“Every child believes in magic, and he stops doing so when he grows up” (Bettelheim, 1978, p118)
In order to gain a deeper understanding within fairy tales, I researched into Bruno Bettelheim. The Uses of Enchantment explains how Bettelheim believed in fairy tales being important for children to gain emotional growth, which would prepare them for their own futures. Relating this back to our own ideas, we want our installation to reflect the idea of the university library being a place that can be frightening, because of new beginnings and working towards a successful life/career.
Our aim is to prepare students for an experience that will be engaging and scary, through relating to adult life from work/jobs and other obstacles that may arise in their futures, all through references from well know fairy tales. The use of the fairy tale installation also has the advantage of being able to reflect back into the partakers own thoughts and fantasies of childhood fairy tales, but we aim to twist them by using Grimm tales. This enables the partaker to envisage past, present and future. The twist of using Grimm fairy tales emphasises the idea of growing up, but through relating back to Bettelheim we want the students/adults to gain “emotional growth” and to get lost in a fantasy and believe in the “magic” even in adulthood.
Bettelheim, B. (1978) The uses of enchantment: the meaning and importance of fairy tales. London: Thames and Hudson.
Ruth Scott