Silent Girls in Fairy Tales: Against the Grain of Violence

The poems selected here explore the hidden side of some of the most popular fairy tales. Girls become women guided by myths that define their passive role, their submission to violent behavior by men in their lives, be they fathers, husbands, or lovers. These poems look at a girl's fantasies from a different perspective: that a woman's life becomes the work of demystifying the myths that dominated her childhood to create a newly informed and subversive version of the myth.

HANSEL AND GRETEL: A TALE OF TERROR

In the analysis of a woman with multiple childhood traumas, the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" figured prominently. The author discusses the use of the fairy tale in this case at various levels. He suggests an interplay between a national myth, the fairy tale, and a personal myth-the patient's psychodynamics. The fairy tale can be used to illuminate personal meanings derived from it. In the experience of childhood trauma, the repeated reading of a fairy tale can help organize and defend against terrifying anxiety.