Fairy Tales: Allegories of the Inner Life

Fairy tales fulfill deep-seated imaginative and spiritual needs in the individual, as myths do for the race, and through them runs the constant motif of man's inner struggle to find his true worth, his inner self. Every country and culture has its traditions of good and bad fairies, malefic or beneficent beings, and of supernatural powers that can work wonders when properly controlled, or wreak havoc when misused. Like the great myths of the world, fairy tales obey traditional laws of symbolism and their perennial fascination lies in the richness and resonance of their archetypal patterns. This concise survey examines the constantly recurring themes and motifs in classic fairy tales - including Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, the Frog Prince, and Red Riding Hood - and shows how they relate to the symbolic processes of the unconscious mind. --- from book's back cover