Clowns — a traditional symbol of childlike innocence — have been so often subverted in popular culture as to become a staple horror trope. Think of Batman’s arch-enemy the Joker, or the evil Chucky from the Child’s Play slasher films. Something similar happened when Agatha Christie chose nursery rhyme titles for her detective stories; age-old childhood narratives took on a sinister narrative dissonance. Horror-film buffs call this sense of disorientation ‘nightmare fuel’.
Flurries of cultural concern sometimes emerge around nursery rhyme violence. What is ‘Who killed Cock Robin?’ after all, other than a crime story that starts with the murderer’s confession? ‘I, said the sparrow,/ With my little bow and arrow,/ I killed Cock Robin.’ Yet in The Uses of Enchantment (1976), psychologist Bruno Bettelheim theorised that the darker aspects of traditional children’s literature could be beneficial: facing fictional dangers might better prepare youngsters for the horrors of real life. As a character in Christie’s all-conquering stage thriller The Mousetrap (1952) boldly states, ‘I adore nursery rhymes, don’t you? Always so tragic and macabre.’
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