Hidden Values Of Fairy Tales

Maria Tatar’s “An Introduction to Fairy Tales” discusses the impact on how the stories help guide the children from their younger age. The first five paragraphs of the article mentioned about how the children can overflow with imagination, and can vividly see their reality of desire and also, fear. The fairytales can also corrupt the naïve minds of the child in a way of making them realize the reality of the world is unjustified, and people can be harsh. Moreover, Tatar gives an explanation on how people grow up with the same fairy tales with different versions; which gives an entirely different personal idea. Fairy tales also develop the child’s intellectual mind by reading various kinds of genre.

The fairy tale helps the child to understand a balance between the good and the evil; it gives him a hope for a good future.” Fairy tales assure the

In Tatar’s article, An Introduction to Fairy Tales, she draws us in by describing childhood books as “sacred objects.” She takes a quote from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. describing how the stories give lessons about what a child subconsciously knows - “that human nature is not innately good, that conflict is real, that life is harsh before it is happy - and thereby reassure them about their own fears and their own sense of self,” (Tatar 306). She describes how many adults long for the simplicity of enjoying those stories in their childhoods, only to realize that they outgrew them, and instead have been introduced to reality. The original stories were more for adults rather than for children. Nowadays, stories have been adapted to be more suitable for children. Fairy tales may allow a kid to wonder due to their charm, but they also can

Peering into the treasure chest, a small gasp slipped out of Belle’s mouth as she began to see the truth about her friends. Laying on a crimson cloth was a book titled “Cinderella”. Delighted to find one of her favorite fairy tales, Belle sat under a tree and began to read. Her delight soon turned to disgust as she realized it was not the fairy tale she loved. Overcome at the gruesome, gory details of this version, Belle quickly slammed the

Tartar explains how a little Fairy Tale can affect someone’s life, it could be by their personality, or even just little things such as how they see life. She then explains that even reading the same stories as people got older, like for example The Little Red Riding Hood, each person will see it with a different message. On Maria Tatar work she explains some of the psychological aspects that are involved in knowledge development of children; she makes an emphasis on how some “fairy-tale characters always seem to be lying, cheating, or stealing their way to good fortune.” (Paragraph-10, Pg. 231); most parents do not want their children to steal things from other people. Tatar states that as people get older, they are more likely to forget the strong messages that a simple

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.

There is nothing more precious and heartwarming than the innocence of a child. The majority of parents in society want to shield children from the bad in life which is appreciated. Within human nature exists desires of inappropriate behavior; envy, deceit, selfishness, revenge, violence, assault and murder. The most well-known fairy tales depict virtue and the evil in life. Even more important, the form and structure of fairy tales suggest images to the child by which he can structure his daydreams and with them give a better direction to his life. (Bettelheim).

Fairy tales picture a world filled with magic, love and the triumph of the good over the evil. Fairy tales are a window to other worlds where the wildest dreams can come true and the hero always lives happily ever after preferably paired with his loved one. Although some people argue that fairy tales are full of stereotypes, filled with frightening monsters and promote racism and sexism I believe that they are wrong because fairy tales provide valuable moral lessons to children, teach them other countries' cultures promote the imagination and the cognitive development and therefore they should be read to young children.

"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.

Growing up most of us were tucked into bed and our parents read us a story before going to sleep, fairy tales in most cases. I personally remember hearing all about princess , dragons and cute mystical creatures that always had a happy ending no matter how much they went though to get there. After reading the fairy tales in our text book i initially thought they were a little too grusm and inapporpiate for children but after analyzing them and thinking things through i concluded that fairy tales are more appropiate for children rather than adults. I believe fairy tales are very benifical for kids because they teach children right from wrong , help children build emotional resiliency and lastly they help them develop critical thinking skills.

A story always has a meaning or lesson it teaches. Fairy tales are stories with the addition of a magical element. They, too, have meanings the reader is supposed to take away. Authors purposefully fill their tales with symbols and characters that are meant to represent something. The meanings could be intending to teach societal values or rules. There are infinite interpretations one could potentially perceive from a single story. Likewise, a study from Cedarville University states, “the Bible is similar to fairy tales in that one can take several meanings from the same passage and interpret it differently depending on that individual’s stage in life” (Foulkrod). Fairy tales with authors that are notably religious recognized the similarity between Bible teachings and fairy tales and often use religious symbols and themes to compliment the overall moral the story is trying to portray. Many of these tales also have meanings and moral takeaways that represent religious values. This can be seen in the works of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, as well as Carlo Collodi.

My first reason that fairy tales should be read to kids is it helps them with imagination skills. The author states, ¨With this imagination comes a cultural literacy; fairy tales often include different cultures and ways of doing things.¨ This shows that with imagination skills you can imagine what the different cultures could look like.

Fairy tales have been around for centuries introducing creativity to the minds of both its young and old viewers. Young children view fairy tales for fun when really they can teach some youth how to deal with emotional and physiological problems that they can relate to. Life lessons are often displayed to its viewers, just not noticed. Positive and negative socialization are both shown in fairy tales, sometimes one more than the other. Rapunzel shows negative socialization to young viewers because she is surrounded by revenge, a controlling lifestyle, and isolation (Cresswell, 31).

Fairy tales have - and perhaps will always be - an intrinsic and basic element of human

There are many versions of fairy tales, many of which were told around a fire, passed down through family, and rewritten to appease the new authors values or beliefs. In Mary Tatar’s “An introduction to Fairy Tales,” she stated that William Bennett wrote a collection of stories which were “chosen for their ability to transmit ‘timeless and universal’ cultural values… (Behrens & Rosen, 2013. p. 232). It was Bennett’s belief that “moral literature can produce good citizens” (2013, p. 232), though, not everyone shares Bennett’s belief. One such person is Mary Tatar, who claimed that “(Bennett) fails to recognize the complexities of reading, the degree to which children often focus on single details, produce idiosyncratic interpretations, or become passionate about vices as well as virtues” (2013, p. 232). Agreeing with either Bennett or Tatar is difficult, especially if one values the same cultural values as Bennett, yet feels that children are singular in their learning development.