How Childhood Is The Most Influential Stage Of Life

Fairy Tales are not just stories that parents tell to their children, but stories with hidden valuable messages which are mostly left on a side. In the article “An Introduction to Fairy Tales,” Maria Tatar clearly explains how people need fairy tales in their lives. Tatar also states how fairy tales have the ability to take the listener, especially children’s, into a journey in which they can play with their imagination so that they can discover their deepest fears and wishes. Personally I agree with the author, because of the fact that in an individual’s lives as they get older, they will try to define themselves, sometimes comparing their own life with a character from their favorite story or Fairy Tale.

Grimms’ rendition of Cinderella exposes limited expectations for women in the late 1850’s. When you hear the name stepsister, stepmother, etc.. you tend to associate it with something bad. Why has the name been given such a bad reputation? Could it be that when stories were told they gave stepparents or stepsiblings a bad name? In Grimm's rendition of Cinderella the stepsisters make Cinderella do physical chores as was expected of “lower class” women. In the house in which Cinderella’s family lived in there seemed to be a hierarchy, the stepmother would be the queen and the stepsisters would be the princesses that would leave Cinderella at the bottom of the hierarchy. In the Grimm’s story the sisters told Cinderella to “comb our hair for

Maria Tatar points out how these stories help shape individuals at a young age. She explores how children reading these stories and using imagination can uncover fears and desires they have. But these fairy tales do not only have a good influence on children, but also

Furthermore, when the upcoming ball is announced, the stepsisters consult Cinderella because of her good taste, and she willingly gives them excellent advice and even offers to help style their hair. She toils away happily and selflessly. She is so self-sacrificing that at the end of the tale she not only forgives her stepsisters cruelty but arranges advantageous marriages for them.

Cinderella is a fairytale for children that displayed love, loss and miracles; however, when it is further analyzed, it has a deeper meaning. Cinderella is a story about a young girl who became a servant in her own home after her father remarried a malicious woman with two spoiled daughters. She was humiliated and abused yet she remained gentle and kind. She received help from her fairy godmother to go to the prince’s ball after her stepmother rejected her proposal. Cinderella and the Prince fell madly in love but she had to leave at twelve o’clock and forgot to tell him her name but she left her glass slipper behind. He sent his servants to find her and Cinderella was the only maiden in the kingdom to fit into the shoes. She

The Grimm Brothers version of Cinderella is a written down oral story that people passed down from generation to generation, meant to teach a lesson about piety and good behavior. Before the Grimm Brothers ever wrote it down, the story had been told several times by memory. It is thus not surprising that the descriptions of certain events in the story, such as the way Cinderella went to the Ball, are lacking in details. It is obvious that these parts of the story are unimportant to the overall message of the story. Instead, it focuses on the piety of Cinderella and the wickedness of the step-sisters. Through the events of the story, it becomes obvious that the goodness of Cinderella is justly rewarded, and that

Cinderella was kind to her step mother and step sisters, and the truth found them out. She did not have to be nice to them, and she did not have to show mercy, but she did. Cinderella had the courage to forgive.

The characters in the story Cinderella differ greatly depending on what version you are reading. To start with, in the Norway version the main character is not named Cinderella, but Katie Woodencloak. In this version Katie’s father was a king who had to go to war with another kingdom. Also, in the Norway version the stepmother was only harsh and mean to Katie when the king was not around, and when he was not around she would be very brutal to her and even beat Katie. As far as the other sister goes, in this version Katie has one stepsister who is very mean and ugly. The final character comparison in the Norway version is the “fairy godmother”. In this version there is no “fairy godmother” like what is typically thought of with the story Cinderella. Instead this role is played by a bull, that is the source of her beautiful dresses.

Childhood is usually understood as a set of experiences and behaviours, gained in the early stages of the human existence, considered as the preparation for the adult world. However, the history of childhood is a very complex topic and it has become a very influential area of study in recent years. In 1962, the ‘Centuries of Childhood’ by Philippe Ariés introduced the idea that childhood was a new creation developed in recent centuries and as a concept it was believed to be nonexistent before the seventeenth century. This concept means that there was no awareness of the process of childhood. In several studies of the medieval period, Ariés noticed that childhood was not acknowledged or even attempted to be portrayed during this period. For

Another way of learning is introduced by an entry entitled "Fairy Tales" included in an encyclopedia which mentions that fairy tales can teach a child about other cultures and civilizations and therefore teach it that apart from it's own country and culture there are also many other people and cultures throughout the entire world. This can help children to overcome the egocentrism and selfish thoughts, which are very common in those ages, and make them realize that apart from them , billions of other people live in this planet and hundred of other nations exist apart from their own. Also fairy tales can introduce children, who are relatively powerless in most areas of their lives, to a world "where the smallest animal, the poorest peasant, the youngest daughter often prevails over those larger, richer, older, and more powerful." Thus, in the words of writer and child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim: "fairy tales can help children confront and resolve conflicts in their own lives" Therefore, we can easily conclude that, fairy tales, by portraying a world where it is possible for the weak to prevail over the strong, can give hope to children and make them confront their own problems with courage and self-esteem.

Fairy tales are something that everyone has read or seen, they all seem to have important lessons at the end of each one to teach young children some of the lessons they need for life. These fairy tales when we were younger all seemed innocent and something we all hoped that would happen to us. Little did we know as we got older that the fairy tales we all knew and loved when we were younger, weren't as innocent as they seemed.

Cinderella is the beautiful woman and in the fairy tale she doesn't have any ambition. For her stepmother and her two stepsisters they were ugly and jealous of Cinderella's beauty and they

Some stories have been told for hundreds of years, and they are constantly reinterpreted to fit the current social norms and values. Two of the best known stories today are Disney's Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, and they are in part responsible for the widespread view that children's stories are frivolous and lack dept. Of course learning to see the beauty inside (Disney, 1991), and believing that being good and doing the right thing will ultimately be rewarded (Disney, 1950), are

Cinderella’s mother plays a big role in the story indirectly and the author explains this with some other detailed information to

Children are often read to fairy tales. The stories about how the princess gets saved from the evil queen, or how animals are our friends, or how monsters are evil and should be avoided. It’s not without reason that they are told these fantasy world stories. Since children’s minds are a powerful and imaginative thing, these stories help them to think creatively and can even define the direction which they want to go early on. They also help develop critical thinking, teach right from wrong, boost their imagination and also are a great source of fun. So it really comes as no surprise that young adults and fully grown adults need a dose of fantasy fiction too.