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's illustration to the European fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood .]] A fairy tale or '''fairy story''' is a fictional Story that usually features Folkloric characters (such as Fairies , Goblin s, Elves , Troll s, Witch es, Giants , and Talking Animal s) and Enchantments , often involving a far-fetched sequence of events. In modern-day parlance, the term is also used to describe to something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy tale ending" (a Happy Ending ) Merriam-Webster definition of "fairy tale" or "fairy tale romance", though there are notable examples and genres of fairy tales that do not end happily. Colloquially, a "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story. In Culture s where Demon s and Witches are perceived as real, fairy tales may merge into Legendary Narratives , where the context is perceived by teller and hearers as having historical actuality. However, unlike Legend s and Epics , they usually do not contain more than superficial references to Religion and actual places, persons, and events; they take place " Once Upon A Time " rather than in actual times.Catherine Orenstein, ''Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale'', p. 9, ISBN 0-465-04125-6. Fairy tales are found in Oral Folktale and in Literary form. The history of the fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace, because only the literary forms can survive. Still, the evidence of literary works at least indicates that fairy tales have existed for thousands of years, although not perhaps recognized as a Genre ; the name "fairy tale" was first ascribed to them by Madame D'Aulnoy . Literary fairy tales are found over the centuries throughout the world, and when folklorists collected them, they found fairy tales in every culture. Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today. The older fairy tales were intended for an audience of adults as well as children, but they were associated with children as early as the writings of the Précieuses ; the Brothers Grimm titled their collection '' Children's And Household Tales '', and the link with children has only grown stronger with time. Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways. Among the most notable are the Aarne-Thompson classification, and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp . Other folklorists have interpreted the tales' significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales. DEFINING MARKS Although the fairy tale is a clearly distinct genre, the definition that marks a work as a fairy tale is a source of considerable dispute.Heidi Anne Heiner, " What Is a Fairy Tale? " Vladimir Propp , in his '' Morphology Of The Folktale '', criticized the common distinction between "fairy tales" and "animal tales" on the grounds that many tales contained both Fantastic elements and animals.Vladimir Propp, ''Morphology of the Folk Tale'', p. 5. ISBN 0-292-78376-0. Nevertheless, to select works for his analysis, Propp used all Russian Folktales classified as Aarne-Thompson 300-749—in a cataloging system that made such a distinction—to gain a clear set of tales.Propp, p. 19. His own analysis identified fairy tales by their Plot elements, but that in itself has been criticized, as the analysis does not lend itself easily to tales that do not involve a Quest , and furthermore, the same plot elements are found in non-fairy tale works. Steven Swann Jones, ''The Fairy Tale: The Magic Mirror of Imagination'', Twayne Publishers, New York, 1995, p. 15. ISBN 0-8057-0950-9. '' features no fairies, but a talking wolf.]] One universally agreed-on factor is that the nature of a tale does ''not'' depend on whether fairies appear in it. Obviously, many people, including Angela Carter in her introduction to the ''Virago Book of Fairy Tales'', have noted that a great many of so-called fairy tales do not feature fairies at all. Angela Carter , ''The Old Wives' Fairy Tale Book'', p. ix, Pantheon Books, New York, 1990. ISBN 0-679-74037-6. This is partly because of the history of the English term "fairy tale" which derives from the French phrase ''contes de fée'', and was first used in the collection of Madame D'Aulnoy in 1697.Terri Windling, "Les Contes de Fées: The Literary Fairy Tales of France" As Stith Thompson and Carter herself point out, talking animals and the presence of Magic seem to be more common to the fairy tale than fairies themselves. Stith Thompson, ''The Folktale'', p 55, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977 However, the mere presence of animals that talk does not make a tale a fairy tale, especially when the animal is clearly a mask on a human face, as in Fable s. J. R. R. Tolkien , " On Fairy-Stories " , ''The Tolkien Reader'', p. 15. J. R. R. Tolkien , in his essay " On Fairy-Stories ", agreed with the exclusion of "fairies" from the definition, and defined fairy tales as stories about the adventures of men in ''Faërie'', the land of fairies, Dwarves , elves, and not only other magical species but many other marvels.Tolkien, pp. 10–11. However, in the same essay, by that very definition, he excludes tales that are often considered fairy tales, citing as an example '' The Monkey's Heart '', which Andrew Lang included in '' The Lilac Fairy Book ''. Other tales that include no magic but are often classified as fairy tales include '' What Is The Fastest Thing In The World? '' and '' Catskin ''. There is also the erotic in fairy tales as seen in the collection of erotic fairy tales Some s and gallant princes; Ogre s, Giants , Dragon s, and Troll s; Wicked Stepmothers and False Hero es; Fairy Godmother s and other Magical Helpers , often Talking Horses, Or Foxes, Or Birds ; glass mountains; and prohibitions and breaking of prohibitions.A. S. Byatt, "Introduction" p. xviii, Maria Tatar, ed. ''The Annotated Brothers Grimm'', ISBN 0-393-05848-4. Italo Calvino cited the fairy tale as a prime example of "quickness" in literature, because of the economy and concision of the tales.Italo Calvino, ''Six Memoes for the Next Millennium'', pp. 36–37. ISBN 0-674-81040-6.. History of the genre Originally, stories we would now call fairy tales were merely a kind of tale, not marked out as a separate genre. The German term "Märchen" means, literally, "tale" rather than any specific type. The genre itself was first marked out by writers of the took up writing literary stories; Madame d'Aulnoy invented the term contes de fée, or fairy tale.Zipes, ''The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm'', p. 858. Prior to the definition of the genre of Fantasy , many works that would now be classified as fantasy were termed "fairy tales", including Tolkien's '' The Hobbit '', George Orwell 's '' Animal Farm '', and L. Frank Baum 's '' The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz ''.Brian Attebery, ''The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature'', p. 83, ISBN 0-253-35665-2. Indeed, Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories" includes discussions of World-building and is considered a vital part of fantasy criticism. Although fantasy, particularly in the sub-genre Fairytale Fantasy , draws heavily on fairy tale motifs,Philip Martin, ''The Writer's Guide of Fantasy Literature: From Dragon's Liar to Hero's Quest'', pp. 38–42, ISBN 0-871116-195-8. the genres are now regarded as distinct. Folk and literary by The fairy tale, as told orally, is a sub-class of the Folktale . From this form, many writers have written down forms of fairy tales, often with considerable modification. These are the literary fairy tales, or '' Kunstmärchen ''. The oldest forms, from '' Panchatantra '' to the '' Pentamerone '', show stylistic evidence of considerable reworking from the oral form.Swann Jones, p. 35. The Brothers Grimm were among the first to try to preserve the features of oral tales, and even so, they considerably reworked the fairy tales to fit the written form.Brian Attebery, ''The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature'', p. 5, ISBN 0-253-35665-2. Literary fairy tales and oral fairy tales freely exchanged plots, motifs, and elements with each other and with the tales of foreign lands.Zipes, ''The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm'', p. xii. Various folklorists of the 18th century attempted to recover the "pure" folktale, uncontaminated by literary versions; but while oral fairy tales likely existed for thousands of years prior to their literary forms, no such pure folktales exist — nor do pure literary fairy tales, not drawing on the folk tradition, exist.Zipes, ''The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm'', p. 846. Once literary forms of the fairy tale existed, forms of transmission can be impossible to trace; oral story-tellers may even seek out readings of literary fairy tales in order to increase the number of stories and motifs they could use in their own tales. Linda Degh, "What Did the Grimm Brothers Give To and Take From the Folk?" p. 73, James M. McGlathery, ed., ''The Brothers Grimm and Folktale'', ISBN 0-252-01549-5. HISTORY 's illustration of the Russian fairy tale about Vasilissa The Beautiful .]] The fairy tale was part of an '' ( India 200–300 AD), but it is unknown to what extent these reflect the actual folk tales even of their own time. The stylistic evidence indicates that these, and many later collections, reworked folk tales into literary forms.Swann Jones, p. 35. What they do show is that the fairy tale has ancient roots, older than the '' Arabian Nights '' collection of magical tales (c. 1500 AD), such as the '' Vikram And The Vampire '', and '' Bel And The Dragon ''. Besides such collections and individual tales, in China , Taoist philosophers such as Liezi and Zhuangzi recounted fairy tales in their philosophical works.Moss Roberts, "Introduction", p. xviii, ''Chinese Fairy Tales & Fantasies''. ISBN 0-394-73994-9. In the broader definition of the genre, the first Western famous fairy tales are those of the Greek Aesop ( 6th Century BC ). Allusions to fairy tales appear plentifully in '' (1761).Italo Calvino, ''Italian Folktales'', p. 738. ISBN 0-15-645489-0. Simultaneously, Pu Songling , in China, included many fairy tales in his collection, '' Strange Stories From A Chinese Studio '' (published posthumously, 1766). The fairy tale itself became popular among the Précieuses of upper-class France (1690–1710), and among the tales told in that time were the ones of La Fontaine and the ''Contes'' of Charles Perrault (1697), who fixed the forms of '' Sleeping Beauty '' and '' Cinderella ''.Zipes, ''When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition'', pp. 38–42. Although Straparola's, Basile's and Perrault's collections contain the oldest known forms of various fairy tales, on the stylistic evidence, all the writers rewrote the tales for literary effect.Swann Jones, pp. 38–39. (lit. "Handsome youth") killing the Zmeu , on the book cover of Petre Ispirescu 's '' Legends Or Romanian Fairytales ''. The good vs. evil battle is often personified by these two fairy tale characters of the Romanian folklore.]] The first collectors to attempt to preserve not only the plot and characters of the tale, but also the style in which they were preserved, were the Brothers Grimm , collecting German fairy tales; ironically enough, this meant although their first edition (1812 & 1815) remains a treasure for folklorists, they rewrote the tales in later editions to make them more acceptable, which ensured their sales and the later popularity of their work.Swann Jones, p. 40. Such literary forms did not merely draw from the folktale, but also influenced folktales in turn. The Brothers Grimm rejected several tales for their collection, though told orally to them by Germans, because the tales derived from Perrault, and they concluded they were thereby French and not German tales; an oral version of '' Bluebeard '' was thus rejected, and the tale of ''Briar Rose'', clearly related to Perrault's '' Sleeping Beauty '', was included only because Jacob Grimm convinced his brother that the figure of Brynhild proved that the sleeping princess was authentically German folklore.G. Ronald Murphy, ''The Owl, The Raven, and the Dove: The Religious Meaning of the Grimms' Magic Fairy Tales'', ISBN 0195151690. : the Vietnamese fairy tale '' The Story Of Tam And Cam .'']] This consideration of whether to keep ''Sleeping Beauty'' reflected a belief common among folklorists of the 19th century: that the folk tradition preserved fairy tales in forms from pre-history except when "contaminated" by such literary forms, leading people to tell inauthentic tales.Zipes, ''When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition'', p. 77. The rural, illiterate, and uneducated peasants, if suitably isolated, were the ''folk'' and would tell pure ''folk'' tales.Degh, pp. 66–67. Sometimes they regarded fairy tales as a form of fossil, the remnants of a once-perfect tale. Iona And Peter Opie , ''The Classic Fairy Tales'' p. 17. ISBN 0-19-211550-6. However, further research has concluded that fairy tales never had a fixed form, and regardless of literary influence, the tellers constantly altered them for their own purposes. Jane Yolen , p. 22, '' Touch Magic ''. ISBN 0-87483-591-7. The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe, in a spirit of and George MacDonald continued the tradition of literary fairy tales. Andersen's work sometimes drew on old folktales, but more often deployed fairytale motifs and plots in new tales.Grant and Clute, "Hans Christian Andersen," pp. 26–27. MacDonald incorporated fairytale motifs both in new literary fairy tales, such as '' The Light Princess '', and in works of the genre that would become Fantasy , as in '' The Princess And The Goblin '' or '' Lilith ''.Grant and Clute, "George MacDonald," p. 604. CROSS-CULTURAL TRANSMISSION Two theories of origins have attempted to explain the common elements in fairy tales found spread over continents. One is that a single point of origin generated any given tale, which then spread over the centuries; the other is that such fairy tales stem from common human experience and therefore can appear separately in many different origins.Orenstein, pp. 77–78. Fairy tales with very similar plots, characters, and motifs are found spread across many different cultures. Many researchers hold this to be caused by the spread of such tales, as people repeat tales they have heard in foreign lands, although the oral nature makes it impossible to trace the route except by inference.Zipes, ''The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm'', p. 845. Folklorists have attempted to determine the origin by internal evidence, which can not always be clear; Joseph Jacobs , comparing the Scottish tale '' The Ridere Of Riddles '' with the version collected by the Brothers Grimm, '' The Riddle '', noted that in ''The Ridere of Riddles'' one hero ends up Polygamously married, which might point to an ancient custom, but in ''The Riddle'', the simpler riddle might argue greater antiquity.Joseph Jacobs, ''More Celtic Fairy Tales''. London: David Nutt, 1894, " Notes and References " Folklorists of the "Finnish" (or historical-geographical) school attempted to place fairy tales to their origin, with inconclusive results.Calvino, ''Italian Folktales'', p. xx. Sometimes influence, especially within a limited area and time, is clearer, as when considering the influence of Perrault's tales on those collected by the Brothers Grimm. ''Little Briar-Rose'' appears to stem from Perrault's '''' and Perrault's tale points to an influence—although Grimms' version adds a different ending (perhaps derived from '' The Wolf And The Seven Young Kids '').Velten, pp. 966–67. Fairy tales also tend to take on the color of their location, through the choice of motifs, the style in which they are told, and the depiction of character and local color.Calvino, ''Italian Folktales'', p. xxi. ASSOCIATION WITH CHILDREN Originally, adults were the audience of a fairy tale just as often as children.Zipes, ''When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition'', p. 1. Literary fairy tales appeared in works intended for adults, but in the 19th and 20th centuries the fairy tale came to be associated with Children's Literature . , Little Red Riding Hood , Hansel And Gretel .]] The '' redacted a version of '' Beauty And The Beast '' for children, and it is her tale that is best known today.Zipes, ''When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition'', p. 47. The Brothers Grimm titled their collection ''Children's and Household Tales'' and rewrote their tales after complaints that they were not suitable for children.Maria Tatar, ''The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales'', p. 19, ISBN 0-691-06722-8. In the modern era, fairy tales were altered so that they could be read to children. The Brothers Grimm concentrated mostly on eliminating sexual references;Tatar, ''The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales'', p. 20. Rapunzel , in the first edition, revealed the prince's visits by asking why her clothing had grown tight, thus letting the witch deduce that she was pregnant, but in subsequent editions carelessly revealed that it was easier to pull up the prince than the witch.Tatar, ''The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales'', p. 32. On the other hand, in many respects, violence – particularly when punishing villains – was increased.Byatt, pp. xlii-xliv. Other, later, revisions cut out violence; J. R. R. Tolkien noted that '' The Juniper Tree '' often had its Cannibalistic stew cut out in a version intended for children.Tolkien, p. 31. The moralizing strain in the Victorian Era so altered the classical tales to teach lessons, as when ''Cinderella'' was altered to contain Temperance themes, that Charles Dickens protested, "In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected."K. M. Briggs, ''The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature'', pp. 181–182, University of Chicago Press, London, 1967. Psychoanalysts such as Bruno Bettelheim , who regarded the cruelty of older fairy tales as indicative of psychological conflicts, strongly criticized this expurgation, on the grounds that it weakened their usefulness to both children and adults as ways of symbolically resolving issues.Jack Zipes, ''The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World'', p. 48, ISBN 0-312-29380-1. The adaptation of fairy tales for children continues. Walt Disney 's influential '' Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs '' was largely (although certainly not solely) intended for the children's market.Grant and Clute, "Cinema", p. 196. The Anime '' Magical Princess Minky Momo '' draws on the fairy tale '' Momotarō ''.Patrick Drazen, ''Anime Explosion!: The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation'', pp. 43–44, ISBN 1-880656-72-8. CONTEMPORARY TALES Literary 's illustration of trolls and a princess from a collection of Swedish fairy tales]] In '' by Jon Scieszka . A common comic motif is a world where all the fairy tales take place, and the characters are aware of their role in the story.Briggs, p. 195. Other authors may have specific motives, such as has been particularly attacked by many feminist critics. Examples of narrative reversal rejecting this figure include ''The Paperbag Princess'' by Robert Munsch , a picture book aimed at children in which a princess rescues a prince, or Angela Carter 's ''The Bloody Chamber'', which retells a number of fairytales from a female point of view. One interesting use of the genre occurred in a military technology journal named ''Defense AT&L'', which published an article in the form of a fairytale titled ''Optimizing Bi-Modal Signal/Noise Ratios''. Written by Maj. Dan Ward ( USAF ), the story uses a fairy named Garble to represent breakdowns in communication between operators and technology developers.D. Ward, , ''Defense AT&L'', Sept/Oct 2005. Ward's article was heavily influenced by George MacDonald . Other notable figures who have employed fairy tales include Oscar Wilde , A. S. Byatt , Jane Yolen , Terri Windling , Donald Barthelme , Robert Coover , Margaret Atwood , Kate Bernheimer , Espido Freire , Tanith Lee , James Thurber , Robin McKinley , Kelly Link , Donna Jo Napoli , Cameron Dokey , Robert Bly , Gail Carson Levine , Jasper Fforde and many others. It may be hard to lay down the rule between fairy tales and '' and '' Phantastes '' are regarded as fantasies, while his " The Light Princess ", " The Golden Key ", and "The Wise Woman" are commonly called fairy tales. The most notable distinction is that fairytale fantasies, like other fantasies, make use of Novel istic writing conventions of prose, characterization, or setting.Diana Waggoner, ''The Hills of Faraway: A Guide to Fantasy'', pp. 22–23, 0-689-10846-X. Film Fairy tales have been enacted dramatically; records exist of this in Commedia Dell'arte ,Grant and Clute, "Commedia Dell'Arte", p. 219. and later in Pantomime .Grant and Clute, "Commedia Dell'Arte", p. 745. The advent of Cinema has meant that such stories could be presented in a more plausible manner, with the use of Special Effects and Animation ; the Disney movie '' Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs '' in 1937 was a ground-breaking film for fairy tales and, indeed, fantasy in general..Grant and Clute, "Cinema", p. 196.. Disney's influence helped establish this genre as children's movies, despite the fact that ''Snow White'', as well as the company's Other Early Feature-length Films , were originally intended for adults as well, and has been blamed for simplification of fairy tales ending in situations where everything goes right, as opposed to the pain and suffering — and sometimes unhappy endings — of many folk fairy tales Many filmed fairy tales have been made primarily for children, from Disney's later works to Aleksandr Rou's retelling of '''' and the films of Michel Ocelot .Drazen, p. 264. Other works have retold familiar fairy tales in a darker, more horrific or psychological variant aimed primarily at adults. Notable examples are ''Drazen, p. 38. and '' Pan's Labyrinth ''1 create new stories in this genre from fairy-tale and folklore motifs. In comics and animated TV series, The Sandman (Vertigo) , Revolutionary Girl Utena , Princess Tutu , Fables (Vertigo) and MÄR are all notable examples. However, partly due to the demands of a longer narrative, all of these cross over into Fairytale Fantasy . MOTIFS , illustration by Warwick Goble ]] Any comparison of fairy tales quickly discovers that many fairy tales have features in common with each other. Two of the most influential classifications are those of Antti Aarne , as revised by Stith Thompson into the Aarne-Thompson classification system, and Vladimir Propp 's ''Morphology of the Folk Tale''. Aarne-Thompson This system groups fairy and folk tales according to their overall plot. Common, identifying features are picked out to decide which tales are grouped together. Much therefore depends on what features are regarded as decisive. For instance, tales like '' Cinderella '' – in which a persecuted heroine, with the help of the Fairy Godmother or similar magical helper, attends an event (or three) in which she wins the love of a prince and is identified as his true bride – are classified as type 510, the persecuted heroine. Some such tales are '' The Wonderful Birch '', '' Aschenputtel '', '' Katie Woodencloak '', '' The Story Of Tam And Cam '', '' Ye Xian '', '' Cap O' Rushes '', '' Catskin '', '' Fair, Brown And Trembling '', '' Finette Cendron '', '' Allerleirauh '', and '' Tattercoats ''. Further analysis of the tales shows that in ''Cinderella'', ''The Wonderful Birch'', ''The Story of Tam and Cam'', ''Ye Xian'', and ''Aschenputtel'', the heroine is persecuted by her stepmother and refused permission to go to the ball or other event, and in ''Fair, Brown and Trembling'' and ''Finette Cendron'' by her sisters and other female figures, and these are grouped as 510A; while in ''Cap O' Rushes'', ''Catskin'', and ''Allerleirauh'', the heroine is driven from home by her father's persecutions, and must take work in a kitchen elsewhere, and these are grouped as 510B. But in ''Katie Woodencloak'', she is driven from home by her stepmother's persecutions and must take service in a kitchen elsewhere, and in ''Tattercoats'', she is refused permission to go to the ball by her grandfather. Given these features common with both types of 510, ''Katie Woodencloak'' is classified as 510A because the villain is the stepmother, and ''Tattercoats'' as 510B because the grandfather fills the father's role. This system has its weaknesses in the difficulty of having no way to classify subportions of a tale as motifs. '' Rapunzel '' is type 310 (The Maiden in the Tower), but it opens with a child being demanded in return for stolen food, as does '' Puddocky ''; but ''Puddocky'' is not a Maiden in the Tower tale, while '' The Canary Prince '', which opens with a jealous stepmother, is. It also lends itself to emphasis on the common elements, to the extent that the folklorist describes '' The Black Bull Of Norroway '' as the same story as '' Beauty And The Beast ''. This can be useful as a shorthand but can also erase the coloring and details of a story.Tolkien, p. 18. Morphology Vladimir Propp specifically studied a collection of Russian fairy tales, but his analysis has been found useful for the tales of other countries.Propp, ''Morphology of the Folk Tale''. '', testing the heroine before giving her riches.]] Having criticized Aarne-Thompson type analysis for ignoring what motifs ''did'' in stories, and because the motifs used were not clearly distinct,Propp, pp. 8–9. he analyzed the tales for the ''function'' each character and action fulfilled and concluded that a tale was composed of thirty-one elements and eight character types. While the elements were not all required for all tales, when they appeared they did so in an invariant order — except that each individual element might be negated twice, so that it would appear Three Times , as when, in '' Brother And Sister '', the brother resists drinking from enchanted streams twice, so that it is the third that enchants him.Propp, p. 74. One such element is the '' Donor '' who gives the hero magical assistance, often after testing him.Propp, p. 39. In '' The Golden Bird '', the talking Fox tests the hero by warning him against entering an inn and, after he succeeds, helps him find the object of his quest; in '' The Boy Who Drew Cats '', the priest advised the hero to stay in small places at night, which protects him from an evil spirit; in '' Cinderella '', the fairy godmother gives Cinderella the dresses she needs to attend the ball, as their mothers' spirits do in '' Bawang Putih Bawang Merah '' and '' The Wonderful Birch ''; in '' The Fox Sister '', a Buddhist monk gives the brothers magical bottles to protect against the fox spirit. The roles can be more complicated.Propp, pp. 81–82. In '' The Red Ettin '', the role is split into the mother – who offers the hero the whole of a journey cake with her curse or half with her blessing – and when he takes the half, a fairy who gives him advice; in '' Mr Simigdáli '', the sun, the moon, and the stars all give the heroine a magical gift. Characters who are not always the donor can act like the donor.Propp, pp. 80–81. In '' Kallo And The Goblins '', the villain goblins also give the heroine gifts, because they are tricked; in '' Schippeitaro '', the evil Cat s betray their secret to the hero, giving him the means to defeat them. Other fairy tales, such as '' The Story Of The Youth Who Went Forth To Learn What Fear Was '', do not feature the donor. Analogies have been drawn between this and the analysis of myths into the Hero's Journey .Christopher Vogler, ''The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers'', 2nd edition, p. 30, ISBN 0-941188-70-1. This analysis has been criticized for ignoring tone, mood, characters and, indeed, anything that differentiates one fairy tale from another." vladimir propp's theories " INTERPRETATIONS Many variants, especially those intended for children, have had Morals attached. Perrault concluded his versions with one, although not always completely moral: ''Cinderella'' concludes with the observation that her beauty and character would have been useless without her godmother, reflecting the importance of social connections.Maria Tatar, ''The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales'', p. 43. ISBN 0-393-05163-3. Many fairy tales have been interpreted for their (purported) significance. One mythological interpretation claimed that many fairy tales, including '' Hansel And Gretel '', '' Sleeping Beauty '', and '' The Frog King '', all were Solar Myths ; this mode of interpretation is rather less popular now.Tatar, ''The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales'', p. 52. Many have also been subjected to Freudian , Jungian , and other Psychological analysis, but no mode of interpretation has ever established itself definitively. Specific analyses have often been criticized for lending great importance to motifs that are not, in fact, integral to the tale; this has often stemmed from treating one instance of a fairy tale as the definitive text, where the tale has been told and retold in many variations.Alan Dundes, "Intrepreting Little Red Riding Hood Psychoanalytically", pp. 18–19, James M. McGlathery, ed., ''The Brothers Grimm and Folktale'', ISBN 0-252-01549-5. In variants of '' Bluebeard '', the wife's curiosity is betrayed by A Blood-stained Key , by An Egg's Breaking , or by The Singeing Of A Rose She Wore , without affecting the tale, but interpretations of specific variants have claimed that the precise object is integral to the tale.Tatar, ''The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales'', p. 46. Other folklorists have interpreted tales as historical documents. Many German folklorists, believing the tales to have been preserved from ancient times, used Grimms' tales to explain ancient customs.Zipes, ''The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World'', p. 48. Other folklorists have explained the figure of the wicked stepmother historically: many women did die in childbirth, their husbands remarried, and the new stepmothers competed with the children of the first marriage for resources. Marina Warner , ''From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales And Their Tellers'', p. 213. ISBN 0-374-15901-7. COMPILATIONS
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