Comparing Lang's Jack And The Beanstalk

Storytelling has been changing rapidly in recent years. Stories have been told orally, through books, and most recently movies. These stories provide an escape from reality for children and adults alike. Many fairy tales were originally thought to be enchanting and were meant to please a child’s endless imaginations and presents different teachings and morals (Moore 175). In the society seen today, many aspects of life are changing and fairytales have not been adapting consistently to these changes. The biggest contributor to fairy tales today, is Disney. Disney utilizes their popularity by shaping and dominating the world and creating notions of happiness and utopia (Zipes 17). While children find joy in these tales, Disney inserts their

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

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.

For many generations, adults and children alike have relished L. Frank Baum’s cleverly written bedtime story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. On the surface, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz seems like an innocent fairy-tale that was written “solely to pleasure children today” ; however a deeper look into the main characters and symbolism inherent in the story, suggest an outlook into the Gilded Age. Many historians, beginning with Henry Littlefield, have interpreted The Wizard of Oz as being an allegory to the Populist Movement and the issue of money that surrounded the Gilded Age. Although Baum mentions that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written as a bedtime fairy-tale to be read and enjoyed by people of all ages, the hidden symbols and deeper

The tradition of telling fairy tales to children effects not only the listener but also the reader. Maria Tatar, in her book Off with Their Heads!, analyzes how fairy tales instill and reaffirm cultural values and expectations in their audience . Tatar proposes that fairy tales fall into three different tale-types: cautionary tales, exemplary stories, and reward- and- punishment tales. These three types portray different character traits as desirable and undesirable. Due to the tale’s varying literary methods it can change the effectiveness of the tale’s pedagogical value. In Tatar’s opinion, all of these tales are similar in the way they attempt to use punishment, reward, and fear to encourage or discourage certain behaviors. In the cautionary fairy tale “The Virgin Mary’s Child”, the use of punishment and fear to discourage certain behaviors is enhanced by the Christian motifs and values employed by the tale. These literary devices encourage the audience to reflect on and internalize the lessons that are presented in the fairy tale.

Unlike any other form of literature or entertainment, Fairy Tales help children to discover their identity and suggest experiences needed to develop their character. In Bruno Bettelheim’s “Life Divined from the Inside” Bettelheim states that “Fairy Tales intimate that a rewarding, good life is within one’s reach despite adversity-but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity (Bettelheim 106). Anne Sexton’s “Cinderella” is a perfect example of Bettelheim’s definition of a Fairy Tale.

How many little girls dream of being Snow White? How much money did Disney’s Tangled make? What little girl hasn’t dressed up as Cinderella or dreamed of meeting her very own prince charming? These popular fairy tales were created by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Their primary motivation when starting their collection of fairy tales was to preserve culture rather than entertain, but entertain is what they did. These fairy tales, and versions of them, have remained popular for a very long time, outlasting most other works of literature. The Brothers Grimm adapted these well-known stories from around Europe to reflect their own personal views, Germanize them and remove some of the more disturbing details of the original stories. In the same way, these fairy tales have been altered again and again to be acceptable to society. Fairy tales similar in theme can be found across the world. The Brothers Grimm versions are the most familiar because their emphasis on German culture and Christian morals is very similar to American culture and values. The adaptability and skillful incorporation of morals and issues considered socially unacceptable in an entertaining story, has allowed the Brother’s fairy tales to last throughout the ages.

Modern fairy tales are common in children’s literature and often convey an important moral. Fairy tales do not have to be about fairies, and are “characterized as being about magic or about spells or marvelous incidents” (Barton and Hudson 82). Two works of literature that use fairy tale elements are Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Both texts begin in the real world, but transition into a place that only exists in a dream or fantasy world. Going outside of the dimensions of the real world provides the texts with fairy tale elements, which include inhuman abilities and appearance, mythical and supernatural beings, and the battle between good and evil; the adventures of Peter Pan and Ebenezer Scrooge teach them a lesson about life and about themselves.

When imaging the ideal audience of fairytales, children are quick to come to mind, although, our perception of Little Red Riding Hood as an innocent fable is far from the truth. Alternatively, the origins of this story are derived from Italo Calvino’s “The False Grandmother”, a story immersed in symbolism and metaphorical symbols intended strictly for a mature audience. The preceding tale was “Little Red Cap “written by Charles Perrault and then later the “Little Red Riding” written by the Brothers Grimm. Although the details of these tales vary, they all maintain similar storylines. The stories revolve around the young female character Little Red Riding Hood who is sent off on a mission to bring her grandmother a basket of goods. During her adventure she encounters a wolf who engages in a hot pursuit to eat both the Grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood, only to succeed in the earlier rendition of the story. In this essay I will prove that when the Grimm’s Brothers and Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood stories are critically analyzed, it becomes evident that they are inappropriate tales for children as they exemplify the consequences of a minor transgression by Little Red Riding Hood as being the misleading cause of the violence and seduction that occurs thereafter.

"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.

Thus, it can be argued that in the fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk,” Jack is a

In a society unbridled with double standards and set views about women, one may wonder the origins of such beliefs. It might come as a surprise that these ideals and standards are embedded and have been for centuries in the beloved fairy tales we enjoyed reading as kids. In her analytical essay, “To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tales”, Karen Rowe argues that fairy tales present “cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues.” Rowe presents an excellent point, which can be supported by versions of the cult classics, “Cinderella” and “Snow White”. Charles Perrault’s “ The Little Glass Slipper” and the Brothers Grimm’s “ Snow White” exemplify the beliefs that

However, few realize that there are many communal ideas imbedded in the plots that often go unrecognized. Fairy tales, more often than not, highlight a multitude of social aspects which might seem inappropriate for children. Constantly evolving, fairy tales, as indicated by Yolen and Zipes, illustrate the sexist views of the dominating class, the societal beliefs as they change throughout history as well as the community’s values especially during crisis.

Conversely, Orenstein maintains that, by focusing on only the historical dimension of the tale as opposed to its larger social context, Darnton misses vital elements of the tale’s broader themes as well as the changes which occurred in the transition to the male-dominated written tradition. Orenstein begins by noting the wide breadth of oral cognates to “Little Red Riding Hood” which had been discovered across Europe and in Asia (Orenstein 69). Citing the work of folklorist Paul Delarue, she establishes that “Charles Perrault - whose 1697 text is the presumed source of the Grimms’ “Little Red Cap” - had dramatically revised the original folk tradition” (Orenstein 71). Most significantly, Orenstein observes - and criticizes Darnton’s lack of observation - that when authors began to put these stories onto paper, “the sense of female authorship - literally, female authority” (Orenstein 83) disappears from their tales. Fundamentally, Orenstein advances an interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood as a hero story whose “heroic heroine” (Orenstein 82), her cleverness, and most significantly her triumph over evil have all but vanished from the popular literary tradition.

Over time, many versions of common fairy tales have been released. Each one comes with unique differences, that separate them from the others. Snow White is an example. Commonly, what comes to the minds of many individuals when they hear the title “Snow White”, is Disney. They have the basic beautiful princess in a sticky situation, accompanied by their trustful sidekicks, in this case seven dwarfs. However, Walt Disney was not the creator of this story, or the evil queen constantly muttering ,¨Mirror, mirror, on the wall…”. It seems as though many in this world have fallen in love with this portrayal of the tale. Believe it or not, these ideas are based directly off a German version published by the Grimm Brothers. Both are very alike, and unlike too. Similarly, new versions, released in movies, have also changed the depiction of the common “Snow White”. These differences may be related to how society is beginning to view people, women, and heroes, or someone who is brave and courageous. This has helped shape these newer versions of the all-time classic.