LSAT 104, Section 3, RC Passage 4, Fairy Tales

RC Passage 4 Explanation

Paragraph Summaries

1. Freud defines the “uncanny”.
2. Fairy tales aren’t examples of the “uncanny”, because everything is possible.
3. Bettelheim has psychoanalyzed fairy tales.
4. Bettelheim thinks that fairy tales are therapeutic for autistic children.
5. Fairy tales help children find solutions for their inner conflicts.

Analysis

This passage is divided into two parts. The first two paragraphs describe Freud’s ideas of the uncanny, and tell us what Freud thought of fairy tales.

The questions practically ignore these two difficult paragraphs. When I first read them, I didn’t put too much energy into understanding exactly what Freud meant by “uncanny”. I had a hunch that the questions wouldn’t ask about it, and I was right.

When you’re reviewing reading comprehension questions, try to note which parts of the passage the questions ignored. It will help you build up an intuition for which parts of a passage you should pay the most attention to.

The questions focus on Bettelheim. The author approves of Bettelheim’s work, and they give him high praise (lines 30-35). It’s very impressive that Bettelheim wrote a good book, since he completely ignored a critical tradition that could have been useful.

There are a few key points to note about Bettelheim’s work.

First, fairytales will help autistic children, assuming  two things are true: children read them with a benign meaning and that Freudian interpretations match the child’s interpretations (lines 52-56).

(The second part, “Freudian interpretation” is less clear. Note that the questions never ask about it. Often, the questions won’t test you on difficult or obscure concepts.)

Second, the fairy tales help children because children will use them to re-imagine and solve their own problems (lines 48-52).

Lastly, the fairy tales will work better if parents read them. This tells the child that the parents approve of the story (lines 42-45).