will interpret the examples given in Chapter 8, “Hanseldee and Greteldum—using fairy tales a kid lit” to show how women treat each other and…
Plot-The book is divided into two parts, the "home", and the "castle". The ending is part of the "home" section, returning after the castle. The story is based around the German fairy tale of Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) which is told by "Gemma", an elderly woman, to her three granddaughters. She tells this to the children almost all the time and it is the only bedtime story she ever tells. The times when "Gemma" tells the story are flashbacks and alternate between the present-day story.…
The main character of the story is a passive woman. As follows the beliefs of the time, the sleeping beauty waits patiently, sleeping, for her prince to "save" her. There was clear patriarchal dominance present in the story, and this theme continues from the moment when the prince saves her and their two children from being eaten at the end of the tale. All of this is summed up by the poem after the story finishes that explains the moral, that women must wait for the right man to "save" them and be their prince.…
The common fairytale portrays the stereotypical “damsel in distress,” who is helpless until her male savior typically rescues her. Many fairytales address the theme of gender roles as well as many others. The female character takes on the feeble, desolate role, while the male character takes on the strong, hero role similar to the stories of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. However, Elizabeth, the protagonist of The Paper Bag Princess defies typical gender roles as a female character and becomes the hero of the story. Cinderella and The Paper Bag Princess share many qualities, but have major differences as well. Cinderella is an example of a woman who occupies traditional, domestic roles, but she does not portray the modern, liberated woman Elizabeth exhibits.…
In the author's article he presents the idea that girls should follow a more independent manner rather than the stereotype of princess who needs saving in modern films. With evidence from movies like Ella Enchanted where the princess is escaping the binds of having to marry her prince, rather than wait to be saved by her prince it is clear the author supports more feminist themes for modern fairytales.…
Bruno Bettelheim, the author of “Cinderella: A story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts,” believes that Cinderella is one of the best fairytales of all time because the tale has a deeper meaning than what meets the eye and it is something that everyone can relate with at some point in their life. Being a Freudian psychologist, Bettelheim believes that a person’s conscious mind takes the fairytale for face value, while the same person’s unconscious mind can view the exact same fairytale very differently.…
The parts of the novel written in Italics represent the fairytale. The most important fairytale is that of “Sleeping Beauty”. There are also elements of the “Cinderella” fairytale with Silvia and Shana as the evil step-sisters who leave all the work to the Cinderella figure, Rebecca.…
Fairy tales should illustrate more than what meets the eye. It should incorporate certain elements, which can aid in the development to healthy growth of a childhood. In “Fairy Tales and the Existential Predicament,” Bruno Bettelheim discusses the importance of fairy tales and the elements they should contain in order to fully connect with a child reading a particular fairy tale. Bettelheim considers a successful fairy tale to be one, which fulfills a child’s psychological needs and promotes his/her development. The Grimm brother’s structure of their fairy tale in Little Red Cap (LRC) was different in certain points than Charles…
Fairytales: when someone says that word, the first thing that might come up in your mind is probably kid’s reading Cinderella. Fairytales’ simplicity and accuracy in delivering a moral to young kids and adults is wonderful. We’d give an adult a eerie look if we caught them reading a kids book on the train to themselves. The reason behind our thought is cause it’s a kids book why would an adult read it but behind all this is the difference of interpreting stories for adults and children. Stories like Juniper Tree, Snow White, and Little Red Cap include hidden messages through violence and imagery and dialogue. Fairy tales teach children how to grasp the meaning and power behind storytelling. In this paper I will discuss the vast ways in which a child and adult interpret fairytales. Its…
With many variations of fantasies, "Happily ever after" is reoccurring in every fairy tale. "Cinderella" by Anne Sexton is a different variation of the classic tale. The author sets up her version of Cinderella with four anecdotes sharing how others can go from poverty to riches or gritty reality to fantasy. Sexton changes her happily ever after ending by satirizing the message the story gives. By doing so, Sexton would like the reader to know the difference between a fairy tale and reality. Anne Sexton deconstructs the ending of her retold fairy tale by using sarcasm to change the reader's expectations of the story and myth.…
In the world of scholarly fairy tale analysis, Maria Tatar is a prominent figure. Tatar is strongly opinionated regarding these tales and believe that the meaning of them is often misrepresented- fairy tale’s do not teach objective morals and values to children, but rather provide a platform to express the contrast of anxieties and desires to further succeed through life’s struggle. Using Tatar’s claim regarding desires and anxieties as an analysis tool to help understand complicated variants of the world’s favorite fairy tales is a rewarding and and educational process. Delving into a story that most assume they already “know” in a conceptually different way expands the mind and makes prominent issues that may not already be clear just…
The story of Cinderella is a magical fairytale that children of all ages and backgrounds are familiar with. It 's an appealing tale because it includes magic and whimsy, oppression, love, perseverance- all of the things that are included in the story of a hero, or in this case, a heroine. As John Campbell explains in his book, _The Hero with a Thousand Faces,_ a hero (or heroine) goes through many stages on their quest for whatever it is they are looking for in life, and Cinderella is no different. She experiences all of the stages on her quest for love and happiness.…
In the fairy tales, the protagonists always gain their Snow Whites in the end and they all live happily ever after. In fact, all protagonists’ fate is decided by the narrator’s hand. Just like the literary works we have recently read, including the poems “Sunday Greens” by Rita Dove, “Sinful City” by Jaroslav Seifert and the excerpt from Like Water for Chocolate from Laura Esquivel, the characters’ fate was sealed from that moment. Therefore, the most relevant theme through three works is that fate is for those too weak to determine their own destiny.…
This paper will show three versions of Cinderella that are similar in meaning and different in views. Interpretations of each story are basically the same, a young girl who is mistreated by her step-mother and step-sisters. A magical transformation occurs that brings her dreams of meeting a prince and changes this young innocent girl into an elegant princess. This shows that dreams are possible and that even a person who sleeps in ashes can have a happily ever after.…
As a Canadian writer who had won numerous world-class writing prizes, Margaret Atwood is famous for being as a novelist, many of her poems were inspired by fairy tales. In her work the readers can always find traces about woman: their powers, their status, their spiritual world. Combine the two significant traits, “The Blue beard’s Egg” is a short story which retell a traditional classic fairy rale that originated from Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard”. Atwood takes a modern peek of the old tale. In Perrault’s version, Bluebeard’s new wives would always break their promises of not open the door and enter the forbidden room while he leaves, hence they were all been killed. While in Atwood’s tale, she made the violence and absurd in the original story much normal instead of unrealistic through lenses of the modern setting.…