Vladimir Propp's Fairy Tale Transformations

In [Fairy Tale Transformations], Vladimir Propp makes the proposition that all fairy tales can be analyzed through a technical method, and can be broken down into thirty-one constituent functions and one hundred fifty constituent elements. Furthermore, he elaborates on how the “basic” forms of fairy tales can evolve into “derived” forms through any one of twenty given transformations. In a seemingly separate domain, Hélène Cixous details in her French feminist critique “Castration or Decapitation” that women are almost exclusively portrayed as inferior and subordinate to men in literature, using the specific example of Little Red Riding Hood, as well as evidence from other fairy tales. Cixous explains that moral code is dependent upon a “castration

These critiques meet in their focus on fairy tales, and come at odds in evaluation of Nicolai Kochergin’s illustration in The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich and the Grey Wolf. While the two criticisms certainly meet predominantly with opposition, both critiques give valid insight into the piece, as does the piece to the validity of the critiques. For example, while the quote “The king sends Ivan after the princess” epitomizes male dominance in language in literature per Cixous’ essay, in Propp’s eyes, the passage simply demonstrates the basic fairy tale form of departure. More specifically, in the case of Kochergin’s illustration, Cixous would argue that the patriarchal nature of fairy tales forces the princess to be defended by the hero, while Propp would maintain that through the transformation of inversion, the roles could be reversed with no complications to the structure of the fairy

Propp states “The causes of transformations frequently lie outside the fairy tale, and we will not grasp the evolution of the tale unless we consider the environmental circumstances of the fairy tale” (787, Left). For each of the twenty one transformations, Propp lists reasons behind the occurrence of the transformation. For example, the first transformation listed in the piece is Reduction, in which the full form of an image or character is reduced in some fashion. While in one fairy tale the description may be “The hut on chicken legs in the forest”, in another the basic form may be curtailed to say “the hut.” Propp continues, asserting that a reduction points to low relevance of the fairy tale in the given environment, the point being that regardless of the discrepancy in specifics, the function of the elements is always the same. Essentially, Propp is highlighting the differences between elements in fairy tales and why they