Topic > Personal Experiences in Tatar's An Introduction To...

During childhood, full intellectual capacity has not yet been achieved. For this reason it is unreasonable to think that a child can fully grasp the exact meaning of a literary passage. Alternatively, their mind will focus on certain parts or details and they will use those elements, whether good or bad, to guide their imagination in developing their own understanding of the piece. When I was a child, my mother read Rumpelstiltskin to me many times. This fairy tale in particular strikes me, because after reading it, my mind was not absorbed by the happiness for the miller's daughter to be able to keep her child, it was instead absorbed by the cruelty of Rumpelstiltskin, the little devil who intended to take the child away . The experience I had with Rumpelstiltskin was not limited to itself; I had similar reactions to almost every fairy tale my mother read to me. One in particular occurred after my mother was reading Little Red Riding Hood, and instead of trying to copy the pleasantness of Little Red Riding Hood, I found myself trying to copy the actions of the wolf swallowing her grandmother whole. When I am called upon to read these fairy tales to young children, due to my childish perception, a similar intuition is created within their concept of the work. My own experiences amply illustrate the ignorance of Bennett's idea that "moral literature can produce good citizens" (232). For this reason, Bennett's Book of Virtues is not as reliable when it comes to conveying “timeless and universal cultural values” (232). As fairy tales are read, not everyone focuses on the most understandable and positive elements, just like me