Fairy Tales

Fairy Tales

Simple narratives, typically involving supernatural beings or improbable events, settings, or characters, either of folk origin or individually authored in a style reminiscent of the folk tradition.

Fairy tales and folk tales fall into six major categories, such as cumulative tales, based on a repetitive action that builds to a climax (as in "The House That Jack Built") and pourquoi tales, which purport to explain the origin of certain customs or traits (for example, "how the leapard got his spots"), as well as those containing supernatural elements, which are usually called fairy tales. One of the standard categories of folktale is the "realistic tale," which implies that all the other types—not just fairy tales—contain some measure of fantasy. For example, one of these categories, the beast tale, by definition includes fantasy elements. Even if they are not unique in their inclusion of magical and other wondrous elements, fairy tales are distinguished from most other folktales by their greater length and complexity and by their inclusion of romance and adventure. The designation of "fairy tale" is also applied to the "literary folktales" of such authors as Hans Christian Andersen.

Fairy tales typically have simple, direct plots, even when they involve multiple episodes and themes. They take place in the past ("once upon a time"), and the time, setting, and central conflict are quickly established at the beginning with little time devoted to description. The conflict is usually resolved soon after the climax of the story in a brief and usually happy ending (" . . . and they lived happily ever after"). Characterization is two-dimensional, with characters being either completely good or completely evil. Attention is maintained through suspense and repetition, a frequent plot element, often in series of threes (as in the three "huff and puff sequences enacted by the wolf in "The Three Little Pigs").

Common narrative devices include magical powers, spells that induce extended sleep, magical objects and transformations, wishes, and trickery. A single fairy tale generally exists in multiple variants throughout the world; over 500 have been recorded for the Cinderella story. Scholars have accounted for variants of folktales by theories of both monogenesis (origin in a single culture that was then diffused among different peoples) and polygenesis (simultaneous origin in various cultures reflecting universal beliefs and emotions). The Russian scholar Vladimir Propp reduced the plot elements in all folktales to 31 identifiable actions that recur in different combinations but in predictable sequences, for example, "family member leaves home," "the villain causes harm or injury to a member of the family," "the hero or heroine returns," and "the villain is punished".

The current versions of many well-known fairy tales date back to their preservation in written form by European writers as far back as the 17th century, when the Italian Giambattista Basile included "Snow White," "Sleeping Beauty," and other tales in a collection. The first major compilation of this type was Charles Perrault's 1697 Contes de ma mère l'oye {Tales of Mother Goose), which included "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding Hood," and other perennial favorites. The best-known transcription of oral folktales remains the Kinderund Hausmärchen published between 1812 and 1815 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, popularly known as Grimm's Fairy Tales. Although their collections are sometimes called "literary fairy tales," both Perrault's tales and those of the Brothers Grimm were intended to remain as faithful as possible to the original oral versions. However, numerous other purveyors of fairy tales, right up through the Disney studios in our own time, have softened the grislier aspects of fairy tales to avoid offending adult audiences or frightening juvenile ones. For example, Engelbert Humperdinck's opera Hansel and Gretel is based not on the Grimms' tale but on the bowdlerized version by Ludwig Bechstein that was far more popular in 19th-century Germany. Bechstein changed the wicked stepmother into a biological parent torn by feelings of guilt, turned the terrifying witch into a quasi-comic figure, and made the dark and fearful forest into a scene of contemplation and prayer. Such alterations are opposed by some modern commentators, who argue that instead of making fairy tales more appropriate for children, the changes actually rob them of much of their literary and psychological value.

Most experts reserve the "literary" label for original narratives modeled on the style and formulas of folk tales, such as those by Hans Christian Andersen, the most famous and successful writer in this genre and author of such classics as "The Ugly Duckling," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," and "The Red Shoes." Although his earliest tales were based on folk sources, his later works are entirely original, and some are even said to contain autobiographical elements. Other 19th-century authors who tried their hand at literary fairy tales include the German Romantic authors Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Clemens Brentano, and George MacDonald, John Ruskin, and Oscar Wilde. Modern writers of original fairy tales include poet Carl Sandburg {The Rootabaga Stories), humorist James Thurber (The Thirteen Clocks and Many Moons), novelist John Gardner (Dragon, Dragon and Other Tales, Gudgekin the Thistle Girl), and storyteller Jane Yolen (The Girl Who Loved the Wind, The Girl Who Cried Flowers and Other Tales).

Fairy tales as children's literature

Fairy tales are a valuable form of children's literature for several reasons. First of all, their simplicity, drama, and pacing make them attractive to children, fostering a delight in storytelling in particular and literature in general. In addition, their fantasy elements help foster an active imagination. Fairy tales are also an important part of every child's cultural legacy—as stories alluded to in many other contexts and as examples of many basic narrative and symbolic elements that appear in other, more complex literary forms.

In addition to providing an important key to one's own culture, they are also a way of learning about and appreciating the cultures of others. Fairy tales also give children, who are relatively powerless in most areas of their lives, an opportunity to join vicariously in the triumph of the underdog in a world where the smallest animal, the poorest peasant, or the youngest daughter often prevails over those larger, richer, older, and more powerful. The role that fairy tales play in a child's emotional life received its most wide-ranging and famous analysis in Bruno Bettelheim's 1976 study The Uses of Enchantment, in which Bettelheim described how fairy tales, through their embodiment of fundamental psychological dramas, can help children confront and resolve conflicts in their own lives.

In another analysis, F. André Favat has claimed that fairy tales appeal to young children because of qualities that can be related to characteristics outlined by psychologist Jean Piaget. The preoperational stage of development (ages two to six), which corresponds roughly to the age at which children first come to know and love fairy tales, is, according to Piaget, characterized by "magical thinking," an attribution of unexplained powers to objects and forces in the external world and of consciousness to inanimate objects that resembles the workings of the world in fairy tales. Favat also points out that the centrality of the heroes and heroines to their fairy tale world corresponds to the egocentric focus of the child during the preoperational stage. Finally, Favat points out that fairy tales appeal to the young child's moral sense as described by Piaget in that they generally reward the good and punish the wicked.

A child's interest in fairy tales begins at the prereading stage and continues through most of elementary school, peaking between the ages of 8 and 10. The simplest fairy tales, such as The Three Little Pigs or The Red Hen, can be appreciated by preschoolers, with more complex tales introduced in the primary or intermediate grades. Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, Oscar Wilde, and Eleanor Farjeon are among those recommended for older children. Among their other virtues, fairy tales lend themselves well to an interdisciplinary educational approach. A fairy tale unit in the primary grades can encompass a variety of art projects, such as drawing one's most liked or disliked fairy tale character, producing "before and after" pictures for characters who undergo magical transformations, or mapping the action of a fairy tale. Children can dramatize tales using simple puppets they create themselves. Language skills can be promoted by listing special words and rhymes found in the tales. Children can also create and illustrate their own fairy tales.

Books

Adler, Bill, Jr. Tell Me a Fairy Tale: A Parent's Guide to Telling Magical and Mythical Stories. New York: Penguin, 1995.

Andersen, Hans Christian. Andersen's Fairy Tales. Translated by L. W. Kingsland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Bauer, Caroline Feller. New Handbook for Storytellers. Chicago: American Library Association, 1993.

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Knopf, 1976.

Bottigheimer, Ruth B. Fairy Tales and Society. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.

Hamilton, Virginia. The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. New York: Knopf, 1985.

Haviland, Virginia, ed. The Fairy Tale Treasury. New York: Dell, 1986. [Preschool-grade 4]

Mallet, Carl-Heinz. Fairy Tales and Children. New York: Schocken, 1984.

Phelps, Ethel Johnston. The Maid of the North: Feminist Folk Tales from Around the World. New York: Holt, 1981.

Rockwell, Anne. The Three Bears and 15 Other Stories. New York: HarperCollins, 1975. [Preschool-grade 1]

Yolen, Jane, ed. Favorite Folk Tales from Around the World. New York: Pantheon, 1986. [Grades 6 and up]