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Fairy tales and traditional gender roles
The effect of fairy tales on human development
Fairy tales and traditional gender roles
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Pu chai Professor Daniels English 1001 Fairy tales and Feminism In Feminism and Fairy Tales, Karen E. Rowe asserts that “popular folktales” have “shaped our romantic expectations” and “illuminate psychic ambiguities which often confound contemporary women.” She believes that “portrayals of adolescent waiting and dreaming, patterns of double enchantment, and romanticizations of marriage contribute to the potency of fairy tales” makes “many readers discount obvious fantasy elements and fall prey to more subtle paradigms through identification with the heroine.” As a result, Karen Rowe contends “subconsciously women may transfer from fairy tales into real life cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues suggest that culture’s very survival depends upon a woman’s acceptance of roles which relegate her to motherhood and domesticity.” It is undeniable that numerous folk tales implant male chauvinism into women’s minds and thus convey an idea that woman should obey and depend on men. However, Rowe neglects the aspect that many other folk tales, on the contrary, disclose the evil and vulnerable sides of man and marriage and thus encourage women to rely on their own intelligence and courage other than subordinating to man. The Fairy tales “Beauty and Beast” and “Fowler’s Fowl” challenge Rowe’s thesis to some extent and exemplify that some fairy tales motivate women to be intelligent and courageous and to challenge patriarchy. In the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast”, Beauty rescues the Beast and her family with brilliant morality and arduous efforts. Rowe merely focuses on the oedipal complex between Beauty and her father, so she overlooks Beauty’s persistent character and a... ... middle of paper ... ...nd great intelligence. Both in “The Beauty and the Beast” and “Fowler’s Fowl”, men do not play the part of redeemer as women expected in fairy tales. On the contrary, the female protagonists who are brilliant and persistent acquire happiness. These similar kinds of fairy tales thus admonish women for relying on men and marriage by taking risks with their future. Women should believe in their own abilities and strive to achieve a wonderful future. Works Cited Rowe Karen. “Feminism and Fairy Tales.” Folk & Fairy Tales. Matin Hallett and Barbrar Karasek. Canada: Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication, 2009. 342-358. Print. Leprince de Beaumon. “Beauty and the Beast.” Folk & Fairy Tales. Matin Hallett and Barbrar Karasek. Canada: Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication, 2009. 171-180. Print.
Fairy tale is a story that features folkloric chapters and enchantments, often involving a far-fetching sequence of events. Fairy tales have been around for thousands of years, whether it comes from Grimm’s Fairy Tales which is what most people consider the “classic” or “traditional” fairy tales to Disney movies, the idea of the fairy tale fills our society with lessons and examples of how we should behave and live; fairy tales teach the same things in different ways, or teach different things with the same tale. A couple of these tales are “Beauty and the Beast”, by Jeanne-Marie Leprince De Beaumont and “The Pig King”, by Giovanni Francesco Straparola. They are both tales about falling in love with someone despite their appearance. The similarities and differences between “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Pig King” is captivating while still depicting a similar tale. They are similar in the way they find love and their love story but they also share a similar behavior pattern in the way the girls behave towards the prince. However, the two tales do display a difference in the attitudes of the princes and their actions towards their love
Fairy tales not only impacts women negatively but ultimately impact men negatively as well. Dworkin notes that the prince that must save the princess is given astronomically superb qualities that regular men, that everyday men are unable to posses. Surely men can possess some of the qualities that a prince has but no man can have all these qualities. Men attempt to do so but in end, they “use airplanes”. Airplanes would a be much faster and convenient substitute to a white horse that must be trained and groomed to be ridden on. Dworkin would eventually state:
De Beaumont, Jeanne-Marie LePrince. “Beauty and the Beast.” The Classic Fairy Tales. Ed. Maria Tatar. New York: Norton, 1999. 32-42.
Sperry, Lori B., and Liz Grauerholz. "The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy Tales." Gender and Society 17.5 (2003): 711-26. JSTOR. Web. 4 July 2015.
Overall, in these fairy tales Carter succeeds in delivering a feminist message and provides a counter argument for the moral message of traditional fairy tales in which young women were encouraged to remain obedient and pure. Unlike in earlier fairy tales, in these stories it is the straying from the path that results in transformation and releases women from the subjugation that women over history have been subjected to.
Haase, Donald. “Feminist Fairy-Tale Scholarship: A Critical Survey and Bibliography.” Marvels & Tales, vol. 14, no. 1, 2000, pp. 15–63.
Chainani is one of few who has re-envisioned a world of gender equality amidst a fairy tale. The possible reason behind this success is Chainani is not recreating an original story; he has created something almost completely original, a “Hogwarts of Fairy Tales.” The heritage behind classic tales like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty has been engrained in society
Folktales has created men as the most powerful character in most stories but that does not mean always as there’s a difference in Grandmother’s tale and Little Red Riding hood. Different genders have different expectations according to their characteristics. The Red Riding Hood and Grandmother’s tale has produced ideas such as how a girl’s life is looked upon in the past and how the male has the upper hand in most situations according to the stories. This essay will argue about how the girl’s gender played a major role in the context of the story and how the wolf is represented by a male character and why the male is not always the most powerful character in all stories and the comparison between the two stories.
In the poem “Cinderella”, Anne Sexton illustrates the unrealistic expectations that fairy tales put into the minds of young women. The story of “Cinderella” has many versions in both print and film. Millions of dollars are generated annually with romance novels and romantic comedies commonly dubbed chick flicks. All versions share a similar story, a young lady meets a man and her life is then happy, fruitful, carefree and complete. These images are nothing more than fairy tales but they set expectations on young women that are unattainable. The poem was written in 1971, there was a growing awareness of women’s liberation and feminism at the time but, sadly, in 2016, I feel that the majority of women are still aiming for the fairy tale
Hans Christian Andersen, born in Odense, Denmark in the year 1805, is known for writing many ingenious fairy tales. His stories, some of which include “The Little Mermaid”, “The Red Shoes” and “The Ice Queen”, are still classics in the genre. While Andersen’s work life came to fruition, his romantic endeavors failed to provide him with a significant other. Andersen’s troubles- stemming from the fact that he never married, with sexuality, especially female sexuality, influenced the morals and themes in many of the stories he wrote. By suppressing his female characters’ sexuality, Andersen not only tries to regulate a primal instinct, but proves to be an anti-feminist.
Anne Sexton’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” brings women to light. Violence, beauty, purity, and male dominance are more than just themes in this poem. They are real life societal issues that are leaving women behind in the dark to just be perceived as simple minded and not beautiful. Everything you thing you read that you think may be in our best interest is not always correct. These fairy tales that our children are hearing about to today are teaching them that women are all beauty and no brains and should be submissive to the male species. By doing so, it makes be port...
In conclusion, the development of the folktales leads to the obtaining of ideas about gender. In many ways our society supports the idea that women seem underestimated as well as physically and mentally weak in comparison with the men who is portrayed as intelligent and superior. This can be shown in many ways in the different versions of this folktale through the concepts of symbolic characters, plot and narrative perspective.
Over the course of the Women Writers Two course we read and evaluated various texts dealing with feminine issues and literary genres like magical realism, short fiction, poetry, satire and literary theory. The class mainly deals with the idea of fairy tales being fractured or based toward a strong male character leaving the female roles to be minor or “dimmed down” comparatively. We are asked the questions of what makes these fairy tales fractured or feminist and how we can equalize these two fields. Reading different types of literary works including Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K Rowling, Transformations by Anne Sexton, The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition, Don’t Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy
While some scholars believe traditional fairy and folk tales portray a message of female and male equality, Marcia Lieberman argues against this frame of mind. Lieberman suggests the portrayal of male and female characters in fairy tales result in the prevalent negative sexual stereotypes associated with the role of men and women in society. These sexual stereotypes act as a limit to the extent a certain sex can achieve and succeed. In relation to the process in which “children are socialized or culturally conditioned by movies and television programs” (Paragraph 3), Lieberman explains the similar effect of fairy tales: these fairy tales “have been made the repositories of the dreams, hopes, and fantasies of generations of girls” (Paragraph 4). The author introduces her argument by upbraiding the association of certain character traits with appearances.
“The Fisherman and His Wife” is a tale that teaches us about moderation, greed, and that the magnitude of material objects one accumulates does not measure happiness. In this tale, the wife is never satisfied and constantly wants more. The Brothers Grimm identified “Fisherman and His Wife” as an ideal fairy tale because it utilizes magic along with juxtaposing character development as well as religious and progressively more violent symbolism in order to convey a battle between the sexes.