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Influence of fairy tales essay
Importance of fairytales
What are the impacts of fairy tales on children
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The Disturbing Tone of Rapunzel
The story of "Rapunzel" has been passed throughout generations in the form of a fairy tale. Typical fairy tales come to a resolution ending ‘happily ever after’. It seems that there is always a villain, always a hero, and some sort of a moral or lesson to be grasped from each story (Rhetoric 102K/L class discussion/lecture, January 18, 2001). Most of the traditional fairy tales involve a ‘damsel in distress’, in which she is happily rescued by a true love. These types of stories leave readers feeling that those who are in pain and anguish will eventually rise above and be granted pure happiness. It is this break in the traditional style that sets the Grimm stories apart from others.
Using the formalistic approach allows for the Grimm version of Rapunzel to be analyzed closely. For starters, the way a story begins and the first impression upon the reader are extremely important. The authors creatively set up a situation in which they manipulate the minds of their readers. They have to pave the road they want their readers to follow in order to have a greater impact. The road starts with the title, which is a direct indication of the main character, Rapunzel. While reading the story the authors have already given the reader a previous insight of what is to come. The story begins describing the situation of “a man and his wife, who had long wished for a child, but in vain”(Grimm 514). This opening line begins to unfold much of the story and reveals the main part of the story, how Rapunzel was the center of their wishes.
The names of the characters are insightful for the reader to relate the events and make connections. In th...
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...ere no one else can go without permission. They climb a golden ladder to discover beauty. Rapunzel is perceived as innocent and pure. When the witch discovers her sin of connecting to the world and ruining this purity, her beauty is lost. Hence, the loss of her famous trait, her locks of hair.
This version of Rapunzel is still a fairy tale. It has the villain, the 'damsel in distress', the hero, and the happy ending. However, the tone of the story is more disturbing. The prince has a genuine affection for Rapunzel despite the loss of her gorgeous hair. The story explains how he seeked finding her originally because her "song had entered his heart"(Grimm 516). The word choice here is very effective. The prince liked her before the display of her beauty. This is a typical fairy tale idea that they are meant to be together through fate.
In the early 1920’s the Klan traveled on a wave of terror in the south and southwest. As the violence spread a pattern appeared. The majority of the Victorian’s were whites who had broken some kind of moral code. Such as Bootleggers, Gamblers, were favorite targets. The Klan would parade the streets at night as a reminder of the constant terror they haunted a southern town with.
In the 21st centuries take on the fairytale Rapunzel, the movie “Tangled” depicts the troubled life of an adolescent that is raised by a woman whom is not her mother. Rapunzel is abducted from her crib as an infant by an evil witch, Gothel, for the sole purpose of using her magical hair to enhance her beauty to make her young again. As an eager Rapunzel ages, she soon wants to be set free into a world that she has yet to see.
Before slavery was abolished, plantations and farms had patrols that rode on horses, making sure that if a slave had tried to escape, they would hunt he or she down and torture or kill the escaping slave worker. In the absence of slavery the KKK were the new “patrols.” The first Ku Klux Klan was founded by a group of Confederate veterans in Pulaski Tennessee in 1865, coincidental the same year when slavery was abolished in the U.S. The KKK was not connected with the law because slavery
They wanted to form a brotherhood after their loss in the war. Their leader Forrest was a Confederate General during the Civil War. The name, Ku Klux Klan, was a mix of Greek words specifically the word Kuklos meaning circle, or cycle. The first chapter was created in Tennessee, but the Klan quickly spread to Alabama, Mississippi, the Carolinas, and many other Southern States. The Klan developed in a South devastated by war and threatened with Social upheaval. It offered whites an opportunity to regain political and social control. Originally the KKK were mostly harmless. They became more violent as the abolishment of slavery became real and the idea of reconstructing the South surfaced. They rode around the streets of Pulaski at night in their cloaks scaring anyone who caught sight of them. They wore the white cloaks and hats, made of sheets, to scare the un-educated African Americans into thinking they were ghosts, and it worked. They also wore them to intimidate and scare anyone who supported what they were against. As they were becoming more and more violent they realized their real potential for power and control that they could have over their targets, and they took advantage of it. They began to severely injure or even kill mainly African Americans, Republicans, minorities, and anyone else who crossed them. They terrified
The KKK was once an African American hate group in the late 1800’s, created by Confederate generals who wanted to continue suppressing their former slaves with terror. It was shut down after their leaders were plagued with scandals, and their business dealings put out into the open, for all to see and read. People finally understood what the Klan was about and obviously did not want it. Although in 1915, William J. Simmons watched D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” which depicted the story of what happened after the Civil War, through the eyes of a glorified Klansman. He was stargazed at how Griffith depicted the Klan, and as him being a long time joiner of clubs, he decided to bring back the Ku Klux Klan. A surprising fact is how a man like this could lead a group of hate, as he used to be a minister. (“Ku Klux Klan -- Extremism in America”) This second generation of the Klan created almost an “Invisible Empire” by their high point. Their members were scattered across state and federal government, and one could say that they “co...
The critical time periods in the Ku Klux Klan’s history can be simply broken down into separate “Klans.” Former Confederate soldiers in Pulaski, Tennessee formed the first Klan around a year after the end of the Civil War. Soon after, Nathan Forrest, a former Confederate lieutenant general, was named the “Grand Wizard” of the organization. The “main objective of white supremacy organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, the White Brotherhood, the Men of Justice, the Constitutional Union Guards and the Knights of the White Camelia was to stop black people from voting” and restore the white supremacy the South saw prior to the Civil War ("Effects of the Klu Klux Klan"). At this point, Klansmen would ride at night through towns brutally intimidating, blacks and radical Republicans. These tactics got so bad that in 1870, Congress began passing the first of three...
When the word “fairytale” is mentioned, nearly everyone thinks of light-hearted stories with friendly characters and happy endings. However, these are not the ideas that classic fairytales originally sparked. In fact, numerous modern Disney movies were based off stories that were not so sugar coated. In the 19th century, the Brothers Grimm were responsible for multiple of these popular children’s tales. The Disney remakes of classic fairytales such as Cinderella, Tangled, and Snow White exclude the dark, twisted themes that are significant in the Brothers Grimm fairytales, because society tendencies continue to evolve toward sheltering and overprotecting young children.
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.
Have you ever heard of Disney’s Cinderella? Have you ever heard of Grimm’s Cinderella? There are many stories about Cinderella and her “Happily Ever After.” Many versions end the same way as the original story. But sometimes they don’t always end that way. Many writers have re-created versions of Cinderella. The differences and similarities between Disney’s Cinderella and Grimm’s Cinderella are pronounced, and they deserve thorough examination.
In many fairy tales, there is always a damsel in distress that is beautiful and the male character always falls in love with her. In Rapunzel the short story, Rapunzel is put into a tower and lives there most of her young life by her ‘mother’ before her prince comes to recuse her. The difference between Tangled and Rapunzel the short story is that, Rapunzel is the princess and her prince is actually a thief, which ends up falling in love with her. Tangled illustrates how a naïve and beautiful heroine, evil mother figure, and a shallow egotistical hero can make a fairy tale story end with love and marriage.
A fairy tale is seemingly a moral fiction, intended mainly for children. A lesson in critical analysis, however, strips this guise and reveals the naked truth beneath; fairy tales are actually vicious, logical and sexual stories wearing a mask of deceptively easy language and an apparent moral. Two 19th Century writers, the Grimm brothers, were masters at writing these exaggerated stories, bewitching young readers with their prose while padding their stories with allusion and reference: an example of which is "Rapunzel." Grimm's "Rapunzel" is packed with religious symbolism, which lends a new insight to the meaning of this classic story.
Though Rapunzel’s lengthy confinement in one room, her home, is convincing evidence of the female’s domestic belonging, it does not adequately demonstrate the connectedness of the woman to the domestic. The ambitious young Prince faces an insurmountable task when he plans to elope with Rapunzel; he must, temporarily, displace the woman from her domestic home. After the Prince decisively wins Rapunzel’s affection, Rapunzel delineates her escape plan: “ 'I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse’” (The Brothers Grimm). First, Rapunzel states she will “go away with [the Prince]” and he will “take [her] on [his] horse,” two statements which reveal both Rapunzel’s dependence upon the Prince and her lack of independence. Though Rapunzel agrees to leave her domestic realm, she does so only to elope in the safe, steady hands of the Prince, venturing from one sphere of domesticity, with her mother, to another sphere of domesticity with a man. Rapunzel also promises to “weave a ladder with [silk].” Weaving, a deep-rooted, traditional female activity arises in Rapunzel because it is both feminine and perfectly accessible within a domestic setting. The woman’s skills, in any patriarchal work, are not
There are many fairy tales that have been discussed in this class. The most interesting stories to me are Snow White by Brother Grimm and Ever After: A Cinderella Story directed by Andy Tennant based on Cinderella by Charles Perrault. There are many different versions of Snow White and Cinderella from numerous cultures. In every version, both stories are known as children bedtime stories. In addition, the purpose of both stories is to give a life lesson to the children about overcoming evil to attain happiness. At first, every fairy tale has to deal with evil that threatens the protagonist, but in the end, good must always win. In the same way, both of the fairy tales have a similar scenario of a character
After the Civil War ended, the Southern states went through a time known as Reconstruction. Ex-Confederate soldiers had returned home now, and they were still upset about the outcome of the war. It is at this point in time that the Ku Klux Klan became a part of everyday life for many Southerners. In the beginning the Ku Klux Klan was started to be a way for people who had the same views to spend time together. The original members meant of the Ku Klux Klan to be a "hilarious social club" that would be full of aimless fun (Invisible Empire, p.9), though in later years the Ku Klux Klan became known for their violence against people outside the white race and people who associated with them. Contrary to what most people believe, the Ku Klux Klan was started because of a few people wanted to have some innocent fun, not because they were intending to start a chain of violence on anyone outside the white race.(The Klan, p.2)
Kubla Khan is a fascinating and exasperating poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (. Almost everyone who has read it, has been charmed by its magic. It must surely be true that no poem of comparable length in English or any other language has been the subject of so much critical commentary. Its fifty-four lines have spawned thousands of pages of discussion and analysis. Kubla Khan is the sole or a major subject in five book-length studies; close to 150 articles and book-chapters (doubtless I have missed some others) have been devoted exclusively to it; and brief notes and incidental comments on it are without number. Despite this deluge, however, there is no critical unanimity and very little agreement on a number of important issues connected with the poem: its date of composition, its "meaning", its sources in Coleridge's reading and observation of nature, its structural integrity (i.e. fragment versus complete poem), and its relationship to the Preface by which Coleridge introduced it on its first publication in 1816.