Exploring the Moral Space in Literacy Practices: A Fluid Model for the Actions of the Emotive Self in Adults' Responses to Fairy Tales

Bettelheim (1975) famously claimed that fairy tales support emotional health in children. He used psychoanalysis in his research, but a poststructural view of emotional, cognitive action allows for a new consideration of the self, as fluid and socioculturally situated. I use Taylor's (1989) framework to examine the response of one adult reader to her favorite fairy tale. In noting the qualitative estimations associated with the participant's orientations of self, I demonstrate a method for understanding the moral self as a cognitive act of self-optimization, using conceptual metaphor as evidence for these orientations (Lakoff, 1993). This novel approach to understanding the effect of fairy tales on the psyche has implications for the use of fairy tales in emotionally sensitive and supportive curricula, as well as for the general use of literature as a means of understanding, supporting, and expressing the self.M.A