Now we know, however, that also in dreams infantilism gets a very great expansion in order that the wishes of the unconscious by being properly censured may express themselves in the dream. The fairy tale of "The Little Bear," "Ivan-of-the-Pea" and similar ones represent these infantile sexual theories quite convincingly.
In Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" ("V. The Material and Sources of Dreams") the significance of the infantile material in the dream is sufficiently illustrated and analyzed. What wonder, if in the fairy tales of these dream-like structures from chidhood, mankind expands itself.
We find the same immorality. The obstinate princess lets many wooers perish until the right one comes who solves the riddle. The egotistic standpoint dominates, the altruistic has not yet appeared, as in children. Killing of the nearest relatives, as in children, so in fairy tale wish-structure, is only the wish to get rid of somebody.
The infantile rivalries, as they are set forth in a masterly way in Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams," find expression in the story of "The Twelve Brothers" (Grimm, No. 27); if the thirteenth child, the youngest, was a girl, the twelve older, the brothers, would be murdered; the father (naturally; the rival of the same sex! see Interpretation of Dreams) had the twelve caskets already prepared; therefore they had to run away. Similarly in the story of "The Seven Ravens" (Grimm, No. 25).
In certain stepmother tales one receives the impression that the component "mother" in the word "stepmother" is overdetermined. We have seen the stepmother appear, beside other figures: giantess, witch, etc., in the role of sexual rival. Now we know from Freud that the mother herself may be the sexual rival of the daughter. The infantile egoism of the dream and the fairy-tale does not delay having the good mother die (first, an infantile wish, see "Interpretation of Dreams," second, it signifies: the good mother no longer exists for the heroine, the child or the infantile component of the grown wife as daughter, because she has become a bad figure, a rival). She is substituted by the wicked stepmother, which means that the mother has become this figure to the fairy-tale heroine or the dreamer. Here a motive from "Cinderella" becomes understandable, as express-
