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Fairy Tales. Folk Fairy Tales. Oral tradition Reflect values of culture at the time Women telling stories to young children Peasant political information Brief, dramatic and memorable narratives Message stays with listener/reader Express multiple meanings Adaptable without changing story.
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Folk Fairy Tales • Oral tradition • Reflect values of culture at the time • Women telling stories to young children • Peasant political information • Brief, dramatic and memorable narratives • Message stays with listener/reader • Express multiple meanings • Adaptable without changing story
The Enlightenment • Mostly atheist or deists • Conscious mind is rational • Rational = Good • Reason leads to virtue • World is mechanical, rational, machine-like • Adulthood = Capable of mature reasoning • Perfectibility of human through intellect
Romanticism • True meaning impossible through human reason • Reach ultimate truth through imagination, irrational, insanity and subconscious • Children are better humans • World = ambiguous place – Paradox, Dualities • Supernatural • Experience is real knowledge; books are theoretical
Strangers • Central theme in fairy tales • Confrontation with something uncommon • Peasants want to stay or return home • Traveling is not good
Women • Women are the focus of tales – “Old Wives Tales” • Temptation and Redemption through women • Paradox
Men • Children had few encounters with men • Fathers are often missing in stories • Seen as weak characters or aggressors
Children • Romantics • Ideal people as they live in dreams • Capable of total innocence which is lost in adulthood • Main threat to girls are older women • Peasants • Children = Little adults • Expendable • Mortality rates, disappearances • Work in fields • Support parents in old age
Adolescence • Biological equivalent of the Fall • Lose innocence through knowledge
Folklore/Historical • Anthropological study of illiterate peasants • Closest to original versions • Peasant stories of people who subsist • Class information
Freud • Most prevalent view of fairy tales • Instinctual drives – sex, aggression • Determined by subconscious
Feminist • Focus on role of women or girls in tales • Women are victims • Gender issues • Aging – Older women as demons/witches