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Impact of fairytales on children
An essay on fairy tales
An essay on fairy tales
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Fairy tales have been used across time and in every culture to teach people lessons. Different versions of the same fairy tale can teach a person completely different lessons. Because of the many different fairy tales, many diverse methods of analyzing the stories exist. For example, Bruno Bettelheim’s method sees children as using the fairy tales to help them grow up. One of the most popular fairy tales, Cinderella, has been told since ancient China and there are thousands of versions. Two versions, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s’ “Cinderella” and Perrault’s “The Glass Slipper” are very similar, but they have some variances that teach children different lessons. Sibling rivalry can be very brutal and have devastating consequences. In “The Glass …show more content…
In “The Glass Slipper”, Cinderella has a great sense of right and wrong; she is so kind that she helps her wicked stepsisters dress for the ball. Cinderella supposedly got her good nature from her mother “who had been the best person in the world” (450 Perrault), but in Perrault version of the fairy tale there is never a tangible reason to why Cinderella is so good. In “Cinderella”, Cinderella is still kind young girl; she never tries to harm her stepmother and stepsisters for all their cruelness. Cinderella, in this version, is kind because when her mother was dying Cinderella’s mother told Cinderella, “be good and pious. Then the dear Lord will always assist you”, (468 Grimm). Cinderella has an actual reason to be good in the Grimm’s version of Cinderella. Using Bettelheim’s theory, both versions of the fairy tales help children to make sense of growing up, but because of differences children might not learn the same lession. Each version shows children that they should be good and kind, but the different versions teach children different reasons to be moral. The children who grew up hearing “The Glass Slipper” would believe that being moral was something they were born with. A child who thought being good was an innate quality would feel as if they were evil every time they were bad, and feeling guilty would cause a young child to behave. Cinderella in “Cinderella” acts like the ideal child because her mother tells her to. A child who was listened to this version of the fairy tale would still want to behave. However, the child would want to behave because his or her mother said to. A child who only behaved because that is what someone told them to do might be easily swayed into being
Cinderella is just one example of how Disney had to change parts of the source material to make it appropriate for their audience. The Grimm Brothers’ Cinderella is an example of a piece of writing that teaches their lesson in a violent way. In their version of the story Cinderella’s sisters amplified the trait of jealousy. To emphasize jealousy the stepsisters, “poured peas and lentils into the ashes of the hearth so she had to sit there the entire day and separate them. In the evening, when she was tired, there was no bed for her, and she had to lie next to the hearth in the ashes” (Grimm Brothers page 70). The audience would interpret these actions as wrong and understood the Grimm Brothers more drastic style of writing. The audience learned from what the Grimm Brothers wrote and were taught that there was consequences jealousy because of the harsh punishments that the Grimm Brothers described. Since the audience lived in a harsher time, living was not luxurious. As a
In “Cinderella” by the Grimm Brothers, the moral is that one should never lie or be wicked to others. In the story, Cinderella’s mother passed away and a year later her father gets remarried to an evil woman who has two daughters. The wife and daughters torment Cinderella, making her complete tedious chores. Eventually, Cinderella attends a ball for the Prince and they fall in love. However, she runs away every night and he cannot find her. The Prince finally takes one of her slippers and sets out to find the love of his life. He then goes to her household and asks all the sisters to try the slipper on. The stepsisters try to deceive the Prince but “the blood was streaming from” their feet and they are eventually caught. When Cinderella tries on the shoe it fits perfectly and the two get married. At the reception, two birds peck out the stepsisters’ eyes, punishing them “with blindness as long as they lived.” The archetypes in the story are Cinderella who is the damsel in distress, the Prince who saves her and the evil stepsisters and mother who are the villains. A convention is that true love always...
Instead, she takes her burdens as they come. Clare R. Ferrer noted in her article, “heroines are not allowed any defects, nor are they required to develop, since they are already perfect.” At the beginning of the story, Cinderella is described as “remaining pious and good” in-spite of the loss she endured. Cinderella is such a good person, that she takes the abuse from her step-sisters with grace and never asks for anything, nor does she reveal to her father or the Prince the type of life she has succumbed to living. Beauty goes hand-in-hand with being a good woman. According to Parsons, “a high premium is placed on feminine beauty…Women are positioned as the object of men’s gaze, and beauty determines a woman’s ...
In the article, “Fairy Tales and a Dose of Reality,” Catherine Orenstein attempts to show the contrast between the modern romanticism of marriage and the classic fairy tale’s presentation of them (285). She looks at the aristocratic motivations for marriage and the way these motivations are prominent in Cinderella. She then looks at the 20th century to highlight the innate difference of our mentalities, showing a much more optimistic and glorified relationship. In the article, “Cinderella: Not So Morally Superior,” Elisabeth Panttaja claims that Cinderella’s success can be attributed to her craftiness (288). She shows her and her mother as an equal to the stepfamily, analyzing each family’s goals and values. She attempts to show their similarities,
Over centuries of children have been enjoying the classic fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers and Charles Perrault. The fanciful plots and the vivid details allow children to be entranced by characters and adventures that can only be found in these stories. One of the most beloved fairy tales, which both the Perrault and the Grimms have their own separate versions of, is Cinderella. Cinderella is able to show how both versions are able to feed off the same plots while personifying the century and social economic situation in which they have lived.
Bettelheim, Bruno. ""Cinderella" A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipial Conflicts." Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment. 1976. 279-282.
A lot of the fairy tale stories that we have seen as young adults and even as adults are original folk tale stories that have been modified and rewritten to accommodate our new cultures. Cinderella happens to be one of these stories that have been changed over the years. There are many different versions of Cinderella, an African Cinderella, a Hungarian Cinderella and even a Chinese version. All of the Cinderella’s are similar in plot, but the author dictates the story’s theme based on the people whom he is writing for which completely changes the story’s tone, mood and other elements. While Perrault's version stresses the values and materialistic worries of his middle-class audience, Grimm’s' focus is on the harsh realities of life associated with the peasant culture. Perrault’s and Grimm’s Cinderella’s have the same plot, but their writing style is different which completely modifies the tale.
“Cinderella” the tale of a suffering young girl who finds her prince charming, and lives happily ever after in a big beautiful castle. Truly, the dream of many young female readers. This story is well known all around the world and has many different versions. This paper will specifically focus on the versions by Charles Perrault and Giambattista Basile. One cannot argue that while writing their individual version of Cinderella both Charles Perrault and Giambattista Basile were strongly influenced by the many other tales of Cinderella, and this can be seen by the repetitive plot line, character and morals in both their stories. Giambattista Basile story was called “The Cat Cinderella” and Charles Perrault named his “Cinderella” or “Little Glass
Throughout the history of folklore and fairytales, many interpretations of tales have been created and introduced. When exchanged, many details have been lost in translation, only to be redistributed as a similar tale following a certain moral. But throughout the life of the tale “Cinderella,” one objective has never been misconstrued; the social structure and the status Cinderella falls and rises to. Many fairytales display a rise and fall of a protagonist, often in the case of social classes. The many versions of “Cinderella,” including Ever After, exhibit a definite, strong, monarchical settlement with a defined arrangement of classes that create and develop the beloved character of Cinderella, or Danielle De Barbarac, herself.
Fairytales, the short stories that most children heard as they went to bed, are actually folktales from previous decades. The fairytales today are primarily adaptations of older versions recreated by Disney— the pioneers of this generation. With that said, the modern versions consistently display good triumphing over evil, a prince charming that constantly came to the rescue, and a happily ever after ending. However, the original folktale version didn’t always come with fortunate events, but often were more violent and gruesome. With the fairytale Cinderella, Disney maintains a similar theme as its Grimm version; however, the conflicts, events, and characters that support this idea are rather different.
It is more obvious in this tale than others, but some of these aspects are the nickname of Cinderella, the evil stepfamily, the three balls, and the beautiful slipper. However, Perrault and the brothers Grimm made some parts of the story very different. In the Grimm’s version, Cinderella’s mother was very important to her and she was very important to her father, while in Perrault’s her mother is not even mentioned and her father is more attached to his new wife than he is to his daughter. Perrault described the stepsister’s as less beautiful than Cinderella, while the brothers Grimm described them as just as beautiful but with bad personalities. Another major difference was Cinderella’s magic helper. In Perrault’s story Cinderella had a fairy godmother that gave her horses, a carriage, footmen to escort her, and new beautiful clothes, and in Grimm’s story her magic helper was birds that only provided clothes. A main difference that a lot of people would notice is the fact that in the Grimm’s tale Cinderella’s slipper was made of gold, and in Perrault’s it was glass which is what most people are familiar with. The endings of the stories also differed. The Grimm’s version ended in a much darker way. Both stepsisters got their eyes pecked out and were doomed to live a life of blindness, which was clearly not a very child friendly way to end a story. In
When analyzing the text of the fairy tale we can learn important life lessons to help us get through
The classic tale of Cinderella is well known for the fight of overcoming great obstacles despite great odds. However, there are always a few ill-hearted people who go out of their way to cease any competition that they might face, as seen with Cinderella’s step-sisters. Samuel Jackson says is his distinguished quote, “The hunger of imagination…lures us to…the phantoms of hope,” to help develop a more defined view of a fairytale. The story of Cinderella fully embodies the ideals of a true fairytale by encompassing magic, hope, and struggle between good and evil throughout the duration of the plot.
In today 's society, it is normal for young children to believe in fairytales. These fairytales are normally seen throughout books and movies but also through parents reading them as bedtime stories. These tales in our society have unrecognized hidden guidelines for ethics and behaviors that we provide for children. One such children 's story is Disney’s Cinderella, this film seems to be a simple tale of a young woman whose wishes work out as to be expected. This tale reflects the expectations of women 's actions and beliefs of a proper women.
Each person in the world has heard of Cinderella, no matter what kind of version it may be. Cinderella is the one fairy tale story that has been popular and will always be the one tale that has to be told to children. Words and story lines might be twist and turn, but in the end the knowledge of the story will be learned in similar ways. As we all know when one story is told another is created, when one is at its best then another is at its worse. One version will always be better than another, but no matter what version it might be the story will be told.