In fairy tales, children are pushed into ovens, have their hands chopped off, are forced to sleep in coal bins, and have to deal with wolves who ate their grandmother. In the myths, rape, incest, all sorts of gruesome bloodshed, child abandonment, and outright debauchery are the norm. We see more of this in biblical stories, accentuated by dire predictions of terrors and abominations in an end-of-the-world apocalypse that is more terrifying than human imagination can even imagine. For the most part, these images of violence, promiscuity and human degradation are explained by non-fundamentalist psychologists, mythologists, sociologists, philosophers and theologians as symbolic manifestations of the human psyche. This is a statement that could be supported, in no small part, by the manifestations of the human psyche that we see in our violent, erotic, chaotic dreams. As a culture, again with religious fundamentalist and perhaps politically correct feminist exceptions, we pretty much take these literary forms for granted in terms of their violent and seemingly antisocial content. Parents lovingly read their children to sleep with images of forced labor, painful mutilation, and vengeful punishment. Both teachers and preachers use these quasi-historical and metaphorical tales of aggression and hostility to inspire and enlighten. Little, if any, thought is given to the possibility that we are putting dangerous ideas into the heads of our young people that will result in violent displays of antisocial chaos. And, indeed, there appears to be little evidence that this is true. For the most part, our children seem to have a healthy relationship with these stories where violence and sexuality tend to help the… middle of paper… be nurtured. The center is collapsing because the psychic weight of perceived imperfections is dangerously out of balance with the authentic desires of the human heart. Works Cited Breaking the Waves. Written and directed by Lars Von Trier. 1996.Hillman, James. Reconsidering psychology. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. Jung, Carl G. The Essential Jung. Introduced and edited by Anthony Storr. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983. Jung, Emma, ​​and Marie-Louise von Franz. The legend of the Grail. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1970.Segal, Robert A. Meeting Jung on Mythology. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1995.Tatar, Maria. The harsh reality of Grimm's fairy tales. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1995.von Franz, Marie-Louise. Interpretation of fairy tales. Boston: Shambala, 1996.---. Shadow and Evil in fairy tales. Boston: Shambala, 1996.