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I have two general aims:* in presenting this paper**. One guided me from the beginning, while the other evolved unexpectedly during the process of writing the draft for the paper. I begin with an exposition of my original aim and then go on to explain how I came to expand my work, and what my additional aim is.
My first purpose in the presentation is to expand upon and clarify two issues regarding fairy tales. One concerns the differences, both in content and in the processes by which they are reached, between the psychoanalytic interpretations of a public text and its private, personal meanings. Specifically, it seems to me that while the “narratives” (Spence, 1982; Schafer, 1983)constructed by psychoanalysts in their various attempts to interpret fairy tales are often consistent, coherent and quite comprehensive (:e.g., Fromm, 1951 Bettelheim, 1976; Brenner, 1982), and while they can often serve as useful general paradigms or prototypes of human conflicts, defenses, wishes and so on, such interpretations nevertheless rarely overlap with the personal significance and meanings of fairy tales for the