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Ways to adapt fairy tale
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In “Fairy Tales and a Dose of Reality,” Catherine Orenstein discusses what television has turned the modern fairy tale into, reality television, and how ordinary viewers can play a part into this new romance. However, she continues to relate modern situations to the stereotypical fairy tale, and how they are both based historically accurate situations, but twisted into something more beautiful. She uses the example of Sleeping Beauty; in the original story she is not awakened by a kiss. She is impregnated by a prince and left in the woods, and then later the prince's’ mother tries to eat her. Orenstein goes on to explain how much our expectation of love and marriage has changed in three centuries -- because historically marriage was a financial
In this essay, I examine what Zipes means by institutionalised, define what makes a fairy tale and evaluate how different versions of Little Red Riding Hood reflect the social ideology of the period.
Everyone knows and loves the enchanting childhood fairytales of magic, princes, and princesses, but very seldom are privy to the detrimental impacts of “happily ever after” on the developing youth. Fairy tales are widely studied and criticized by parents and scholars alike for their underlying tone and message to children. Peggy Orenstein, feminist author, mother, and fairy tale critic, has made it her personal mission to bring these hidden messages to the surface. In the article, “What’s Wrong with Cinderella?” Orenstein dissects the seemingly innocent tale of love and magic, and the princess many know and love, and points out its flaws and dangers. Fairy tales, Cinderella in particular, are not suitable for children because upon deeper evaluation,
For decades, society has introduced fairytales to children at a young age. As the children grow older, they are exposed to more stories, such as television shows. As each child grows mentally and emotionally, they are exposed to the idea that happiness can only be found in love. This love is usually found between two beautiful people, such as in ABC’s The Bachelor and Charles Perrault’s timeless fairytale “Cinderella”. Each of these exerts shed light on society’s view of happiness and the idea that we, as members of society, are expected to agree and achieve this type throughout our lifetime. What we are not told as children, however, is that there is more to life than love.
Individuals often use stories to pass down knowledge to future generations. Stories such as fairy tales are easily transferable and enjoyable to different age groups. One of the important uses of fairytales is that fairytales have the capacity teach life lesson without the physical experience. Traditionally stories exemplify cultural traditions or norms transmitting social knowledge. Children’s stories and fairytales are used primarily as a way to adapt children into the culture, and making some hard to explain concept obtainable to a younger minds understanding. However, it is important to train young minds to critical think and question certain fairy tale attributes general characterized by gender roles. Gender roles in fairy tales are formulated by characteristics’ that individuals find socially acceptable within a culture. There are many issues including; identity, perception, and self-concept
Fairy tales are children’s first introduction to different cultures of the world. A click of heels or sprinkling of magic dust can transport children into the jungles of Africa or the countryside of England. Amongst the magical wands, princesses and frogs are the beliefs and customs of the tales’ origin. This is evident in two variations of the fairy tale “The Three Little Pigs”. For example, Andrew Lang’s English version “The Three Little Pigs” represents the culture of England. Likewise, Joel Harris’ African version “The Story of the Pigs” represents the culture of Ethiopia. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term fairy tales as “a story in which improbable events lead to a happy ending”. Life is similar to fairy tales. Throughout life there are new beginnings and if we’re lucky happy endings. Culture is defined as “everything that makes up a person’s entire way of life”. Both the English and African versions of “The Three Little Pigs” affirm how fairy tales imitates culture. Fairy tales offer a glimpse into parts of a culture such as traditions, languages and beliefs.
True love stories are typically not found on television; but can be found in the older books of fairytales. Fairytales have not been always written because before people could write, fairytales would be spoken and passed on from generation to generation. Although large numbers of literary fairy tales were written in 17th century France, most of the tales which are still told and retold now are far older in origin. The first published fairytales happened in 1667; a cycle of fifty tales was published by Giambattista Basile (Hasse 32). Of course these publications were not the exact fairytales that were created because many of them were butchered when being passed down. Although many people associate fairytales with children, they were really intended for the older generations because they were authored by women and very few men. These stories were adapted by different storytellers to accommodate the interests of their audiences and societies. Although these fairytales circumscribe ‘societal ideals’, Jack Zipes, Madonna Kolbenshlag, and Jane Yolen reveal the hidden meanings inside of fairytales. These authors have tested and thoroughly examined many fairytales attempting to prove their theories are accurate. During the times of which fairytales were being authored, if a person who was not a white male was to be considered an inferior person in the world; however women become the protagonist in most written or verbal fairytales. Where they may be the main character in the fairy tales, they are portrayed as the low-grade, needy people who one way or another find how to live a better life. They may appear to have a better life in the fairytale, but they remain the same people who they started off to ...
It might be surprising too many but Fairy tales have been so frequently reinterpreted in many cultures since they first originated. As far as we know, Fairy tales date back as early as 350 B.C. Scholars think that such stories were originally passed down orally from generation to generation and were an immediate success through out the decades. According to …. (2013) Fairy tales started off being intended for adults but eventually became a tradition of stories that parents generally read to their children. Moreover, Fairy tales usually feature characters such as elves, old evil witches, stepmothers, and young innocent girls and usually involve magic of some sort. Yet, the term fairy tale itself was first used by Madame d’Aulnoy, a 17th century French writer, who used the term to describe her own fairy tales, which she called contes de fee. She originally started story telling at a woman’s salon and these tales were later better known by Charles Perrault. However, often many times some well-known traditional re-tellings of the fairy tales included violence and bloody scenes, such as those stories by the Brothers Grimm, and are a little too violent for children these days. Not only are they too violent but other popular fairy tales are difficult to read to boys and girls as bedtime stories because they may have an evil witch character or may be too vicious for them as well.
The Telling Nature of the Fairy Tale Fairy tales have been part of the human experience from the beginning. Whether they have been written or oral, they have been passed down for centuries. One of the most interesting features of fairy tales is how they carry history along with them. Moving from culture to culture, decade to decade, or even century to century.
Today, romance is one of the most popular genres to watch on television. Unlike most, romance is a genre where the plot revolves around the love between two main characters as they experience the highs and lows of love. “Common themes that revolve around romantic movies are kissing, love at first sight, tragic love, destructive love, and sentimental love” (Taylor). These themes appear in many historical films and the pattern still continues in modern films as well. Watching romantic movies has a giant negative influence on the viewer's analysis of what love and relationships should really be like. These films give the wrong impression of reality when it comes to dating, marriage, having children, and even how to manage a relationship in the first place. Even though romantic movies are commonly watched, there are many effects on personal real-life relationships after watching these types of films.
Schwartz, Daylle Deanna. "Marriage Is Not a Fairy Tale." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 Sept. 2013. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. .
Fairy Tales As a son to a mother who is in love with fairy tales, I know a little about them. Everyone has heard of the common stories such as Cinderella and Hansel & Gretel. But these are your common bedtime stories. There’s another version of these stories known as, Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
When people talk about fairy tales, in their mind, they will automatically think about fantasy element such as princess, princes, and fairy and of course the happy ending at the end of every fairy tale. They give us a place for freedom of thinking and relaxing. Moreover, in some way, we used fairy tales to teach a child's moral lessons about how to behavior. Do fairy tales only offer the freedom of thinking and moral lesson fairy tales to people? We use to think that the fantasy in the fairy tales has no impact on their society, and it's merely the element to get the stories in fairy tales gloomier and more attracted to the reader. No, fairy tales still hold one more important function. In one aspect, fairy tales reflect the bad side of society. Like in a movie Pan’s Labyrinth, there is a relation between the fantasy world in the fairy tales and her living society. Thus, even the fantasy is part of our imagination about a better world, but it has a significant role in transforming imagining into politics because it acts as a tool to reflect the dysfunction of society.
Do you like fairytales? If so, then you will really like Beastly, modern-day fairytale like nothing you’ve ever seen. Well, it is like the well known fairytale, Beauty and the Beast. In fact, it retells the story from the beast’s view. The book is a total success and very different from the movie, and I think the novel is way better. Let me explain why.
It has been often heralded by many a parent, usually adolescent their child, that they should “get their head out of the clouds and get back to reality.” This presupposition is solely based on the notion that reality is better. Perhaps there is wisdom in this recurring parental motto as it concerns careers, education, or financial decisions. However, this maxim may be the sole murderer of many potential beautiful ideas, works of art, stories, or inventions. Oscar Wilde, in his “Decay of Lying” argues:
Childhood was a very interesting time of life for me. Through everything that I had gone through growing up, still I always remembered the story tales that had been read to me over the years. Although The Three Little Bears and The Three Little Pigs were different stories, they both contained few similarities as well as many differences. The similarities in these two stories would be the significance of the number three and two characters invading the privacy and territories of unexpected families. Throughout both stories, everything that was happening involved the number three from the number of pigs, to the number of everything in the Bear’s home. The Three Little Pigs had a purpose to leave their mothers home to find their fortunes and to learn to become independent because the mother was no longer able to tend to the pigs any more than she had. The Three Bears already had purposed that they wanted to go pick some berries to make a pie (in some versions) so they stepped out the house to do so. In other versions, the bears left the home to let their fresh bowls of hot porridge cool down. Goldilocks was just wondering through the forest picking wild flowers when she came upon the Bear’s cottage. She didn’t have a purpose for other than what seemed to be invading and taking what didn’t belong to her and being a curious young girl. The wolf had a purpose to have the three pigs for dinner, literally. The Three Little Pigs had purposes to find jobs and to make something of themselves as grown-ups.