Children may like fairy tales because they show good triumphing over evil; adults may prefer them because they trigger childhood nostalgia or a social event close to them in their lives. The fact is that fairy tales were written to be enjoyed, and although have become universally loved, they all contain a hidden meaning from just being a 'little old bedtime story'. The psychoanalytical view of the fairytale teaches that it's meaning depends and varies between the individual and the individual's interpretation.
             The general aim of a fairytale is to entertain but the psychoanalysts would say that underneath the entertainment value of the tale lies the real meanings that focuses on the readers subconscious and uncovers material not consciously present in the mind of the reader but hidden away until the thoughts are provoked into life. Fairy tales can mean different things to different people; each finds a different type of sanctuary within the world of the make believe.
             The general view is that fairytales reflect patterns of emotional life, and they are things that we can relate to whether that be directly or indirectly due to our ability to recognize certain factors of the tales. Zipes, a theorist of fairytales believed that it was the ease in which a fairytale fits into the social and historical period of the reader that makes it so memorable – the social order in a tale is imitated in real life therefore is understood.
             Freud studied people as a doctor – he was a psychotherapist who studied people with psychological problems. By psychoanalysing his patients he discovered that many of the processes that were brought about by the use of fairytales were done so by the factors in a fairytale that 'attacks' the unconscious mind. These factors have been previously unobtainable because they are unconscious thoughts. Free association between dreams, memories, fairytales and personal experience al...