What Are The Main Elements Of Fairy Tales

There are numerous genre’s in literature, but the level of importance and influence on an individual will differ. Exposure to books and stories is especially important for children because it their chance to acclimate themselves to written language and in turn create their own visuals for the toneless words. “Why Fairy Tales Matter: The Performative and the Transformative”, by Maria Tatar contains an ample amount of textual evidence from author’s research into fairytales, as well as writer’s personal experiences with fairytales. Although Tatar supports her claims with evidence, her resources are not concrete, and seems excessive at times. Also, her assertions are weakened by her failure to defend her conclusion against competing beliefs.

Storytelling has been changing rapidly in recent years. Stories have been told orally, through books, and most recently movies. These stories provide an escape from reality for children and adults alike. Many fairy tales were originally thought to be enchanting and were meant to please a child’s endless imaginations and presents different teachings and morals (Moore 175). In the society seen today, many aspects of life are changing and fairytales have not been adapting consistently to these changes. The biggest contributor to fairy tales today, is Disney. Disney utilizes their popularity by shaping and dominating the world and creating notions of happiness and utopia (Zipes 17). While children find joy in these tales, Disney inserts their

Bruno Bettelheim’s “The Uses of Enchantment” claims that fairy tales help expand the development of children. Although more adult topics like death are never specifically talked about, they tend to deal with other kinds of everyday problems. Children read stories like where the hero overcomes a series of obstacles in order to achieve their happily ever after, and then find a way to connect to that. These kinds of fairy tales help teach children understand difference between right and wrong. Fairy tales are in a way a child’s first teacher, they essentially mold the mind and help convey ideas that would otherwise be difficult to understand at such a young age.

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.

There are numerous genre’s in literature, but their level of importance and influence on an individual will differ. Exposure to books and stories is especially important for children because it is their opportunity to acclimate themselves to written language, and in turn create their own visuals for the toneless words. Maria Tatar writes, “Why Fairy Tales Matter: The Performative and the Transformative” to demonstrate how fairy tale’s written language can spark a child’s imagination as well as empower them. Through personal insight from distinguished writers— Richard Wright— Tatar builds her argument for the benefits of fairy tales— particularly the violent stories. The writer organizes her essay in a concrete fashion by using each paragraph to build on a proposed idea or to present a belief, but does not use contemporary writers personal anecdotes or heed to her own advice of avoiding childish fairy tales.

How many little girls dream of being Snow White? How much money did Disney’s Tangled make? What little girl hasn’t dressed up as Cinderella or dreamed of meeting her very own prince charming? These popular fairy tales were created by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Their primary motivation when starting their collection of fairy tales was to preserve culture rather than entertain, but entertain is what they did. These fairy tales, and versions of them, have remained popular for a very long time, outlasting most other works of literature. The Brothers Grimm adapted these well-known stories from around Europe to reflect their own personal views, Germanize them and remove some of the more disturbing details of the original stories. In the same way, these fairy tales have been altered again and again to be acceptable to society. Fairy tales similar in theme can be found across the world. The Brothers Grimm versions are the most familiar because their emphasis on German culture and Christian morals is very similar to American culture and values. The adaptability and skillful incorporation of morals and issues considered socially unacceptable in an entertaining story, has allowed the Brother’s fairy tales to last throughout the ages.

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.

Modern fairy tales are common in children’s literature and often convey an important moral. Fairy tales do not have to be about fairies, and are “characterized as being about magic or about spells or marvelous incidents” (Barton and Hudson 82). Two works of literature that use fairy tale elements are Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Both texts begin in the real world, but transition into a place that only exists in a dream or fantasy world. Going outside of the dimensions of the real world provides the texts with fairy tale elements, which include inhuman abilities and appearance, mythical and supernatural beings, and the battle between good and evil; the adventures of Peter Pan and Ebenezer Scrooge teach them a lesson about life and about themselves.

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.

An example of this would be Alice in Wonderland. This tale illustrated the importance of fantasy as well as adventure. Suval also uses Cinderella as a great example, which signifies personal growth and transformation. In conclusion of Lauren Suval, she states that fairy tales all have a meaning behind them that represents us if is fantasy or even a growth that isn't physical.

In this article Brown (2013), archives the encounters of a different gathering of second grade students amid a nine week component of lessons concentrated on realistic stories. The author divided the methods into 3 phases. Phase one; captivation in reading, the students started their investigation into realistic books by investigating Babymouse Queen of the World. The students participated in beneficial discussions in light of perceptions of the book followed in little gatherings (Brown, 2013). One gathering found the utilization of onomatopoeia or sound words (Brown, 2013). Phase two; composing graphic stories, students compose their own particular realistic stories in view of the components of realistic books they researched in phase one

Fairytales were written to convey a message to children through magical elements to promote imagination, morality, and literacy. They are stories of magic, wonder, and enchantment that takes us to a dreamlike place. By hearing these stories, children are able to overcome difficult problems in life through alternative solutions. It teaches children how to grasp the meaning and power behind storytelling. These magical tales are influential to a child in helping them learn the values of life.

Fairy tales are fantasies that have been passed down from generation to generation with each retelling changing the story just a little in the way they are told often impacting the ending. Fairy tales play an important role in children's lives. Little girls grow up dreaming of becoming the princess who gets rescued by her knight in shining amour. While every young boy that reads about Jake the giant slayer and other heroes believes they too will one day slay a magnificent beast of their own. In the article “Once Upon a Time” by Jonathan Young, he states “Magical characters such as the Pied Piper, the talking frog and the fairy godmother are likely to remain in the imagination for a lifetime.”

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.

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.