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In his The Uses of Enchantment (1976), Bettelheim analyzes fairy tales for the profundity of their transhistorical understanding of “the inner problems of human beings and … the right solutions of their predicaments in any society.…”
I find in both Bettelheim's analysis of “The Goose Girl” and in the fairy tale itself understandings that are specific to very particular social interests, that are conventional and thin (rather than profound), and that aim at and depend on manipulative distortion of the experience they are supposed to illuminate.