The Ugly Duckling

Four have already left home, one will leave soon and the other three still dwell in the house with her. She then begins to express the dangers of the world around her in a bird’s point of view. For example, she is afraid that her young will fall in a fowler’s snare, be caught in a net or by birdlime on twigs, or hurt by a hawk. In a human world a fowler’s snare might be fallings into the hands of trickery, robbery, or any other type of crime. Caught by net or birdlime might represent being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a hawk-inflicted injury might symbolize being wounded or killed by an Indian or criminal.

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

Lin Lan’s “Cinderella” is a classic fairy tale that depicts the life of a poor, young girl named Beauty in the hands of her wicked stepmother and stepsister. The story leads one to believe a moral lesson is portrayed as how in the end evil never prospers. Beauty is rewarded in many different forms for being the innocent protagonist, while the stepmother and stepsister are chastened for their heinous deeds. As children are the main targeted audience for fairytales, it would seem evident to create a character of good standing morals and virtue; however, there are multiple instances that contradict Beauty’s faultless character.

In the story the father didn’t understand his daughter which made their relationship rocky. In the text it says ‘‘...watching him get out of the truck and walk toward me, noticing that there was no smile on his face but still feeling my body move toward him, my arms opening for an embrace, something rising in my throat. My father stopped and held out his right hand.’’ This quote shows that the father had a hard time showing his emotions to his daughter. In the end of the story they bonded over a bird and the father began to understand his daughter.

In the story The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst, the author shows many similarities between the narrator's little brother Doodle and an exotic bird. While reading through the story the young boy is not thought very highly of. No one including, the doctors, ever thought Doodle would live past a couple days. But Doodle did just that, he lived for 6 whole years. His parents even named him William Armstrong, because they thought it would look good on a tombstone. His brother later renamed him Doodle because with that kind of name no one would expect much from him. Doodle had many obstacles growing up and didn’t really fit it. While going through life Doodle was constantly trying to prove that there was a reason for his life. Doodle’s brother tried very to have a normal little brother, so he pushed him in many ways to enable him to do normal things. Doodle could not stand up or crawl and when he did he crawled backwards, earning him the name Doodle. The brothers says to Doodle, “Aw, come on, Doodle,” I urged. “You can do it. Do you want to be different from everybody else when you start school?”

Society sometimes makes you an outcast by who they are. Although we are not a wise old woman who goes to live with a

Anderson uses sensory imagery and onomatopoeia to paint the scene, as the mother duck prompts her ducklings to jump into the water with her demonstrative “Splash!”. Akin to Fran being pushed over and ran into, the ‘poor duckling’ is ‘picked and pushed about and made fun of’. Anderson’s use of plosive p sounds and emotive terms enhance audience empathy. When the duckling runs away, he is self-exiled as a result of social rejection.

In “A Barred Owl” by Richard Wilbur and “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins, the authors both argue that innocence is necessary to cultivate the ideal child via their protective tones, deceptive plot, and contrasting rhyme schemes.

Although Birdie’s sad story seems to be very tragic, it is not identical to the normal literary tragedies that we normally see. Usually, a tragedy is written with a heroic character and features characters acting out the roles of the story. Instead, Waxen Wings displays a girl who loves flying, but is caught up in a series of unfortunate events Unless the reader is also a lover or flying, it is

“The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst is a short story about how one special child named Doodle who when her was born the doctor said he would not live; but he did live even though he couldn’t walk. His brother got tired of him not being able to walk so he pushed and pushed him so he wouldn’t be teased about having a cripple brother. This short story expresses the idea that a rare red bird called the Scarlet Ibis symbolises the young brother Doodle. He was said to be cripple at birth and couldn’t walk but as he tried and tried he was able to prove them wrong and walk. Doodle tried his hardest to achieve his goal to walk, climb trees, and swim. Throughout the story Doodle’s brother/the narrator is a little mean to Doodle, but does it out of affection he believed that Doodle could do so much more and that he was destined for great thing in the future.

In the introduction of the film, the narrator was talking about how a bird struggles for survival when losing a parent. The bird loses an extra care taker, making life’s survival rate decrease. The bird's loss of a parent is the archetypal symbol in this story because Nicholas Nickleby losses his father after the bird story is read in the introductory. Nicholas and his family's life situation becomes more difficult economically because of the lack of income. The death of a parent is brought up several times throughout the story like Smike's tragic story. Smike had the most difficult life out of all the death of a parent situation because he grew up never knowing either of his parents. A child struggles to grow up with only one parent, but having no parents to be raised by is twice as hard. Smike was never raised by anyone except Mr. Squeers, who raised him as a slave. Also, Anne Hathaway's character lives with only her father because she lost her mother very young. She struggles to earn money for her and her father’s living up until she loses him as well. At the end of the story, Kate and Nicholas Nickleby marry their significant other. The man marrying them says that growing up without a parent is always difficult, but sharing and creating new blood for someone else rebuts a family, making a stronger bond. This wraps up the archetypal symbols seen throughout the entire film from the scene of the bird losing a parent in the beginning of the film to the

Chinese Cinderella, by Adeline Yen Mah is a heart-rendering autobiographical novel. Throughout the text, Adeline describes her cruel family and the trauma she was confronted with at school, trying to satisfy her heartless father with educational achievements. Together we relive the childhood life of Adeline through her words and hear, what it feels like to be a rejected and unloved daughter. Furthermore, Adeline owns a special quality that helps her to handle the cruelty of her upbringing and rise above many obstacles. Adeline has been always resilient. She is very strong and tackles everything that comes her way. By being friendless and having a pet duck as a friend, she distracts herself from her coldblooded reality.

In a few stark story, depressing in their own unique way, attempts to disprove the traditional Chinese saying “it’s better to have geese than girls”.

But in fact we use the stories that we tell children, and especially those that we tell over and over, to instill messages, to teach cultural norms, to establish the roots of what we hope will be proper behavior as the children grow up. Fairytales are a form of propaganda. The traditional fairytale almost always reflects (and therefore works to reproduce) the power relations of patriarchy; its rigid sexual patterns teach that fear and masochism are tenets of femininity and all of the symbolic inversions that occur are not chances to upset the standard patriarchal hierarchy but are instead ways of maintaining it (Bacchilega, 1997, pp. 50-1).

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.