Extra Entry: K.Miller, T.Cichocka: "Bajki rozebrane"

In their conversation recorded on 400 pages, Katarzyna Miller and Tatiana Cichocka remind the readers of the old truth that it's not people who tell stories but it's actually stories that tell people. Old tales containing collective wisdom passed down from generation to generation reflect people's yearnings, dreams, anxieties and joys encoded in archetypes (that is, in Jungian terms, symbolic themes which are innate and universal). The two women - Miller, a psychotherapist and philosopher, and Cichocka, a journalist - re-read the well known tales in order to discover meanings which are surprisingly up-to-date (like, for example, "Hansel and Gretel - Welcome to McWorld"). The fact that the two interlocutors are associated with Gender Studies at Warsaw University (as a teacher and a former student, respectively) may have resulted in their decision to apply Jungian rather than Freudian analytical psychology to their decoding of the tales, though references to the classical Bruno Bettelheim are not infrequent in the book.

Also, the fact is probably responsible for their gender-oriented interpretations of the tales (incidentally, this is precisely the reason why I bought the book;). So, what can an adult learn from, for example, the fact that in Andersen's The Snow Queen it is Kai who falls victim to the splinters of the mirror? Miller associates the splinter with patriarchal power with which the boy is contaminated. The power granted to the boy by the mere fact that he is male becomes the "patriarchal flaw" which corrupts him because he has no idea how to use this, well - undeserved and totally unearned - gift. Not knowing how to handle the power of the masculine position (no one has taught him that power means also responsibility), Kai relishes in executing it by becoming cruel to Gerda.

The book is worth recommending to any (prospective) parent or teacher, since it debunks certain myths connected with, for example, the need to avoid exposing children to the cruelty and violence permeating the Grimm Brothers' or Perrault's tales: fairy-tale cruelty is only symbolic, and evil must always be vanquished. In this way children learn that pain, cruelty and fear are part of life, but the hero/ine with whom the child identifies shall overcome;). A very wise and enlightening book: it teaches what to talk about when you talk about fairy tales with children.

P.S. I can't wait to meet my nieces (12 and 8) and re-read The Ugly Duckling, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty and Ali Baba with them. Especially as they both already know perfectly well who Mary Wollstonecraft was, what a heroic life Emmeline Pankhurst lived and the fact that New Zealand and Australia were the first countries in which women got the right to vote (courtesy of The Little Book on Feminism). They can also tell what the cover of the latest issue of the Zadra magazine illustrates. Unfortunately (or, maybe: fortunately?), my elder niece has also become sensitive to her (male) history teacher's chauvinism, but that's the price one always pays for a rising consciousness. Anyway, it seems that it's never too early - or too late;)

P.S.2. Thank you, evans, for recommending the book to me xxxxx;)