...Fairy Tales Fairy tales are stories either created or strongly influenced by oral traditions. Their plots feature conflicts between good and evil, with magic and luck determining the usually happy endings. Universal human emotions such as love, hate, courage, kindness, and cruelty appear in bold, broad strokes on the canvas of fairy tales. Fairy tale and modern fantasy stories project other worlds; but they also pay attention to moral values of character and virtue. By portraying wonderful and frightening worlds in which ugly beasts are transformed into princes and evil persons are turned to stones, fairy tales remind us of moral truths whose ultimate claims to normativity we would not think of questioning. Fairy tales capture the meaning of morality through vivid depictions of struggles between good and evil where characters must make difficult choices between right and wrong. One of George MacDonald’s works, The Light Princess, portrays a story of unconditional love and sacrifice. MacDonald entertains us with the tale of a bewitched princess who loses her gravity. Weightless and thoughtless, she floats above palace life, unable to love or grieve. While swimming in the palace lake, she discovers that the spell no longer has a hold on her. There a noble prince discovers her and has fallen in love with the princess, but the princess only cares about jumping into the lake with the prince. When the king’s evil sister learns that the princess is happy in the water...
Words: 708 - Pages: 3
...“And they lived happily ever after….” The hopeful end of every fairy tale. Stories of a damsel in distress, waiting for her Prince Charming to make her the woman she knows she can be. A wife, a mother, a princess perhaps. Mothers and fathers read these stories to their children in storybooks every night before bed, leaving their daughters to dream about someday finding a prince charming of their own and indeed, living happily ever after just like mommy and daddy. However, not all “happily ever-afters” are quite so sweet. My life has been surrounded by not so happily ever afters. The adult relationships in my family have typically ended in divorce, betrayal, and abandonment, leaving the women of my family on their own. However, unlike the princesses in fairytales, these women are not waiting for their true Prince Charming to come and find them so they can be taken care of for the rest of their lives. They work hard every day to make a happily-ever-after of their own; on their own. Throughout the years of my life I have watched the women in my family create lives for themselves without their Prince Charming swooping her up onto his horse bringing her back to his castle to live a life of happiness, love, and prosperity. My mother, a single mother at the age of 21, stuck with a job that she hated and a two-bedroom that houses herself and her small daughter, managed to turn her life around. She went back to school at age 25 and started her own business, which is still successful...
Words: 486 - Pages: 2
...Fairy tales, whether written or visual are used as a medium to teach children morals, life lessons and social etiquette. From interpretations, a fairy tale can be defined as a story that has fictitious and folklore characters which displays the message for every action there is a reaction whether it be positive or negative. These fictitious characters influence children and help them to understand the messages so that children can be socially accepted (Hohr). The origins of fairy tales can not be narrowed to a specific time line but they were once old wives tales which were passed on from generation to generation which writers have modified to become or claimed as their own. Although fairy tales are useful to teach children morals fairy tales are inappropriate for children because of the psychological effects, presentation of the content and morals. This has given reasons for the modifications of fairy tales although these modifications are believed to be better both traditional and modern fairy tales are in somewhat way unsuitable for children. The early versions of fairy tales are not filled with the sanctified, altruistic images seen today but are filled with gory and sadistic images. In an attempt to understand these reasons for modifications of fairy tales we must understand the journey which the traditional writers took. Thomas O'Neil senior writer at the National Geographic and Maria Tartar the chair for program in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University both go...
Words: 2527 - Pages: 11
...Fairy tales and Feminism In Feminism and Fairy Tales, by Karen E. Rowe, she asserts “popular folktales” have “shaped our romantic expectations” and “illuminate psychic ambiguities which often confound contemporary women.” She believes that “Portrayals of adolescent waiting and dreaming, patterns of double enchantment, and romanticizations of marriage contribute to the potency of fairy tales” make “many readers discount obvious fantasy elements and fall prey to more subtle paradigms through identification with the heroine.” As a result, Karen Role contends that “subconsciously women may transfer from fairy tales into real life cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues suggest that culture’s very survival depends upon a woman’s acceptance of roles which relegate her to motherhood and domesticity.” It is undeniable that numerous folk tales implant male chauvinism into women’s mind and thus convey an idea that woman should obey to and depend on men. However; Rowe neglects the aspect that many other folk tales, on the contrary, disclose the evil and vulnerable sides of man and marriage and thus encourages women to rely on their own intelligence and courage other than subordinating to man. Fairy tales Beauty and Beast and Fowler’s Fowl challenges Rowe’s thesis to some extent and exemplifies that some fairy tales motivate women to be intelligent and courageous and to challenge the patriarchy. In the fairy tale Beauty and the...
Words: 1237 - Pages: 5
...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...
Words: 860 - Pages: 4
...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...
Words: 2008 - Pages: 9
...of storytelling. One folk-art in particular, fairy tales, seems to be quite affected by this transition. Although the mass printing and marketing of fairy tales as reproduced books, movies, and other media has increased availability of the public like never before in history, there also seems to be a “cheapening” of the art itself, as well as art in general, as the role of the storyteller has been removed. Once only heard if one were to run into a skilled storyteller, fairy tales with the help of printing and mass marketing are now available to everyone able to buy an inexpensive children’s book. This simple fact cannot be overlooked as the whimsical tales that define childhood imagination are now readily available to all that seek them. Previously, if a child did not have any storytellers in their family or, let’s say, their village- then they may never have heard certain tales that other like-aged children would. This is just simply not a problem anymore, and is a testament to the benefits of mass printing fairy tales- though one would still be wise to realize what has been lost in the process. The commercialization of fairy tales has removed the role of the storyteller which directly affects the ability of fairy tales to be modified by the storyteller to reflect current socio-trends and concerns as they once did. Fairy tales are now sometimes referred to as “timeless classics” which in a way is quite different to fairy tales of old which while always taught a certain lesson...
Words: 337 - Pages: 2
...4/3/2015 The Beaver and the Bird Mr. Brad Bucky, the friendly beaver that lives down in the creek near our house was hard at work, building a new home for his family. Now Mr. Bucky’s house was not a house like we have, it was a dam made from sticks and rocks and mud. Mr. Bucky needed to finish his house because his wife, Becky Bucky, was going to have 5 baby beavers very soon. At first, Mr. Bucky was making excellent progress on his new home and was nearly half done in just a few short days. But then progress started to slow down. What was the problem? High above in a nearby tree, Connie Crow was also building a nest for her own soon-tobe growing family. She was really struggling to find good sticks to help build her nest until all of a sudden one day in the creek below, a pile of stick started to appear. She thought this was a little suspicious, so she just watched for a day to see where these sticks were suddenly coming from. Early the next morning when Connie woke up, she saw Bucky Beaver hauling some more sticks to the pile and realized right away that he was building a home for him and his family as well. Connie knew she shouldn’t take the sticks from the beavers, but she really needed to get going building her own house as well, because she was going to lay her eggs soon. Connie made her decision and didn’t waste any time getting to work gathering sticks from Bucky’s home. Bucky was really confused as to why progress on his home was slowing down so much...
Words: 634 - Pages: 3
...have been for centuries in the beloved fairy tales we enjoyed reading as children. In source B the author, Andrea Dworkin discusses “Onceuponatime” fairytales which many regard as a model for living and which carry a unique structural pattern. They begin with the famous “Once Upon a time” line and end with the ever so popular “happily ever after.” Many, if not all of these story types are about adventures that involve princes and princesses. There is also the themes of beauty, magic and love. Over the years, fairy tales such as Snow White and Cinderella...
Words: 1611 - Pages: 7
...It is important that people know that the DIsney versions of these stories are more for children and are censored but the original versions of these stories are more for adults and have lots of gore. Also most of these stories are based on love except for one of them. All of the stories have different mission but they all have obstacles. Throughout the Disney fairy tales and the original versions of these stories there are many similarities and differences. A similarity between the original and the disney is that even though the originals have more obstacles and more gore most of the stories still end happily ever after like the Disney stories. In the original story of rapunzel by the Grimm Brothers it states “but the thorns into which he...
Words: 610 - Pages: 3
..."The Ugly Duckling": Fairy Tale or Not? “The Ugly Duckling” was a short story written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1844. Although it is nearly 200 years old, the story is still one of the most popular retellings within modern culture. The question, of course, becomes “why?” We all know the story: a fowl is born to a duck family, shunned by its family and community because of its looks, and later develops into a beautiful swan that is envied by everyone for its beauty. Why would this story stand the test of time to not only still be heard on the lips of storytellers around the world, but to also be retold and reinvented through modern day translations? To answer this question, we must first look at the story itself in order to first understand its literary value and then to evaluate its impact on our popular culture. Many would first assume, by its presentation, that “The Ugly Duckling” can be considered a good example of a fairy tale. Bruno Bettelheim, a noted educator and scholar on the role that fairy tales play, has stated that in fairy tales, there is typically a battle between good and evil. Characters are absolute...either good or evil. He also goes on to say that the goal is not to impart a moral, but rather to show that one can overcome any obstacle (Bettelheim 216-217). Based on this criterion, “The Ugly Duckling” falls short of what could be called a fairy tale. Other than the anthropormorphisizing of the animal characters, there is no magic that is done in the...
Words: 756 - Pages: 4
...Introduction Fairy tales come from all parts of the world. Many are similar in content, with the same under lying moral or message, but with different characters and situations. Fairy tales tell a lot about a culture and how it views the world. Folklore helps to define how a culture thinks and reacts, Fairy tales are an important part of that. Fairy tales and similar stories are an integral part of human tradition. Few stories have changed very little since there original telling, while many have grown more fanciful over time as they were elaborated on. Fairy tales have been around for millennia, and were originally handed from one generation to the next by storytelling. The oral tradition of storytelling allowed each teller to make adaptations that pertained to current conditions, or to add different morals depending on the audience. The most common fairy tales were not originally written for children. They were later adapted by different writers or edited to make them acceptable for the younger generations. In 1697 Charles Perrault wrote fairy tales intended to be presented at the court of Versailles, each story was followed by a verse with a moral (Fairy Tales). His work was published and includes modern classics like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Fairy tales were originally told by women, and were often more inventive and nastier, then the tales first put into print. The title Fairy Tales first appeared in the Oxford dictionary in 1749. The term actually arose from...
Words: 304 - Pages: 2
...Fairy tales are more than just stories read to children before bedtime. They contain valuable messages that are commonly ignored. In Maria Tatar’s piece, “An Introduction to Fairy Tales,” she explains how much we need fairy tales in our lifes. Fairy tales give us a special feeling of excitement, happiness, joy and safety. These things are a really big part of why people read fairy tales and why they love them so much. Maria Tatar explains how Fairy tales affect us, and how the change our personalities, actions and our character. Although Fairy tales is something almost all kids read when they were children, they seem to fade away, be forgotten and get treated as childish things. Maria Tatar mentions that when people grow, they forget about how strong fairy tales can be and the messages they hold. Fairy tales can bring more than just messages, they can bring back happy memories, it could be a flash back of the time when your mother read you the story of “Sindbad”, sad memories, of the time you read a fairy tale with someone that passed away that you cared about. These stories help people feel peaceful, calm, happiness and joy. But fairy tales don’t always seem to be perfect. They tend to send wrong messages to children and Maria Tatar points out that,” fairy-tale characters always seem to be lying, cheating, or stealing their way to good fortune.” (Paragraph-10, Pg. 309) These things most parents don’t want their kids growing up down, but we seem not to notice them because...
Words: 328 - Pages: 2
...Storytelling and Fairy Tales,” Jack Zipes explains: “The memetic crystallization of certain fairy tales as classical does not make them static for they are constantly re-created and re-formed and yet remain memetic because of their relevant articulation of problematic issues in our lives. Fairy tales, like our lives, were born out of conflict […] “Fairy tales were not created or intended for children. Yet they resonate with them, and children recall them as they grow to confront the injustices and contradictions of so-called real worlds” (20). After reading about the changes in fairy tales over time, what do you think these changes in fairy tales reveal in the changing definition of childhood? Do you think...
Words: 594 - Pages: 3
...Fairy Tales, a modern staple of the nursery, represent much about the culture which tells them, for in fairy tales we find not just the fantasies of childhood but the realities of society. So much more than just nursery stories, fairy tales provide the backdrop for the development of a child’s psyche by simultaneously stimulating his imagination and “at the same time suggesting solutions to the problems which perturb him.” (Bettleheim in Tatar 270). Just as Oedipal conflicts and narcissistic dilemmas are navigated amid the fantasies of these tales, it is in the same manner that fairy tales till the soil on which the budding individual develops as a gendered and socialized member of the culture in which he lives. Folk stories, and more modernly, fairy tales, serve to influence the collective and individual unconscious in gender roles and gender identities. In examination of the various treatments of classic tales we can identify a running theme of subjugating the feminine in the service of patriarchy. Fairy tales are a specialization of folk lore, similar to myths and quests in that each subclass identify and reinforce gender roles. Hero stories accentuate the bravery and skill of the young boy who identifies with them but simultaneously reinforce that boy’s understanding of how to relate to the feminine (in many such tales the feminine is relegated to a helpless beauty he must rescue). Similarly, fairy tales, “by producing the female subject as complemented and completed...
Words: 1382 - Pages: 6
