Theme of Stereotypes

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Theme of Stereotypes

One of the main themes that I noticed when I was reading through the fairy tale texts was the theme of stereotypes. Firstly, what are stereotypes? Stereotypes are essentially an offensive generalization or an over exaggerated view that is used to categorize a group of people. I noticed that in two of the three texts that I have selected for this paper, the authors, Jakob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, tend to portray women as being very dependent on men. In addition, to being depicted as being very dependent, they were also shown to be weak and very naïve. My goal in this paper is to highlight the numerous accounts of stereotypes that are cast mainly upon women and sometimes men as well, whether it be fictional or non-fictional, through the use of two texts. These texts are “Cinderella” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. For my third text I chose to use “Precious” by Nalo Hopkinson, because it challenges the stereotypical ideas presented of women.

To achieve this goal, I have organized my paper into four main sections. The first two sections are supporting the idea that stereotypes towards women are indeed present in fairy tales. In the first section, I will address how stereotypes of mainly women are portrayed through the fairy tale of “Cinderella”. I will outline the fairy tale and then provide arguments as to why some of the things it mentions are a stereotype against women. In the second section, using the “Snow White and Seven Dwarfs” text I will again provide accounts where women and men are portrayed stereotypically. I will then argue again how the events pertaining to Snow White are stereotypically against women. In the third, I will refer to the “Precious” text by arguing how it challenges the idea ...

... middle of paper ...

...are of the bias towards women in fairy tales. They are often hiding, but after further analysis one would see that they are actually quite apparent.

Restate topic, importance of topic, thesis, and supporting points.

Works Cited
Grimm, Jakob, and Wilhelm Grimm. “Cinderella.” In The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy

Tales. Edited by Lily Owens. New York: Avenel Books, 1981. 89-95. Print.

---. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” In The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales. Edited

by Lily Owens. New York: Avenel Books, 1981. 188-198. Print.

Hopkinson, Nalo. “Precious.” In Silver Birch, Blood Moon. Edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri

Windling. New York: Avon Books, 1999. 92-99.

Rowley, Sherry. "Cultural and Romantic Quests: More on Thinking Contextually." Lecture in

HUMA 1625 Fantasy and Topographies of Imagination. Toronto: York University,

January 19, 2010.

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