Compare and Contrast of Joy Williams’s Baba Iaga and the Pelican Child and Alexander Afanasev’s The Frog Princess

In one, a specimen-creating brute robs a pelican child’s life and her guardian trying to bring her back to life. In the other, a prince learns the value of his frog-turned-princess and sets out on a quest to find her. Joy Williams’s Baba Iaga and the Pelican Child and Alexander Afanasev’s The Frog Princess are both critical facets of the fairy tale genre. While initially it may seem that Williams preserved no elements from Afanasev’s tale, upon a closer glance, it is evident that the two tales’ similarities outnumber their differences. By incorporating a generous portion of the original story into his, Williams’s version brings forth an innovative arrangement of classic and new. As a result, William’s tale introduces features to the tale that mirror everyday life lessons while simultaneously maintaining qualities that are reflective of the definitional aspects of the fairy tale genre.

Both, Williams and Afanasev, use a very evident plot detail but in different ways. In Baba Iaga and the Pelican Child, the specimen collector, John James Audubon, had a set plan on how to capture the pelican child and how to turn her into a specimen. Similarly, in The Frog Princess, after Elena leaves when Prince Ivan burns her frog skin, the Prince “made ready for his journey, obtained his father’s and mother’s blessing and left” (Afanasev 70). While both of these plot segments have a similar action present, the moods developed by the characters that are performing the searches are very different. In Baba Iaga and the Pelican Child, the mood is one of suspense as he reader knows that something wrong is about to happen but is not too sure of what exactly. On the other hand, in The Frog Princess, the fact that the Prince is embarking on a search to ...

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...and the Pelican Child long after Alexander Afanasev wrote The Frog Princess, he innovatively incorporated certain parts of the classic version into his own, and the combination lead to elements of lessons and values evoked throughout the entire fairy tale. Ranging from the life lessons about taking action yourself to the lessons about keeping your happiness independent of the actions of others and basing them within the stories with the plot line and the lack of punishment amongst the villains seamlessly weaves the morals with the fiction. The similarities and differences combined together create a unique fairy tale that incorporates all the main aspects of the classic fairy tale while adding newer features simultaneously. These traits of the fairy tale are what has kept the fairy tale alive for such a long time and will keep them alive for many more years to come.