Old Fairy Tales Analysis

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.

Triumphant reward in spite of unjust punishment is a universal sentiment that transcends languages and cultures. There are thousands of folktales and fairy tales that are firmly rooted in individual cultures, yet the tale of Cinderella has been told through many centuries and throughout the far corners of the world. With thousands of versions of this classic tale in print worldwide, the tale is believed to have originated with the story of Rhodopis, a Greek slave girl who is married to an Egyptian King. The story of Rhodopis, which means rosy-cheeks, dates back to 7 BC and is attributed to a Greek geographer named Strabo. The Chinese variation of this fairy tale is named Yeh-hsien. The Chinese version is traceable to the year 860 and appears in Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang by Duan Chengshi. Yeh-hsien is a young girl, motherless and in the control of her stepmother, who befriends a treasured fish. The jealous step-mother kills the fish, but it’s bones provide Yeh-hsien with magical powers, eventually enabling Yeh-hsien to escape the control of her step-mother for a royal life. The Story of the Black Cow which is found within the pages of Folk Tales from the Himalayas by John Murray, published in 1906, the child who is mistreated by a stepmother is a male and the role of savior is portrayed by a snake, with a cow serving as the moral of the story, faithfulness. These two versions of Cinderella carry many common threads that are

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.

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.

“Breaking the Disney Spell” by Jack Zipes talks about Walt Disney’s early adaptations of folk and fairy tales. Zipes talks about even after Disney’s death “the man’s spell over the fairy tale seems to live” (333). This to me has a double meaning which is, that Disney is so know that he literally has a spell on people or how even though the the man figure in the fairy tales never do much they are still very important. Zipes talks about how the oral folktale went from and oral to written, then to film. He describes the written tales as being a violation of the folk tale because it was based on separation of social classes. Even though printed versions “enabled the tales to be preserved and cultivated,” they violated forms and concerns of those that could not read (336). Then he goes on to say that the images of film were a violation to the written versions “for the images imposed themselves on the text” (338). The essay talks about how Disney first started and even how he was at a point of his life in bankruptcy. Zipes states, “He cast a spell over this German tale and transformed it into something peculiarly American” (347). He says how Disney changed the written tales to fit his life and based then on himself and society. Disney is so big with Americans because of the “male myth,” which is about perseverance, hard work, dedication, loyalty, and justice. “Disney always wanted to do something

Fairy tales today are commonly viewed as fantastical stories - often with magical characters or elements - aimed to entertain children. Moreover, they frequently contain lessons or principles to be instilled in youths, promoting the morality of future generations. The values associated with a certain fairy tale can be identified quite easily these days, especially with the more prominent and well-known stories. For instance, the modern version of Beauty and the Beast schools readers to look past the exterior of others, for true beauty is measured by one's character. However, contemporary fairy tales have often been subject to censorship and revision from their origins in order to facilitate their

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a fairytale as being marked by seemingly unreal beauty, perfection, luck,or happiness. It also states that these stories tend to involve fantastic forces and beings and improbable events that lead to happy endings. This has been proven to be true. From Cinderella to Princess in the Frog new and old fairy tales have been sweeping the nation, all of which containing beautiful princesses, handsome princesses, magic, and happily-ever-afters. However, as time progresses and the tales are retold alternative story lines have been derived. The tales of Snow White and Enchanted depict how overtime fairy tales have been modernized to fit present day entertainment preferences.

When raising children, it is necessary to understand how to navigate their questions on life in a manner that is both appropriate for their age, yet is acceptable in their eyes in terms of an actual answer. According to Bruno Bettelheim, fairy tales are told to children as a way to allow them to symbolically address issues and challenges they might face. These fairy tales employ the use of characters and plots that children can place themselves in, thus allowing them to identify with the situation described. However, over time, some adaptions of the fairy tales differ from their subject matter. Jean Cocteau’s version of Beauty and the Beast differs from Walt Disney’s version, as it retains many of the theories that the Disney version omitted. Jean Cocteau’s version and Disney’s versions of Beauty and the Beast differ in their message by changing aspects of the symbolism and characters’ personalities.

"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.

Shrek is the answer to the dissatisfaction of “disneyfied” fairytales, by subverting popular tropes and offering an alternative for those who, generally in the Disney model (which continuously dominates popular culture), do not exist or are not “deserving” of a protagonist role. Interestingly, Shrek may have even inspired the modern revival of classic Disney fairy tales in which many of the ridiculed absurdities, such as certain superficialities and twist on who is actually the “good person”, are altered to a modern audience’s changing taste. Not only is Shrek entertaining, smart, and embraces the idea that appearances can belie personality, Shrek is influential and perhaps the most popular “fractured” fairy

As we look back on the history of fairy tales, we find that they are stories passed down to generations through the oral tradition that generally include a moral or pervading theme that is meant to aid the listener. One characteristic of oral stories are the variations that often occurred with each retelling as a result of errors in translation and interpretations, as well as changes driven by the storyteller’s desire to share a particular point of view with the listener. A modern twist on these variations is evident in children’s literature today. “The Sisters Grimm”, a popular series written by best-selling author Michael Buckley, offers a whole new dimension of changes to classic fairy tales as he reinvents the stories by adding depth,

Sagas about princes and princesses, beauty, magic, and love, fairy tales like Snow White and Cinderella among others have become children’s favorite bedtime stories. However, as parents tuck their sons and daughters in, they fail to realize that there is a much more daunting purpose to these stories. American writer and poet, Jane Yolen suggests that fairy tales indicate life values. Furthermore, Yolen insists that these tales are “thumbprints of history” (Yolen 27). Studying fairy tales in depth, she proves that the “functions of myths” consist of “creating a landscape of allusion [and] enabling us to understand our own and out culture from inside out” (Yolen 18). Yolen confirms that these stories comment on, “the abstract truths of our

Once upon a time, princess, curses and spells, a handsome man who saves the girl. These are all the qualities that make up a fairy tale. Since the beginning of time, tales have been passed down from family to family. Tales of heroism and magic have evolved into what we now call a fairy tale. Throughout history people have always celebrated the stories that capture the elements of the fairy tale. In both the Victorian and Romantic periods, the people celebrated the stories written by John Keats and Alfred Lord Tennyson. Two works from the Romantic and Victorian periods that have all the classic characteristics of a fairy tale are John Keats’s “The Eve of St. Agnes” and Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”. In both the Romantic and Victorian periods, John Keats and Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote fairy tale romances.

Did you know that your favorite fairytales were once violent? Originally, Grimm’s Fairy Tales were intended for children to read. However, because they contained remarkably dark elements, parents soon believed these stories were too violent for their children. Eventually, only adults read the tales. In the 1950s, Walt Disney created a non-violent version of the classic Grimm fairytale, Cinderella. Walt Disney’s cinematic version is more accessible to a wider audience than the Grimm tale because Disney removed most of the violence and simplified the tale while maintaining the original story.

Classic literature will always be remembered and retold over the generations as life lessons and morals that we try to live by. These morals are often used to help children learn these guiding values and morals. These lessons are presented to us as fairy tales and movies or cartoons for children. We never realize or ponder, “where did that moral come from?” or should I say, “who originally created this fable and life lesson that I am watching unfold in a Disney movie?” A fable is short and witty written piece and is deeply riddled with certain messages or lessons using, but not limited to, tales of animals. Fables were for adults but through time have been woven into everyone’s’ childhood. Fables, ghost stories, and urban legends are modern day fairytales or fables. Just as “The Grasshopper and The Ant” and “Tortoise and the Hare” were spread by oral tradition, urban legends and morals are spread in the same manner; thus creating contemporary folklore often with a moral sting in the tail. While it’s true that urban legends are still told while sipping hot chocolate and roasting marshmallows at a campfire, others are spread through classics movies like Walt Disney animation.