BOOKS
477
LOO easy, once we' ve learned its application ; it's too much fun . We tend
to look no further.
Dr. Bettelheim says Anti gone's fa te " shows tha t over-intense
sibling a ttachment is .. . fa tal. "
If
I a rgue that she buried her brother
out of a piety whi ch braved death , Dr. Bettelheim can always answer
tha t the la tter g ives symbo lic body to the former, and his meaning will
always bea t my meaning . Dr. Bettelheim says tha t "The Boy Who Went
Forth to Study Fear . . . could not shudder due to repression o f all
sexual fee lings," but in the text thi s boy's adventures are not with
women nor an y li ving fl es h , onl y with the thi eves on the gall ows, with
a dead cousin in a coffin and dozens of ghosts and spirits. I think he is a
man m inus imagination who canno t conceive of death . The sLOry says
he was cured by a bucket of river wa ter full of little fish es which his
wife poured over him in bed one ni ght. I think the story is say ing if you
don 't fee l you 'll have to make do with sensation.
(If
you can 't grieve,
peel an oni on .) Dr. Bettelheim says the story is about sexual ma tura–
ti on whi ch bludgeons the rare, deli cate point and leaves onl y another
sexual connota ti on.
·'My tale is ended . T here runs a mouse. Who catches it may make
himse lf a bi g fur cap out of it," says the end of Hansel and Gretel. Dr.
Bettelheim says it means " Industry making something good even out
o f un p romi sing ma teri al .. . is the virtue and real achi evement of the
school-age child who has ... mas tered the oedpial difficulti es ." Dr.
Bettelheim has not heard the ironi cal and faintl y bitter note which , I
beli eve, mean s: T ha t's enough magic for today. You and I know tha t
ri ddin g th e world of its witches, and bringing home a load of treasure
is about as likely as making a big cap out of a tiny little mouse which
you can 't catch in the first place.
Schill er's meaning is surely the serendipitous, open- ended kind
tha t can include Dr. Bettelheim 's " meaning" if Dr. Bettelheim's
language can learn not to exclude everything else. Or it may be the
reader's business to keep Dr. Bettelheim in hi s pl ace by remembering
tha t he illumina tes onl y a part of the fairy tal e whi ch is neither the
who le nor the heart of its mystery.
LORE SEGAL
