FAIRY TALES: Are They Really For Children? A fairy tale is a type of short story that involves fantasy figures such as mermaids, giants, leprechauns, fairies and such. Fairy tales are generally related to children’s literature and they can be found in oral or literary form. (“Fairy tale”) It is really hard to track the history of fairy tales because of their oral form. Scholars believe that these stories date back to almost Bronze Age,more than 6,000 years ago but today, we only have the literary formed ones. (“Fairy tale”) Giambattista Basile was an Italian poet and writer who collected the earliest forms of fairy tales. He wrote the collection of Neapolitan fairy tales titled “Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille” which …show more content…
However, stories are also important for children to develop a strong imagination and creativeness.. They provide entartainment for children while giving moral lessons. But since stories are very important and fairy tales are this damaging, then best way to develop children’s imagination is to read them from fables or even myths. Fables are another literary genre that end up giving moral lessons at the end of the story. These fables are appropriate for children because they are made to give important lessons so it is almost impossible to find inappropriate elements in them. Also the nature and animals are often given human qualities such as the ability to speak and move which will provide the child with the necessary fantasy world that he/she can get from a fairy tale. Also myths are a good selection of stories to be read by children. Myths are old stories that humans created very early in time to explain the natural phenomenas that are going on around them. They are not only very entartaining and interesting but also very important in terms of cultural information. With the selection of myths, parent can both replace fairy tales and start educating their children on early human
These stories provided direction for the children to guide them in the future. These stories provided significance and a very important feeling of hope. Also, the stories supplied good life lessons and faith that they could hold with them their whole life and potentially teach to their own
Storytelling is an important part of our world. Regardless of whether the story being told was true or fantasy. This is because we learn and grow from stories no matter where they come from. We as humans take the good, the bad, and the ugly from the stories we read and hear. We take them as they are and for what they are made of.
The oral tradition is what keeps all these stories going. Some stories are so old that one can’t really find science and reason in them, that’s why some tales were made using magic and imaginary creatures. The Archetypal Hero’s Journey in Folklore.
phonetic alphabet was created by The wooden people vs. Creek Myth, “a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon.” (Now that is a dictionary version of what myth is and it makes it seem like myths are just stories that people made in the past and believed in.) Although most myths were made to explain the world around people, myths also have themes or lessons in them that can teach people lots of things even in today’s societies.
Dragons, witches, princesses, and knights. These are the imaginary friends in so many children's lives. For young adults, those fairy tale characters give way to darker characters and more realistic situations. However, what do they all have in common? They all live in stories.
Then and Now When you enter the world of fairy tales it opens the door to learning life lessons by the means of entertainment, fascination and creativity. The most important information fairy tales provide are valuable lessons you can use during life, like how to act appropriately when confronted with bad behavior or the importance of knowing who to trust. When you are reading fairy tales it is easy to correlate the stories to events that you may have experienced, witnessed or are related to problems and challenges life throws at you. By using symbolism fairy tales use fictional characters to teach important critical behaviors and decisions needed for life lessons in a way that peaks the interest of the reader or the person listening. No one has ever encountered a dragon in their daily lives unless it is a Komodo Dragon at the local zoo.
Since the beginning of time, parents have told their children stories about heroes. Heroes who fight monsters, save maidens, and return to their homes with honor. They make the hero sound so special, or brave, or kind, to inspire their children to want to be like them. Telling these types of stories is a good way to impress good morals on them. The ancient Greeks were a group of people who used a similar tactic to teach people their core values.
Many families have many traditions, but one tradition that is common among all households is that they read fairy tales to their children right before they put them to sleep. They do this to fill their minds with good positive thoughts and leave them with something to think about. Religion dictates the characteristics of familiar fairy tales as religion provides a moral and ethical framework for having a good life, an ideal goal parents want their children to have. On the whole, fairy tales are constantly changed to adhere to cultural or social beliefs that are deemed important by diverse people in a community.
Since the beginning of time human beings have been mythmakers. Myths are stories that are based on tradition and often been passed down throughout history (often through oral tradition).They may have factual beginnings; while others are completely fictional. Myths are stories/tales about characters: gods, goddesses, men, women, and heroes. Story tellers from every generation have passed down these tales and adventures. However, over time the stories have become distorted so that there often variations in the same story.
These stereotypes have always existed but have been passed down to us, precisely, by these stories. They target the most impressionable part of society, children. The purpose of these tales is to teach children how to behave and in which social norms they must fit into. “Fairy tales are a child's world of imagination and pleasure, but
Disney, alike many other popular storytellers, want these known stories to be friendly, animated, and with an intended audience of children. This is ironic because a retired professor of German and comparative literature from the University of Minnesota, Jack Zipes, directly compares this theme to a news interviewer that “the Grimm’s did not collect these tales for children. They collected these tales to show what life was like. And they wanted to reveal what they considered the divine truths of the tales.” It is obvious that Disney does not have the same motive as the Grimm’s did.
They are not just for children but can help in the lives of adults as well. The fairy tales that we hear today were not written for children in the first place, it was after the late nineteenth century that the tales were changed and made ‘more appropriate’ for children. In case of children’s fairytales in simple terms – they show children how to solve problems, they cross cultural boundaries and at the same time familiarize children with their own traditions and cultures, they develop a child’s imagination and last not the least they teach lessons (moral lessons, life lessons etc.). Thus I think fairytales are an important part of the learning process especially for children, while for adults it can be a source of entertainment or
Have you ever wondered what was different and similar between those silly and unrealistic fairy tales you were told as a kid? Red Riding Hood was an interesting one about a girl that mistakes a wolf for her granny and, and almost gets eaten. Everyone knows the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Basically, there was a girl that stumbled across a house in the woods and thinks, “It is totally not weird if I walk into someone’s home and use their things.” They catch her and she runs away.
Thus, interest in children 's books was growing and fairytales turned into children tales which were carrying moral concern. Along with the 20th century, Walt Disney has changed the concepts of its tales. They were no longer carrying any social message and it put children in a total dream world. At first sight, many Disney tales look innocent but they fundamentally have strong images hidden. For example, Disney draws a female figure that is dependent, which unknowingly cause gender stereotype in society.
Examples of myths include ‘Ancient Rome’ and ‘The myth of King Midas and his golden touch’. The Fairy Tale genre consists of old-style, fictional stories that are written for children and normally involve a variety of make-believe characters and creatures (e.g. fairies, elves, talking animals, giants or witches) and often a bit of magic as well. They usually describe a fanciful story line which often happened long, long ago. An example of a fairy Tale is ‘Hansel and Gretel’ by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.