...German philosopher Friedrich von Schiller once said, “Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in the truth that is taught by life.” Fairy tales are a great way to educate young children, since they posses much more than their face value of merely providing entertainment at a young age. One may argue that fairy tales paint children a false picture of the world they live in. However, keeping children away from fairy tales would hinder their creativity as fairy tales help them grow mentally and develop their imagination. According to Bruno Bettelheim, “ more can be learned from them about the inner problems of human beings, and of the right solutions to their predicaments in any society, than from any other type of story within a child’s comprehension.” (270) I agree with Bettelheim’s claim that Fairy tales are essential for children as they teach children copious lessons. They are likely to recall these tales even as they grow older. In their versions of “Little Red Riding Hood”, Roald Dahl and James Thurber teach children why it is important to be independent, intuitive and always aware of danger. Unlike many other fairy tales, both these versions of “Little Red Riding Hood” assure girls that they do not need a prince to save them. Roald Dahl’s version as well as Thurber’s encourages children to be independent. In both stories the girl kills the ‘Wolf’ without any help. Readers might argue that the pistol carried by the girl teaches children...
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...Many people know of the fairy tales and nursery rhymes of their childhoods. Though when people think of these tales and rhymes, they don’t think about plagues, wars, sieges, or of walking on glass. But by shedding light on the hidden facts and meanings of these stories, people can be better educated of the stories and rhymes they thought they knew. An example to start with is Cinderella she had to pick beans and lentils out of the ashes to get her meals. With Miss Mary Mack it’s believed it was an African-American spiritual for children and in The Little Mermaid every step she takes it feels like walking on glass. So now people will know the true meanings and stories they thought they knew, and will never tell their kids again. First off is Cinderella and Snow White, these stories were both written by the Brothers Grimm and later published by...
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...The original Snow White is a centuries old, German fable titled Sneewittchen. It gained notoriety after its publication in the first edition of The Brothers Grimm collection “Grimms' Fairy Tales”. Many believe the character of Snow White was based on the life of Margarete von Waldeck, a German countess born to Philip IV in 1533. When Margaretewas 16 she was forced by her stepmother, Katharina of Hatzfeld to move away to Wildungen in Brussels. There, Margarete fell in love with a prince who would later become Phillip II of Spain. Margarete’s father and stepmother disapproved of the relationship as it was ‘politically inconvenient’. Margarete died at the age of 21 after being poisoned. Margarete's father owned several copper mines that used...
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...Fairy Tales have been labeled with a positive connotation since as long as people could remember. Parents read fairy tales to their children to bring them to a state filled with imagination and magic. Kids love the fact that fairy tales let them venture off into a creative world where anything is possible. We like to think that we know how these stories go, but in reality, we do not. Fairy Tales have been written ever since the 1800s, and if we told our kids the original fairy tales, instead of a state filled with imagination and magic, it would be a state filled with horror and fear. Fairy Tales may have withstood the test of time by continuously being told generation by generation, but that does not mean that these fairy tales have not been...
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...reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. CHAPTER ONE Once There was a Time An Introduction to the History and Ideology of Folk'and Fairy Tales To begin with a true story told in fairy-tale manner: Once upon a time the famous physicist Albert Einstein was confronted by an overly concemed woman who sought advice on how to raise her small son to become a successful scientist. In particular she wanted to know what kinds ofbooks she sll ould read to her son. "Fairy tales," Einstein responded without. hesitation. "Fine, but what else should I read to him after that?" the mother asked. "More fairy tales, "Einstein stated. "And after that?" "Even more fairy tales. " replied the great scientist, and he waved his pipe like a wizard pronouncing a happy end to a long adventure. It now seems that the entire world has been following Einstein's advice. By 1979 a German literary critic could declare that fairy tales are "fantastically in."\ In fact, everywhere one turns today fairy tales and fairy-tale motifs pop up like magic. Bookshops are flooded with . fairy tales by J.R.R. Tolkien, Hermann Hesse, the Grimm Brothers, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen, a myriad of folk-tale adaptations, feminist and fractured fairy tales, and scores of sumptuously illustrated fantasy...
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...Disney and the American Princess: The Americanization of European Fairy Tales [pic] Marina Alexandrova Student number 3021874 MA Thesis, American Studies Program Utrecht University Course code 200401064 23943 words 12 August 2009 Contents Title page………………………………………………………………1 Contents……………………………………………………………….2 Introduction……………………………………………………………3 Chapter 1: European Fairy Tales and Values about Gender and Class………………………………………10 Chapter 2: Disney Animation and American Culture…………………24 Chapter 3: Disney Animation and (Gender) Commodification…………………………………………..55 Conclusion…………………………………………………………...73 Bibliography…………………………………………………………78 Introduction Among the various aspects which define contemporary life, popular culture – and in particular, American popular culture – is undoubtedly one of the most ubiquitous and long-lasting. Throughout the twentieth century, people around the world have enjoyed film, music, animation, and written works by various authors and artists. One of the most famous and significant American entertainers of the lot has been Walt Disney, introducing millions of children and adults to his world of limitless (or so is widely believed) imagination and magic, from the earliest short cartoons produced in the 1920s, to full-length feature animations such as Snow White and the Seven...
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...some examples of work and describing in more detail the process and influence of the Bardic Tradition on contemporary arts practices and how this is narrated and interpreted today. The examples of work that this essay will look at are The Brothers Grimm and Fairy tales, Pantomime and how stories are told through re-enactment and Paula Rego’s art exhibition of 30 Rhymes and Tales. With these examples we will explore how the Bardic Tradition has stood the change of time and progression of technology and aims to achieve to show if and where it still exists and is relevant in today’s society. The routes of the Bardic Tradition travel back to Stonehenge and the Bronze Age originating in middle England, Ireland and Wales. Bardic Tradition is a Celtic culture which incorporates Gaelic tradition and is an oral tradition of preserving and sharing culture and histories. Amy Wright P11248462 “The earliest historical records of it were made by the Romans who invaded Britain just over 2000 years ago, but the British Celtic culture which they describe, and within which the Bards assumed great importance, was at that time already ancient”. (Skea, 1994, P1). Bardic traditions embrace such things as Fairy Tales, Folklore, and Fantasy worlds. Great story tellers of...
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...folklorists, anthropologists, and psychologists. • Folktales are also of special interest to scholars of narrative theory because of the way the tales are honed by many generations of telling; only the most important elements of the story survive. The Value of Folk Literature for Children • When Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published the first volume of their Household Stories in 1812, they did not intend it for children. • Originally folklore was the literature of the people; stories were told to young and old alike. • Traditional literature is a rightful part of a child’s literature heritage and lays the groundwork for understanding all literature. Folktales • Folktales have been defined as “all forms of narrative, written or oral, which have come to be handed down through the years.” • Questions often arise about which of the available print versions of a tale is the “correct” or authentic text. Types of Folktales • There will be features of these stories that are unique to each culture, but children will also find particular aspects of plot or characterization that occur across cultures. • Probably the favorite folktales of young children are beast tales in which animal’s act and talk like human beings. • Surprisingly, there are a few realistic tales included in folklore. The story in Marcia Brown’s Dick Whittington and His Cat could have happened; in...
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...Schluter Teresa Scott ENC 1102 18 July 2015 Annotated Bibliography-Fairy Tales Zipes, Jack. The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2012. Print. Jack Zipes is an American Professor of German who lectures and publishes about fairy tales, their evolution, and their social and political role in civilizing processes. He believes that fairy tales serve a very social meaning. He also believes that women had a very powerful impact on fairy tales by focusing on paintings, drawings, etc. This particular book focuses more on the cultural and the social aspects of fairy tales just like Jack Zipes agrees with. I didn’t realize that culture and social aspects had so much to do with fairy tales. It opened my eyes to see the past and true roots of a fairy tale. Grimm, Jacob, Wilhelm Grimm, and Maria Tatar. The Annotated Brothers Grimm. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. Print. This book really opened my eyes up about culture. Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm didn’t set out to entertain children at first. They did not expect any type of entertainment for that matter. The fairy tales in this novel are so much different than the ones that I was told as a kid. These are the true fairy tales. They are not a type of imagination. Culture played such a huge role in fairy tales; especially back when the Grimm brothers actually wrote the fairy tales. This book was interesting to know that the Grimm brothers really thought...
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... in other words. Expectations for a guy named Bubba or a woman named Shaquita are different than they are for people with the names Winston and Hillary. In other words people make assumptions about others base on their names. In Alice Hoffman’s novel Local Girls, the narrator plays with this idea of the interplay of destiny, socialization, and free will, symbolized by the names she gives the central characters. The character whose name is the most apparently burdening is Gretel. A name that is unusual in 20th century United States society, this name is imbued with fairy-tale associations. In the famous German fairy-tale “Hansel and Gretel”, Gretel and her brother are abandoned by their parents, specifically an abusive stepmother, in the forest. In Local Girls, Gretel and her brother Jason are abused by their stepmother, who yells at them repeatedly, even calling Gretel a “little bitch” (49). In the fairy tale, the stepmother leaves the children in the woods because the resources at home are too sparse. Similarly, Gretel and Jason’s stepmother, Thea, tries to push her stepchildren out of the house: Thea was talking about what a great place we were going to for dinner, and how they liked people to dress nicely, which of course was a dig at me, not that I cared about her sense of style. Then she started in on her real agenda – how the house she and my father had recently bought might look big, but it was really just right for two people. I guess she wanted to squelch any ideas...
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...Nhkahsdsahkjdsakjxkasbxkajsbkjbxkajsbxakjb jbaskbkj j snka sjka s kaa a s asa sa s sa s a sas sa as as as as sa sds d sd sdThe following morning, the family treks into the woods. Hansel takes a slice of bread and leaves a trail of bread crumbs to follow home. However, after they are once again abandoned, the children find that birds have eaten the crumbs and they are lost in the woods. After days of wandering, they follow a beautiful white bird to a clearing in the woods and discover a large cottage built of gingerbread and cakes, with window panes of clear sugar. Hungry and tired, the children begin to eat the rooftop of the candy house, when the door opens and a "very old woman" emerges and lures them inside, with the promise of soft beds and delicious food. They comply, unaware that their hostess is a wicked witch who waylays children to cook and eat them. The next morning, the witch locks Hansel in an iron cage in the garden and forces Gretel into becoming a slave. The witch feeds Hansel regularly to fatten him up, but Hansel cleverly offers a bone he found in the cage (presumably a bone from the witch's previous captive) and the witch feels it, thinking it is his finger. Due to her blindness, she is fooled into thinking Hansel is still too thin to eat. After weeks of this, the witch grows impatient and decides to eat Hansel, "be he fat or lean." She prepares the oven for Hansel, but decides she is hungry enough to eat Gretel, too. She coaxes Gretel to the open the...
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...Iconic figure Walt Disney once stated, ‘Reality and fantasy often overlap’. Disney’s ‘Enchanted’ explores this intriguingly through the development of characters, incorporating Disney references in both worlds and comparing the contrast between the different views of love from all the characters. The film begins with a lovely opening sequence in hand-drawn animation set in the fairytale land of Andalasia. It’s a perfect summary of the classic Disney fairy-tale motif, capturing everything great of the old approach. The audience is first introduced to the fairytale stereotypical characters: joyful princess-to-be Giselle, lunkheaded Prince Edward, comical Nathaniel, malicious Queen Narissa and feisty Pip the chipmunk. Giselle serenades her fellow woodland creatures yearning for the arrival of a handsome prince to deliver her ‘true love’s kiss’, a reference to the only way Snow White and Aurora could be awakened from the curses that were put upon them. Prince Edward is your typical charming knight in shining armour and declares his love for Giselle instantly after hearing her sing. His stepmother, Queen Narissa, is the antagonist and does not want to step down from the throne so she banishes Giselle from the idyllic kingdom and into the not magical, unforgiving live-action world of New York city. What better purgatory than the place where, as the stepmother puts it, “There are no happily ever afters”. The characters of the reality world are: cynical, non-nonsense Robert, fairytale...
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...It meshed together many of my childhood fairy tales and stories, creating an unique plot for the musical. The main theme that stood out, in my opinion, was greed. The musical shed light on how many people have selfish tactics and will do anything in their power to get what they want. Jack wanted gold, the married couple wanted a baby, and Cinderella's husband wanted a beautiful woman. Each person did what could to get what they wanted, and everything seemed fine. Just like in reality, everything that glitters isn't gold. Once each person had what they wanted, things started to backfire on them because of the way they recieved these different wishes. Everybody still wanted more than what they had, or at least wanted to add to what they already had attained. The musical also showed how easy it was to lose things, once you have taken them for granted. Jack's mother died, the wife of the married husband died as well. If I had to create an alternate ending, I don't think I would have had anyone die. I did appreciate how the musical was shedding light onto great values and life lessons, but I would have altered death being involved. When I think of my favorite fairy tales, they all ended with happy endings. I wanted the musical to end that way, maybe the people could have been punished for their wrong doings. I would have maybe had everyone lose their prized possesion, but not their family member or spouse. It is still supposed to be a fairy tale. The musical did not end with a happily...
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...Hair Extensions Won’t Save The Modern Rapunzel Hair extensions and expensive shampoo might not find your man, but Austen will writes Alex Simmons As I once again retire to my ivory tower, or rather my apartment on the fourth floor, I look out my window to see but another possible suitor across the street. Why he doesn’t look up at me, I wonder, as he strolls casually by. Is it because of how I look, I question, as I survey myself in the mirror with a fine toothed comb. Or is it because of where I live, in average furnishings and a moderate city block? And now I think to myself, is the modern world so frustratingly bound to physical appearance rather than personal depth? Or is it my reclusive nature and timid personality that restrains me from racing down the stairs and potentially entering into my own fairytale? For the adult population of the modern world, in particularly males, the possibility that fairytales and happy endings still exist seems to be a fanciful notion. Perhaps I am a child at heart or more likely delusional in the hope that such “fabrications” of reality that struck a par with me as a young girl do exist in the contemporary world. And whilst years of seemingly perfect yet failed relationships, contradictory evidence and vindictive and damning opposition stack up against me, I still earnestly believe in the literary complex of Prince Charming sweeping me off my feet and into my happy ending. But what if there is the possibility that simply waiting...
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...Title: Varying Interpretation of Fairy Tales in real life and The effects when introduced early in childhood. Justin L. Soriano Vincennes University Abstract This paper explores published articles that report studies done from research conducted upon observation of young children by Bettelheim (The uses of enchantment, 1976). The articles however vary in their definitions today. Bettelheim suggested that fairy tales have an emotional and symbolic importance especially those traditional stories that included abandonment, death, injuries and evil witches. These tales allowed children to cope up with their fears and understand moral values in their own terms. This paper also examines how preferred relationship traits are created based on stories like Cinderella or Snow White and how it affects us in choosing an ideal suitable partner. Varying Interpretation of Fairy Tales in real life and The effects when introduced early in childhood. Everybody as children has been read or told a version of “ Cinderella” at one point in their lives. They were recited to us by out parents and grandparents, aunts and uncle, older siblings or other relatives and of course our dear teachers at school when we were young. We can’t help but feel enthralled as our imaginations transport us to the enchanted time and place. But what really draws us to be so interested in fairy tale stories like these? How does these stories affect us or the children exposed to it in the long run as we...
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