Cautionary tales were once a fundamental part of children’s
literature and instilled fear by demonstrating the hazardous consequences
caused by reckless choices. The stories served as didactic warnings for young
readers about particular taboos located in a child’s social and physical
environments. Characters in these narratives ignored any forewarnings and often
met with a grisly and violent end. In early children’s literature, the Grimm Brothers
and Charles Perrault’ stories contained numerous cautionary tales, collected
from European oral traditions, that we are familiar with today. Film companies
and authors (even the Grimm Brothers are guilty of this) have sanitized many
versions of these works, but stories like “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Hansel
and Gretel” still maintain their original undertones by warning children
traveling alone of the dangers and strangers lurking outside the safe space of
home.
Lesser known works continue to influence contemporary authors
like Edward Gorey and Neil Gaiman, who seek to recapture the element of fear children
experience when the adult is absent. Heinrich Hoffmann’s Der Struwwelpeter, a German children’s book, contributed to the
pioneering effort of combining narratives with illustrations. This collection
of cautionary tales, intended for 3-6 year olds, visualized domesticated
dangers for emerging readers. But, if a parent were to give their child this
book today, society would issue a resounding gasp of disapproval.
In “The Dreadful Story About Harriet and the Matches” a
little girl disregards the advice by the “pussy-cats” to not play with fire.
Harriet’s dress goes up in flames and she is reduced to a mound of ashes “except
for her little scarlet shoes”. This scene satirizes the unfortunate incident by
using an illustration of two cats weeping “tears so fast; they made a little
pond at last.” While Der Struwwelpeter’s
pictures may be considered a gruesome exaggeration of the “what if” scenario,
it doesn’t detract from the reality that this fear still exists today. Matches
might be a thing of the past, but there are other ways in which fire presents
itself as a very real hazard to young children. The question then becomes,
should we still employ these cautionary tales as a method of teaching children?
Or have we become to anxiety ridden about teaching fear to our children?
First let me say, that fear, or rather, how we should
introduce fearful elements in children’s literature or film has becomes a
controversial subject. For example, I was recently instructed by a first grade
teacher that my daughter needed to withhold discussing her fascination with
vampires, bats and deadwood trees with other classmates because it was scaring
them. I scoffed at the suggestion, particularly since we are in the midst of
the Halloween season, but was mainly appalled that we should ask any child to
suppress their imagination. My daughter’s whimsical dream of turning into a flying
bat should be considered normal for any child her age. Her obsession doesn’t
extend towards the bloody and violent aspects of horror, but the supernatural
and transformative elements. Do we ask other young girls to stop talking about
fairies or boys to cease drawing dragons? These might be trivial examples, but
the underlying meaning to the teacher’s request remained alarmingly clear: your
daughter has a strange, unhealthy obsession with something we systematically
disapprove of and we think any fear she might be causing in other children is
harmful. Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident, many parents across
the country have heard of children being warned to keep this “scary” imagery out
of school. And our book publishing and other entertainment industries are
complicit with this new “fearful” school of thought.
The “strange child” is typecast into our culture as
something we should be weary of, something to fear. Netflix’s Stranger Things deals with this taboo of
the “strange child” and the childish fear of monsters, which turn out to be
real in the show. Mary McNamara of the Los
Angeles Times points out how this fearful experience also highlights “the
transformative powers of love and fealty.” Researchers have shown that when
children read the un-sanitized fairy tales, the elements at work “provide
concrete images of villains and monsters on which to project undirected
anxieties and fears so they might be contained and dispatched, [help] to
facilitate psychic integration, and to assure the child of the possibility of
happy endings when the trials are overcome.[1]"
Essentially, literature can teach children how to face and process fear. But,
if we attempt to remove the symbols of fear from the childhood experience, are
we creating some other kind of monster?
Which bring us back to this question, is there still a place for the cautionary tale in children's literature?
We will reveal the answer in the second part of our exploration and more at midnight on All Hallow's Eve! Stay tuned!
[1]
Coates, Karen. “Between Horror, Humour, and Hope: Neil Gaiman and the Psychic
Work of the Gothic,” The Gothic in Children’s Literature: Haunting the Borders,
2008.
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