Stereotypes In Fairy Tales

Disney’s Cinderella demonstrates that, whatever the intention of its makers, modern day fairy tales function in our society as hidden instructions for morals and behaviors that we give children. On the surface, it seems to be a simple story about a young woman whose wishes come true. However, the story also reflects cultural expectations of women’s behaviors and goals and defines expectations of “goodness” for women. Power belongs to men in “Cinderella”, and it is depicted as a female ambition and goal. The storyline describes the rise of the submissive haracter to becoming a Princess; she is portrayed as a passive character who waits for the Prince to come for her. While waiting for her Prince Charming she also bears the mistreatment from her stepmother and stepsisters. While masculine power is taken for granted in the figure of the Prince, becoming his wife is the only way women have to share this power. The

Fairy tales always seem to end with a lesson or happy ending. The Grimms’ “Hansel and Gretel” exhibits both of these factors by the end of the story. Not only are morals and happy endings found in the tale but religious symbols are incorporated, leading us to believe that the main characters are good. Although Hansel and Gretel are not always good, we learn that their evils may be forgiven. In the tale “Hansel and Gretel,” the Brothers Grimm leads us to believe that in the end, good triumphs evil.

When I started analyzing Cinderella I noticed some gender roles/stereotypes that are brought to light. One of them being how women are the ones who stay home and perform household chores. They are “housewives” who depend on a man. The father is briefly in the beginning and afterwards we do not hear of him, initiating that he is off working, or on a business trip while the mom and daughters are home. We also see through Cinderella (who is forced to do all the chores) how their are consequences if she (or women) don’t complete or do the chores that are expected of them (like not being able to go to a ball in Cinderella's case). Another theme that is consistent in Cinderella as it is in other princess stories is the value of being beautiful. We see this when the fairy godmother shows up and makes Cinderella beautiful. She transforms her house clothes into a gown and so forth showing us that beauty is in the way you look or your appearance. If we pursue this theme further we see that the prince falls in love with Cinderella based on how she looks (love at first

Every day young children are read beautiful fairy tales that showcase the man saving the damsel in distress. These stories can warp children’s minds to believe based on their specific gender they have to act a certain way or do certain things. Girls begin to believe that they have to know their place but they are known as emotional and not ready for the outside world. Boys are taught that they have to be the savior, they can’t cry, and they have to be the one to all the working. This image perverts the minds of young men and women altering their self-confidence and causing people are different to be ostracized and castaway. Some stories that showcase the idea of gender roles are, “Snowdrop and the Seven Dwarfs”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, and

I found that Jakob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm worked on “Cinderella” to be vastly different from the Disney version. The Grimm brother’s version had no fairy godmother and was very gruesome. An example of this is the telling of what the step sisters did to fit into the slipper that was used to find the prince’s bride to be. “The eldest [step sister] tried it on first in another room, and her mother stood by. She could have worn it if her great toe had not been so large, so her mother offered her a knife, and told her to cut it off ‘When you are queen,’ she said, ‘you will not want to use your feet much’” (Grimm and Grimm 93-94). She did indeed cut off her great toe just so she can possibly get the chance to marry the prince despite all the pain she had to endure in order to do so. That was the same choice her sister made as well “She also went into another room with her mother, and found that she could not get the slipper over her heel. ‘Cut a piece off,’ said her mother, offering her a knife; ‘when you are queen you will not have to use you feet much’” (Grimm and Grimm 94). The situations that the step sisters experienced illustrates how the necessity for beauty

Overall, the emphasis that fairy tales place on physical appearance can be very detrimental to a child (particularly a girl’s) development and ideas of reality. To add, fairy tales, although perhaps unintentionally, depict that attractiveness determines who is good and who is evil. The protagonist is often the princess, who is described as the prettiest in the land. The antagonist on the other hand is often less attractive and more than likely labeled ugly (Schussler). Because fairy tales often depict good conquering evil and evil succumbing to its immorality, this therefore shows the reader that ugly people are punished. This also can influence a girl’s self-esteem, considering that the created sense of beauty is impossible, thus they may feel inferior (Danish). Grauerholz hypothesizes that “[t]hese powerful messages that say women need to be beautiful may compel some women to seek beauty at the expense of other pursuits, such as careers or education” (Grauerholz). The exaggerated emphasis on beauty has potential to be a very limiting factor for young girls. However, the stereotypical beautiful princess is not the only gender stereotype that plagues women in the tales.

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.

Reading fairy tales or seeing them represented has become part of an everyday routine for children. As Baker-Sperry states, “Through interaction that occurs within everyday routines (Corsaro 1997), children are able to learn the rules of the social group in which they are a part” (Baker-Sperry 717-718). For example, through Red Riding Hood, children learn to listen to their parents and to be wary of strangers. Some of these messages are harmful though; not all girls have to be naive and weak while boys are predacious wolves. Not everyone has to play the role that society assigns them.

According to Moula, “Analysis of images of women in literature unmasked such stereotypes as the virgin and the whore, angel and the devil, the mother, the submissive wife and the dominant wife the bitch, the seductress, the sex object, the old maid, the bluestocking, the castrating woman, the pioneer woman and the victim” (Moula, 2014). All of these stereotypes around found in almost every Disney fairy tale. These women are portrayed as being weak and poor, but are also beautiful. The Disney fairy tale such as Cinderella shows how she was abused by her stepmother and stepsisters. She is always dressed in rough clothing and is a servant to her family.

Fairy tales like Snow White and Cinderella both contain the struggle of good vs. evil. The struggle of good vs evil in these tales teaches us that good always prevails over evil. The fairy tales often times contain common elements that represent good and evil in the story. Both of these tales show the good and evil elements in similar forms. Both tales have the same outcomes where good prevails and they live happily ever after. These tales expose important concepts like good and bad for young readers. Tales such as these two can also teach young readers about good and bad things in life and ways of handling them.

In fairy tales, female characters are objects, and their value centers around their attractiveness to men. Since fairy tales rely on cultural values and societal norms to teach morals or lessons, it is evident that fairy tales define a woman’s value in a superficial way. Fairy tales teach that, typically, beauty equates to being valuable to men because of their fertility and purity; whereas, ugliness equates to being worthless and evil, including being ruined because of their lack of virginity. Descriptions readers see from fairy tales like “Rapunzel,” and “Little Snow-White” revolve around the women’s, or girl’s, physical appearance, and both stories play out to where the women remain in a state of objectification. In addition, they are damsels

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.

With the power the step-mother has obtained, she utilizes it in order to oppress Cinderella as she is forced to become a maid within her own place of dwelling. For this reason, it causes Cinderella to become apart of an inferior level. Cinderella continues to stay passive and an inactive contributor within her life. Not resorting to the chance of rebelling or escaping the unfortunate situation. But even so, some may insist upon her attempting to break free as a form of escaping, yet she does not use it for instead she choses to wait in order to be saved. In view of that, Cinderella is presented as a goodhearted, but submissive character in need of rescuing. Above all, both the step-mother and Cinderella are seen as stereotypical characters. In fact the step-mother is showcased to hold great power, thus being a vision of dark evil ways. Much less, Cinderella and her character is not endowed with any power whatsoever, thus being looked upon as a good hearts and beautiful person inside and out. Accordingly this represents the message of female characters and power relationships between them. Being that those with power are seen as evil, while on the other hand those who have no power are meant to be good. Therefore a happy ending is give to those powerless, instead of female individuals with

Once upon a time in a land not so far away, the society of man created the idea that it was a woman’s job to conform to the ideologies generated in fairy tales. From women depending on their prince charmings all the way to romanticized sexual abuse and lack of consent, stories like Cinderella and Snow White radiate sexism within an array of scenes of the stories and films. Not only does this affect the way that men view women, but it has had a relatively negative effect on the ways that many women view themselves. Many fairy tales have made their way into mainstream culture, and today many young girls and boys grow up hearing and seeing the subliminal messages in fairy tales. As more and more fairy tales make their way onto the big screen, it can be seen that all princesses seem to share a common feature other than their crowns and lack of self worth without a man by their side; their tiny waists. In recent years during the 21st century more and more people in the media have been calling out fairy tales for their anti-feminist attitudes with sexism, body standards as well as societal comments about women being dependent on men.

As we grow up, we hear fairy tales and we read them into our lives. Every word and every image is imprinted into our minds. The fairy tales we read are never abandoned. They grow with us and our dreams become molds of the many morals and happily ever afters fairy tales display. We tell children fairy tales when they go to sleep and they read them in school and we even have them watch Disney adaptions that reinforce them further. Generally, they were everywhere while we grew up and they continue to be present while children are growing up now. But what influence do these stories have? We casually expose our children to these tales, but in some cases they can have particularly, harmful personal effects on them, although there is nothing completely or visibly “bad” about them or about the characters in them. Before we divulge our youth to these stories, we should assess their substance and see what sort of effect they may be having on them. They have received so much scrutiny and have been studied by many. Recognizing fairy tales effects on the minds of children is vital in their development. This paper will focus on the underlying messages that the average person wouldn’t recognize in these everyday stories. There’s a modern distort with fairy tales because while they still are widely popular with the youth, they influence children’s self images, outlooks on reality and expectations for their futures, especially for young women.