Little Briar Rose And Big Fish Character Analysis

In many of the stories we read, we will find cultural hero’s. They come in many different forms depending on the medium, culture, and historical context. When trying to spot the cultural hero, you might be looking for someone who is “a legendary figure variously represented as a beast, bird, man, or demigod to whom a people attributes the factors that appear most essential to its existence and culture” (Webster). In other words, someone who symbolizes the ideals of people or a group. There are two stories we will be strictly focusing on. Those stories will be, Little Briar Rose and Big Fish. In Little Briar Rose, the cultural hero is the prince. He is a hero to Briar Rose. Meanwhile, in Big Fish the cultural hero is Edward Bloom. He is a hero to his culture. Both of these stories use two different mediums. In Little Briar Rose is a fairy tale told through print and Big Fish is a tall tale told through film. While it depends on the genre and how they are presented, the modes of delivery of these stories and the conventions of the story type, shape and reinforce these cultural hero roles.

Let’s begin with Little Briar Rose. In this story we are introduced to our cultural hero, the Prince. In this tale he shows bravery. The Prince willingly goes to the thorn hedge, that covered the castle. The prince showed no fear and was

By making the other princes fail in their quest to save the princess, it made the princes rescue seem effortless and flawless. The only thing he had to do was kiss the beautiful Briar Rose to break the spell. “As soon as he kissed her, Briar-rose opened her eyes and awoke” (Grimm). One of the genre characteristics at work here is the presence of magic. He was able to break through the magic sleeping curse just by using a simple kiss. Fairy tales let us see the that when the hero fixes the big issue, even by doing the simplest thing, everything will be great