Preview

Fairy Tale Good Vs. Evil

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
966 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Fairy Tale Good Vs. Evil
Comparative Essay Good versus Evil In most known fairy tales, the theme of good and evil is usually there. This essay will compare Rapunzel to Sweetheart Roland and give the reason as to why the theme good and evil even exists. In order to show why good and evil exists in most known fairy tales, this essay will have to deal with what good and evil is. It will proceed to discuss small details of the fairy tales that involve characters and symbols.

?Learn what you are and be such." ? Pindar According to The Oxford Paperback Dictionary, the word ?good? is to be ?morally excellent and virtuous?. Goodness can represent itself in not only the characters, but also the events themselves. In each of the two fairy tales in this comparison, goodness comes to the virtuous characters when they have successfully won over the villain in each story. Rapunzel healed her lover?s eyesight with two tears and Roland is reunited with his real lover again.

"Great and small suffer the same mishaps." ? Blaise Pascal The Oxford Paperback Dictionary also describes the word ?evil? to be ?disagreeable and unpleasant?. Evil asserts itself throughout the fairy tales. As did ?good?, ?evil? does not affect only the characters themselves, but all the events around them. In Rapunzel, the sorceress took Rapunzel away from her parents because of a deal her father struck with the sorceress or in Sweetheart Roland, the witch wanted to kill her stepdaughter. In each of these events, evil is represented in its rawest form.

"We only really face up to ourselves when we are afraid." ? Thomas Bernhard In order for there to be a hero in any story, there must be a villain. This will automatically make this type of story a battle between good and evil. For the hero to mature within the story, the villain acts as the assistant. The villain puts the hero in situations where if the hero does not mature, the hero shall surely perish; however, if the hero does mature the hero will always win over the villain. For

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Good And Evil In Beowulf

    • 1022 Words
    • 5 Pages

    We’ve grown quite a lot through time with technology, architecture, and even through our ideals. In the Beowulf the epic (Heaney 2000), we see right and wrong through the eyes of the past and it is strange to say the least. The author wrote this for their intended audience, meaning they were reflecting the cultural values of the ancient Anglo-Saxons. In the movie, Beowulf and Grendel (Gunnarsson 2005), we see changes from the original work that seems to match to modern ideas of right and wrong. Two characters, Hrothgar and Grendel, one who was a man of the light and kin of the dark respectively, were changed to match the ideals we hold today into completely different people that we had known them to be.…

    • 1022 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wizard Of Oz Good Vs Evil

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One of the main themes in Wicked is the fight of good versus evil. Although Elphaba adapts the nickname, The Wicked Witch of the West, by the end of the book, it is revealed that she is not actually the wicked one. The Wizard of Oz, who is supposedly the face of goodness, is exposed to be the evil one. Boq says that:…

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Satan, demonic forces, and fire flames come to mind when you think of evil. God, Angels, and heaven above the clouds come to mind when you think of good. An old epic poem kept alive by the Anglo Saxons represents all of these thoughts. An epic poem that consisted of many conflicts both good and evil. A strong hero and loyal warrior, who battles against the demons, and dragons from hell. A warrior born to sacrifice his life to save others. A man who swam across the ocean to uphold an image, a man who traveled many miles to avoid defeat? Beowulf a classical fictional hero who struggled against three evil monsters, endured challenges, suffered and was eventually victorious over evil. There is a thin line between good and evil, and like oil…

    • 2088 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the poem, “Beowulf” the author presents good v. evil as the central them. With Beowulf as the protagonist and Grendel as the antagonist. However some may think differently about this ancient piece of literature. Some may look at this piece of literature like the best piece someone has ever wrote. A lot look at it with the protagonist and antagonist switched but just by reading the story, it’s very hard to make Grendel a good guy. I look at this oldest surviving piece of literature the same way the author looks at it. The author looks at it like good v. evil.…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Throughout literature there is a theme that seems to be constant, the protagonist against the antagonist, good versus evil. It is a theme that reoccurs throughout time because it provides the audience with an interesting conflict and reveals more about the true nature of humans. In Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” she exposes her audience to the veracity of human nature; through various rhetorical devices and the demeanor of her characters, O’Connor reveals a new perspective on good versus evil.…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “Aschenputtel” by the Brothers Grimm proves that good always overcome evil. For example, when Cinderella couldn’t finish her chores and “the pigeons nodded with their heads and began pick, pick, pick...and gathered all the good grains into the dish” (2) it shows that a person will get be able to finish the impossible task if they are good. Cinderella could never have succeeded by herself in an hour. But with the help of others, it was able to accomplish the task in time. This is further proven when prince tries to find the woman “whose foot this golden slipper fits” (3) and name her as “the true bride" (4). While stepmother and sisters were wearing fancy clothes, Cinderella was wearing her sooty clothes. Even though she wasn’t wearing a dress,…

    • 164 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Good Vs. Evil In Beowulf

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the poem of Beowulf, how is the theme loyalty, revenge and good vs. evil ? In those meaning the themes could definitely relate to the poem. To begin with, as reading the poem of beowulf it could fill in loyalty, revenge and good vs evil. the main character is beowulf because he is the ones that carries this poem to his journey. The other main characters are grendel, grendel mother and hrothgar. In the poem of beowulf is based on an old English written in anglo-saxon culture. Its also about a young warrior brings joyful around his castle and destroys nightmare away. He also becomes the biggest hero for hrothgar and serves his people of his territory where they defend their place. The theme of loyalty takes place where the king hrothgar who onced saved his father. For example, by his…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Is Grendel Evil?

    • 2299 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Ethics is a wide field of philosophical study to which the core of every question within falls to one side of a blurred line. On the right, is good; the value which is popularly believed to be the correct alignment for which a person should live their life according to. On the left, is evil; that which is the cause of most human misery, and prevents peace on earth. In John Gardner's book Grendel, the retelling of the ages old story Beowulf, further blurs the line between good and evil. Circumstance and perhaps a confused view of reality allow the monster, Grendel, to conceivably defend his evil beliefs. In order to better understand evil, using Grendel as a guide, I intend to attempt to justify it.…

    • 2299 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Good vs. Evil

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Good is an extremely broad concept that can concern love, happiness, life, charity, and even justice. Evil, also being a broad concept, is associated with deliberate wrong doing, discrimination, and even harm to others. We often catch ourselves getting into evil situations rather than good situations. For example, killing one person to save an entire tribe. In a way, it is an evil act as far as killing a person, but it also constitutes a good act for saving an entire tribe from one person trying to destroy it.…

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Good vs Evil

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Since the beginning of time there have be stories of good vs. evil. It when the darkness and the light collide. The most common stories are about heaven vs. hell, when god fights the devil. In other stories its hero vs. villain. Like Batman vs. the Joker or Spiderman vs. Venom. In the Anglo-Saxon time there was a hero named Beowulf who had three of the biggest battles in that time period between a monster named Grendel, Grendel’s mom, and a dragon.…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The introduction of the book The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim focused on the benefits of fairytales on child development. Bettelheim talks about how important developing the child's imagination is. Developing the imagination allows children to process what they see in the world and process what they hear in stories. This gives them a good grasp on their conscience (11-12). Fairy tales allows for children to learn about problems in the real world and ways to deal with them. Bettelheim says that there is a fine line between a story holding a child's attention and not; the story must be entertaining but by arousing their imagination…

    • 1154 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The purpose of this paper is to make a comparative analysis of two perspectives on the children 's story of Cinderella. It contrasts the time periods and cultures of France and Germany, whereas one was told to royalty and another to peasants. The constants of each version, such as the shoes and the prince will be compared as well.…

    • 563 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    However, all who are deemed these qualities are the villainesses of the stories. When the beautiful damsel is placed in distress, it is always the ugly villainess who places her there. Thus, as stated by Grauerholz there becomes an “ association between beauty and goodness and then conversely between ugliness and evil..” (qtd. in Hanafy). When a villainess acts out against the heroine, as seen in the characters of Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, and the Evil Queen in Snow White, they do not act from any intelligible source of anger but rather from jealousy (mostly stemming from beauty) and pure malice, therefore furthering the reader and/or listeners disdain of powerful women, and instead reinstating one’s compassion, and reliability for the distressed heroine. Furthering dissuading people from connecting with the powerful women of the fairytales are that they always are punished in the end. No fairy tale ends with the villainess winning, she always gets her compuence. However, not all female characters fit between the dichotomies of malicious and good. There are a select few characters, particularly the fairy godmothers and the dwarves of Snow White, whom are portrayed as not only genial, powerful, and wise, but also help guide the heroine on her journey to find her Prince. Without the Fairy…

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Good and Evil

    • 3167 Words
    • 13 Pages

    My report examines the connection of the coexistence of good and evil across texts and how these aspects effect human nature and society. The texts I used were ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee, ‘The Help’ by Tate Taylor, ‘Noughts & Crosses’ by Malorie Blackman and ‘Harawira drops N-bomb in water hui debate” by Danya Levy. I believe these texts explore the moral nature of society and human beings as essentially being good and evil through social drifts of racial prejudice, discrimination and illustrates the effect of these on human nature and society through the characters responses to these societal niches.…

    • 3167 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Harry Potter - Good vs Evil

    • 2521 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Throughout human civilisation, Evil has almost universally been connected with religion. Evil is most commonly associated with a material world of darkness, and is a destructive force opposing good; the spiritual world of light. Different religions hold variations on exact definitions and even within religions, ideas evolve. Medieval Christianity, led by the philosophies of Bishop Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, conceptualised Evil as ‘the desire for anything remotely pleasurable to the human body’, a divine law now heavily relaxed by many modern Christians (Farley, 1990). Judaism expresses Evil as the consequence of disobeying or forsaking God. Individuals of Jewish faith do not consider Satan as the inception of all Evil (as is preached in Christianity), but believe Evil resides in the hearts of all humans which has to be oppressed individually. Humans have the unique cognitive ability to assess every situation before, during or after it has happened, and most importantly, are able to attach a moral judgement to every experience, factual or fictitious. Every known language holds a word to express ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’. As such, the idea of this on-going battle between these two forces is considered a cultural universal (Brown, 1991).…

    • 2521 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays