Once Upon A Time Is Just Right Essay

Fairy tales have existed for years, some starting as oral stories for decades before ever being recorded on paper. These tales continue to hold an importance in the present such that they reflect the changes in time and progression of thought and ideas. Over time, many fairy tales are retold for various reasons including reforming them to be used for new audiences to make the story more relatable or to convey a different point of view to various specific audiences. This can be seen in various renditions; Andrew Anderson’s Shrek can be compared to Steig’s “Shrek!” and Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty in the Wood” and evaluated as a retelling of either based on specific criteria. Although some may argue that William Steig’s “Shrek!” appears more closely similar to Anderson’s Shrek, as evaluated from the presence of similar characters, general plot structure, and targeted audience, the movie Shrek is more closely a retelling of Charles Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.”

In the piece “Yours, Mine, or Ours?, Donald Haase discusses on the ownership of fairytales. Fairy Tales originate from folklore, described as traditional art, literature, knowledge, and practices that are passed on in large part through oral communication. With fairytale's being passed down through generations its new ‘authors’ take ownership of them. Ownership impacts the reception of the fairytale and determines how the audience reads and interprets it. Haase discuss how fairytales are suppose to show and tell what is true and what is acceptable in the context it was written in. With fairytales being changed the reader is exposed to a different moral and purpose with its telling. Haase concludes by informing that fairy tales belong to everyone and that we must take

Orenstein uses the Disney princess persona and describes it as a major turning point in the perception of fairy tales. The original fairy tales described as grim and macabre, transformed as time passes and started to appeal to many more people; the dark theme turned into a happy and pleasant princess love story that Disney is now famous for. An example, stated by Orenstein is the tale of Snow White, which originally, in short, involves rape and murder. Eventually, over

Few people can grow up within today's society without knowing the tale of Snow White. From the Grimm Brothers to Disney, it has been told and retold to children throughout the ages. However, what is often overlooked are the true meanings within the story. Fairytales typically have underlying messages that can be found written between the lines, generally in terms of the key themes. Snow White discusses the themes of envy and beauty, and shows how humans' obsessions can lead to their own downfall as well as the harm of others. When focusing on the relationship between Snow White and her step-mother the Queen, it is evident that the combination of these two themes results in a power struggle in which beauty

Fairy tales are timeless entities that will always be relevant in people’s lives. Fairy tales and stories offer entertainment, advice, and moral examples. The creation of fairy tales is important in the development of social norms. Children everywhere would read fairy tales and learn from them. As a result, these fairy tales are translated into multiple languages and allows people with different backgrounds to understand and relate to the story. People take these stories and adapt them to life around them. Within these adaptations of the same story, it is normal to observe slight differences that contribute as evidence in identifying the culture or societies in which these stories come from. Whether it is the slang of the dialogue or the change of location, modern producers and writers are known to take these classic stories and adding a significant twist to adjust to their cultural agenda. The movie, The Princess and the Frog, is a modern example of writers and directors creating a modern twist to the popular story of the Brother Grimm’s The Frog King. The Princess and the Frog and The Frog King both encode the mores, values, and beliefs of the cultures of the societies from which they come because, even though they both have similar plot ideas, the differences of the location and the differences of the overall specific plotlines attribute to understanding how their own specific cultures influence the adaptation and the actual story.

The central focus of this unit is to identify the elements of stories and how their themes may relate to each other in a variety of ways. Students will be guided in a variety of comparison and contrasting activities in order to gain understanding of main ideas, characters, and cultural themes across similar fairy tales from different cultures. This unit focuses on three different versions of Cinderella from different cultures. I chose to focus on the common elements of the fairy tales and the cultural differences because this was something the students were struggling with previously.

Everyone loves a good fairytale, and nothing is quite as magical and heartwarming as a Disney fairytale. The themes of love, comedy, and morality deem them as more than just little kids' stories, but suitable and entertaining tales for the entire family. This is known by a majority of the stories' readers. However, what one may not be so familiar with is the origin of these tales. Where did the stories of Cinderella, Ariel, and Rapunzel come from? The Disney writers certainly did not create them themselves. The differences in the originals will shock anyone familiar with Disney. And what about Snow White? There are differences between the original Brothers Grimm version of the ebony-haired, white-skinned princess and the Disney movie, believe it or not. Some major differences between both versions are the multiple ways the evil queen tries murdering her stepdaughter, the cause of Snow White's revival, as well as how the evil queen died. Why the story was altered is obvious:

In her article, “Fairy Tales and a Dose of Reality,” Catherine Orenstein is aware of the fact that most readers associate “Cinderella” with images of “true love” and “happily ever after.” In her argument, however, she challenges these concepts. She examines the difference of fairy tales based on different eras, this helps the reader better understand society’s perception based on the time period. She discusses how television’s fairy tales have affected today’s society, this helps the reader understand how television has changed our opinion of love. She also questions if reality TV is really real or just a staged lies that help the actors get a profit.

As a child, I was told fairytales such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs every night before I went to sleep. Fairytales are an adventurous way to expand a child’s imagination and open their eyes to experience a new perspective. Modernizations of fairytales typically relate to a specific audience, such as adolescence, and put a contemporary spin on the old-aged tale. Instead of using whimsical themes heavily centered in nature, the contemporary poems connect with the reader in a more realistic everyday scenario. Also, many modernizations are written in poetic form to help reconstruct a flow in the piece and to develop or sometimes completely change the meaning from that of the original fairytale. Comparing Grimm’s Fairytale Snow White

The story of Cinderella has become a classic fairy tale, known around the world, and past down from generation to generation. Yet, over the years, the story has been rewritten to better relate to different cultures. While some things never change, authors still manage to convey different messages by making the story their own. This can be clearly seen when the Grimm brothers version of Cinderella is compared to Charles Perrault’s version of Cinderella. While the core of the story does not change, the moral, tone, and “magical” aspects of the two stories are clearly shaped by the different cultures in which they were written in.

In Margaret Atwood’s poem “There Was Once”, Atwood uses irony to point out the societal problems within the genre of fairy tales. Charles Perrault, the author of the short story “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood”, writes about fantastic creatures, magic, and love, following the generic conventions of fairy tales. When compared to Perrault’s short story “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood”, Atwood’s poem both compliments and contrasts Perrault’s. These two texts, although similar, offer different views on the genre of fairy tales.

"Once upon a time," the most used introduction phrase in common fairy tales used to start an adventure. These adventures have been around for years. The importance of some tales might be more significant than others, also based on culture. My goal for this paper is to educate my readers with the importance of fairy tales, especially for younger children. Fairy tales have been around for centuries from generations to generations. Different cultures, such as the Japanese and Western, have also expressed them differently. All these fairly tales teach children different aspects of life, which make these tales so important.

“C’mon in the sound stage, I’ve got something to tell you guys (“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”).” Walt Disney proceeded to tell the animators his story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which left them all teary eyed. It was then decided that Snow White would be their first feature. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is one of the most successful movies in history (“Disney, Walt, World Book, Inc.”). Previously, it was rumored that Disney would be shutting down his studio, as many others did during the Great Depression, instead he did the opposite and brought Snow White into it’s making (Doyle). Disney’s first estimated production cost was severely low, but he was later on granted a higher budget as his producer thought it would be a hit (“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”). The film was referred to as “Disney’s Folly

Over the years, Snow White’s story has been told in numerous different versions then its original version in 1812 by the Grimm Brothers. The main basis of the story has remained the same. Only a few minor tweaks to the story have changed. The three versions of the story that are going to be analyzed are the original story “Little Snow White” by the Brothers Grimm, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by Disney, and “Mirror, Mirror” by Disney also. They each were created in very different times and the original story has changed over the years to appeal to the audience of that time. No matter how many versions there are Snow White is considered, one of the most cherished fairy tales of all time. They each use different methods to get their

Despite gender, living conditions or cultural backgrounds most people grow up reading or hearing stories of heroism and damsel in distress scenarios. Anne Sexton turns stereotypes on their head in her satirical poems of classic fairy tales, including Snow White and The Seven Dwarves and Cinderella. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves tells the tale of a young princess with hair as black as coal and skin as pale as snow, whose life is thrown into turmoil at the hands of her overbearing stepmother. Cinderella tells the story of a young girl who she spends her life is yearning for the prince’s ball, and similar to Snow White, Cinderella’s stepmother is influencing her life, however she is a positive character throughout the story. This sheds light on the stepmother in Snow White’s piece as despite the fact that Snow White’s stepmother clearly does inherently evil things, a re-reading demands a re-examination of why. It is throughout these tales’ where stepmothers are only trying to protect their children from the world around them, however in Snow White an outside motive, the beauty provided by the mirror and the pride manifested by poison, creates a barrier between the queen and her stepdaughter, thus giving her the title “Evil”.