The Morality Of Fairy Tales In The Black Cow

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. A rendition of Cinderella, the story of The Black Cow, changes many renowned characteristics to adapt to Hindu practice and social norms since Indian folk tales “were used to preserve history, important people, and places, as well as the religious rites and ceremonies of various Indian regions” (Gibbs). Instead of a female main character who loses her mother and is left with her father, the story of The Black Cow has a “Brahmin whose wife died leaving him one little son” (Tatar 169). The term “Brahmin son” is repeated many times throughout the story with the purpose of young, normal boys feeling some sort of affiliation to the main character and the ideology that their life can be just like the Brahmin son. The repetition also results in the rhetor eliminating any female-oriented language suggesting a hierarchy of the sexes, saying that males are superior to