even an only child feels that other children have some great advantages over him, and this makes him intensely jealous. Further, he may suffer from the anxious thought that if he did have a sibling, his parents would prefer this other child to him. “Cinderella” is a fairy tale which makes nearly as strong an appeal to boys as to girls, since children of both sexes suffer equally from sibling rivalry, and have the same desire to be rescued from their lowly position and surpass those who seem superior to them.

  On the surface, “Cinderella” is as deceptively simple as the story of Little Red Riding Hood, with which it shares greatest popularity. “Cinderella” tells about the agonies of sibling rivalry, of wishes coming true, of the humble being elevated, of true merit being recognized even when hidden under rags, of virtue rewarded and evil punished—a straightforward story. But under this overt content is concealed a welter of complex and largely unconscious material, which details of the story allude to just enough to set our unconscious associations going. This makes a contrast between surface simplicity and underlying complexity which arouses deep interest in the story and explains its appeal to the millions over centuries. To begin gaining an understanding of these hidden meanings, we have to penetrate behind the obvious sources of sibling rivalry discussed so far.

  As mentioned before, if the child could only believe that it is the infirmities of his age which account for his lowly position, he would not have to suffer so wretchedly from sibling rivalry, because he could trust the future to right matters. When he thinks that his degradation is deserved, he feels his plight is utterly hopeless. Djuna Barnes’s perceptive statement about fairy tales—that the child knows something about them which he cannot tell (such as that he likes the idea of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf being in bed together)—could be extended by dividing fairy tales into two groups: one group where the child responds only unconsciously to the inherent truth of the story and thus cannot tell about it; and another large number of tales where the child preconsciously or even consciously knows what the “truth” of the story consists of and thus could tell about it, but does not want to let on that he knows.77 Some aspects of “Cinderella” fall into the latter category. Many children believe that Cinderella probably deserves her fate at the beginning of the story, as they feel they would, too; but they don’t want anyone to know it. Despite this, she is worthy at the end to be exalted, as the child hopes he will be too, irrespective of his earlier shortcomings.

  Every child believes at some period of his life—and this is not only at rare moments—that because of his secret wishes, if not also his clandestine actions, he deserves to be degraded, banned from the presence of others, relegated to a netherworld of smut. He fears this may be so, irrespective of how fortunate his situation may be in reality. He hates and fears those others—such as his siblings—whom he believes to be entirely free of similar evilness, and he fears that they or his parents will discover what he is really like, and then demean him as Cinderella was by her family. Because he wants others—most of all, his parents—to believe in his innocence, he is delighted that “everybody” believes in Cinderella’s. This is one of the great attractions of this fairy tale. Since people give credence to Cinderella’s goodness, they will also believe in his, so the child hopes. And “Cinderella” nourishes this hope, which is one reason it is such a delightful story.

  Another aspect which holds large appeal for the child is the vileness of the stepmother and stepsisters. Whatever the shortcomings of a child may be in his own eyes, these pale into insignificance when compared to the stepsisters’ and stepmother’s falsehood and nastiness. Further, what these stepsisters do to Cinderella justifies whatever nasty thoughts one may have about one’s siblings: they are so vile that anything one may wish would happen to them is more than justified. Compared to their behavior, Cinderella is indeed innocent. So the child, on hearing her story, feels he need not feel guilty about his angry thoughts.

  On a very different level—and reality considerations coexist easily with fantastic exaggerations in the child’s mind—as badly as one’s parents or siblings seem to treat one, and much as one thinks one suffers because of it, all this is nothing compared to Cinderella’s fate. Her story reminds the child at the same time how lucky he is, and how much worse things could be. (Any anxiety about the latter possibility is relieved, as always in fairy tales, by the happy ending.)

  The behavior of a five-and-a-half-year-old girl, as reported by her father, may illustrate how easily a child may feel that she is a “Cinderella.” This little girl had a younger sister of whom she was very jealous. The girl was very fond of “Cinderella,” since the story offered her material with which to act out her feelings, and because without the story’s imagery she would have been hard pressed to comprehend and express them. This little girl had used to dress very neatly and liked pretty clothes, but she became unkempt and dirty. One day when she was asked to fetch some salt, she said as she was doing so, “Why do you treat me like Cinderella?”

  Almost speechless, her mother asked her, “Why do you think I treat you like Cinderella?”

  “Because you make me do all the hardest work in the house!” was the little girl’s answer. Having thus drawn her parents into her fantasies, she acted them out more openly, pretending to sweep up all the dirt, etc. She went even further, playing that she prepared her little sister for the ball. But she went the “Cinderella” story one better, based on her unconscious understanding of the contradictory emotions fused into the “Cinderella” role, because at another moment she told her mother and sister, “You shouldn’t be jealous of me just because I am the most beautiful in the family.”78

  This shows that behind the surface humility of Cinderella lies the conviction of her superiority to mother and sisters, as if she would think: “You can make me do all the dirty work, and I pretend that I am dirty, but within me I know that you tre
at me this way because you are jealous of me because I am so much better than you.” This conviction is supported by the story’s ending, which assures every “Cinderella” that eventually she will be discovered by her prince.

  Why does the child believe deep within himself that Cinderella deserves her dejected state? This question takes us back to the child’s state of mind at the end of the oedipal period. Before he is caught in oedipal entanglements, the child is convinced that he is lovable, and loved, if all is well within his family relationships. Psychoanalysis describes this stage of complete satisfaction with oneself as “primary narcissism.” During this period the child feels certain that he is the center of the universe, so there is no reason to be jealous of anybody.

  The oedipal disappointments which come at the end of this developmental stage cast deep shadows of doubt on the child’s sense of his worthiness. He feels that if he were really as deserving of love as he had thought, then his parents would never be critical of him or disappoint him. The only explanation for parental criticism the child can think of is that there must be some serious flaw in him which accounts for what he experiences as rejection. If his desires remain unsatisfied and his parents disappoint him, there must be something wrong with him or his desires, or both. He cannot yet accept that reasons other than those residing within him could have an impact on his fate. In his oedipal jealousy, wanting to get rid of the parent of the same sex had seemed the most natural thing in the world, but now the child realizes that he cannot have his own way, and that maybe this is so because the desire was wrong. He is no longer so sure that he is preferred to his siblings, and he begins to suspect that this may be due to the fact that they are free of any bad thoughts or wrongdoing such as his.

  All this happens as the child is gradually subjected to ever more critical attitudes as he is being socialized. He is asked to behave in ways which run counter to his natural desires, and he resents this. Still he must obey, which makes him very angry. This anger is directed against those who make demands, most likely his parents; and this is another reason to wish to get rid of them, and still another reason to feel guilty about such wishes. This is why the child also feels that he deserves to be chastised for his feelings, a punishment he believes he can escape only if nobody learns what he is thinking when he is angry. The feeling of being unworthy to be loved by his parents at a time when his desire for their love is very strong leads to the fear of rejection, even when in reality there is none. This rejection fear compounds the anxiety that others are preferred and also maybe preferable—the root of sibling rivalry.

  Some of the child’s pervasive feelings of worthlessness have their origin in his experiences during and around toilet training and all other aspects of his education to become clean, neat, and orderly. Much has been said about how children are made to feel dirty and bad because they are not as clean as their parents want or require them to be. As clean as a child may learn to be, he knows that he would much prefer to give free rein to his tendency to be messy, disorderly, and dirty.

  At the end of the oedipal period, guilt about desires to be dirty and disorderly becomes compounded by oedipal guilt, because of the child’s desire to replace the parent of the same sex in the love of the other parent. The wish to be the love, if not also the sexual partner, of the parent of the other sex, which at the beginning of the oedipal development seemed natural and “innocent,” at the end of the period is repressed as bad. But while this wish as such is repressed, guilt about it and about sexual feelings in general is not, and this makes the child feel dirty and worthless.

  Here again, lack of objective knowledge leads the child to think that he is the only bad one in all these respects—the only child who has such desires. It makes every child identify with Cinderella, who is relegated to sit among the cinders. Since the child has such “dirty” wishes, that is where he also belongs, and where he would end up if his parents knew of his desires. This is why every child needs to believe that even if he were thus degraded, eventually he would be rescued from such degradation and experience the most wonderful exaltation—as Cinderella does.

  For the child to deal with his feelings of dejection and worthlessness aroused during this time, he desperately needs to gain some grasp on what these feelings of guilt and anxiety are all about. Further, he needs assurance on a conscious and an unconscious level that he will be able to extricate himself from these predicaments. One of the greatest merits of “Cinderella” is that, irrespective of the magic help Cinderella receives, the child understands that essentially it is through her own efforts, and because of the person she is, that Cinderella is able to transcend magnificently her degraded state, despite what appear as insurmountable obstacles. It gives the child confidence that the same will be true for him, because the story relates so well to what has caused both his conscious and his unconscious guilt.

  Overtly “Cinderella” tells about sibling rivalry in its most extreme form: the jealousy and enmity of the stepsisters, and Cinderella’s sufferings because of it. The many other psychological issues touched upon in the story are so covertly alluded to that the child does not become consciously aware of them. In his unconscious, however, the child responds to these significant details which refer to matters and experiences from which he consciously has separated himself, but which nevertheless continue to create vast problems for him.

  In the Western world the history of “Cinderella” in print begins with Basile’s story “The Cat Cinderella.”79 In it, we are told of a widowed prince who loves his daughter so much “that he saw with no other eyes but hers.” This prince marries an evil woman who hates his daughter—we may assume out of jealousy—and “threw sour looks on her, enough to make her jump with fright.” The girl complains about this to her beloved governess, saying that she wishes the prince had married the governess instead. The governess, tempted by this possibility, tells the girl, named Zezolla, to ask her stepmother to fetch some clothes out of a big chest so that as the woman is bending into the chest, Zezolla can slam the lid on her head and thus break her neck. Zezolla follows this advice and kills her stepmother.80 Then she persuades her father to marry the governess.

  Within days after the marriage, the new wife begins to promote her own six daughters, whom she has kept hidden up till now. She turns the father’s heart against Zezolla, who is “brought to such a pass that she fell from the salon to the kitchen, from the canopy to the grate, from splendid silks and gold to dish-clouts, from scepter to spits; not only did she change her state, but also her name, and was no longer Zezolla, but ‘Cat Cinderella.’ ”

  One day when the prince is about to go on a trip, he asks all his daughters what they want him to bring back to them. The stepdaughters ask for various expensive things; Zezolla requests only that he recommend her to the dove of the fairies and beg them to send her something. The fairies send Zezolla a date tree with materials for planting and cultivating it. Soon after Cat Cinderella has planted and tended the tree with great care, it grows to the size of a woman. A fairy comes out of it and asks Cat Cinderella what she wants. All she wishes is to be able to leave the house without her stepsisters knowing.

  On the day of a great feast, the stepsisters dress fancily and go to the feast. As soon as they have left, Cat Cinderella “ran to the plant and uttered the words the fairy had taught her, and at once she was decked out like a queen.” The country’s king, who happens to come to the feast, is bewitched by Cat Cinderella’s extraordinary loveliness. To find out who she is, he orders one of his servants to follow her, but she manages to elude him. The same events occur on the next feast day. During a third celebration, events again repeat themselves, but this time, while being pursued by a servant, Cat Cinderella lets slip from her foot “the richest and prettiest patten you could imagine.” (In Basile’s time Neapolitan ladies wore high-heeled overshoes, called pattens, when they went out.) To find the beautiful girl to whom the shoe belongs, the king orders all the females in the kingdom to come to a party. At its
end, when the king orders all females to try on the lost patten, “the moment it came near Zezolla’s foot, it darted forward of itself to shoe her.” So the king makes Zezolla his queen, and “the sisters, livid with envy, crept quietly home to their mother.”

  The motif of a child killing a mother or stepmother is very rare.* Zezolla’s temporary degradation is so inadequate a punishment for murder that we have to look for some explanation, particularly since her debasement to being “Cat Cinderella” is not retaliation for this evil deed, or at least not directly so. Another unique feature of this story is the duplication of stepmothers. In “Cat Cinderella” we are told nothing about her true mother, who is mentioned in most “Cinderella” stories; and it is not a symbolic representation of the original mother who provides her mistreated daughter with the means for meeting her prince, but a fairy in the form of a date tree.

  It is possible that in “Cat Cinderella,” real mother and first stepmother are one and the same person at different developmental periods; and her murder and replacement are an oedipal fantasy rather than a reality. If so, it makes good sense that Zezolla is not punished for crimes she only imagined. Her degradation in favor of her siblings may also be a fantasy of what might happen to her if she would act on her oedipal wishes. Once Zezolla has outgrown the oedipal age and is ready to have good relations with her mother once again, the mother returns in the form of the fairy in the date tree and enables her daughter to gain sexual success with the king, a non-oedipal object.