Bruno Bettelheim Cinderella

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In the article “‘Cinderella’: A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts”, Bruno Bettelheim expresses how Cinderella can relate to the lives of citizens. Cinderella, “the best known fairy tale” (278), depicts the struggles of sibling rivalry. Sibling rivalry becomes a concern due to multiple reasons, one being children feeling inferior. Despite jealousy commonly intervening between siblings, the parents fail to recognize the issues and therefore, are unable to resolve the problem. Although Bruno Bettelheim in “‘Cinderella’: A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts” claims that Cinderella causes sibling rivalry in children, faults in his argument can lead readers to become skeptical over the reasons of this issue. Bettelheim initiates the article claiming that Cinderella represents sibling rivalry which frequently becomes an issue between siblings. Children observe the movie and associate their life to the story line (281). Feeling dejected and inferior, children become depressed and sense they will never win their parent’s love. On the opposite hand, children can feel superior and blame the…show more content…
Bettelheim utilizes words such as overwhelming, devastation, and evilness to set a pessimistic mood and to express his feelings toward this topic. By using detrimental words, Bettelheim indicates that sibling rivalry is complete darkness and destruction. He fails to include positive feelings that also come during this time period. Due to the negative language, the article loses power by bringing forth strictly unfavorable responses. Bettelheim does not reveal both sides of this issue. Also, Bettelheim weakens his argument by not using ethos to provide a backbone to his opinion. At one point Bettelheim even cites himself as a source of the origins of the Cinderella story. If other sources provided the same information about sibling rivalry being dark, then his argument would provide
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