tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/brothers-grimm-13658/articles
Brothers Grimm – The Conversation
2021-06-28T12:27:58Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/163402
2021-06-28T12:27:58Z
2021-06-28T12:27:58Z
How Cinderella lost its original feminist edge in the hands of men
<p>In the words of its publicity department, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new production of Cinderella offers audiences nothing less than “<a href="https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/cinderella-the-musical/">a complete reinvention of the classic fairy-tale</a>”. Written by Emerald Fennell (Oscar-nominated for Promising Young Women), the production promises a feminist revision of the classic fairy tale, updating the well-known story to reflect contemporary attitudes towards gender.</p>
<p>But Cinderella has always been a feminist text. You might have heard of figures like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Perrault">Charles Perrault</a>, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Brothers-Grimm">Brothers Grimm</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walt-Disney">Walt Disney</a>, each playing a key role in popularising the folk story for a new generation. But behind their versions of the classic fairytale lies an untold story of female storytellers like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marie-Catherine-Le-Jumel-de-Barneville-Countess-dAulnoy">Marie-Catherine D’Aulnoy</a> and the <a href="https://www.nyrsf.com/2018/09/brian-stableford-tales-of-the-fays-the-comtesse-de-murat-and-the-origins-of-fantasy-fiction.html">Comtesse de Murat</a>. </p>
<p>Before the Grimms, these pioneering women were drawn to Cinderella not because they felt the story needed updating or revising, but because they were attracted by the culture that birthed it – a storytelling network <a href="https://www.marinawarner.com/book/from-the-beast-to-the-blonde-on-fairy-tales-and-their-tellers/">created by and for women</a>.</p>
<h2>Cinderella’s origins</h2>
<p>Cinderella began its life as a folk tale, <a href="http://sf-encyclopedia.uk/fe.php?nm=cinderella">passed orally from household to household</a>. The earliest recorded copy dates back to China in 850-860. This version of the story probably entered into European society by the women working on the great <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-middle-east/silk-road">Silk Road</a>. </p>
<p>At a time when only men could be writers or artists, women used folk tales as a means of expressing their creativity. Female labourers and housewives passed the stories onto one another to dispense shared wisdom, or else to break up the boredom of another working day as they toiled away from the prying eyes of men.</p>
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<p>These storytelling traditions echo to this day. It is where we get the notion of the old wives’ tale. According to feminist writers like <a href="https://www.marinawarner.com/">Marina Warner</a>, it is also why we have to come to associate gossip with women. Cinderella reflects these customs. It is a story about domestic labour, female violence and friendship, and the oppression of servitude. Perhaps most significantly, it is a story about female desire in a world where women were denied any role in society.</p>
<p>The precise story of Cinderella has always been in flux. In some, she still has a mother. In others, the stepsisters resort to slicing off their heels to win the heart of the prince. But whatever incarnation, Cinderella has historically been a story about women and for women. So what happened to poor Cinders to make her so powerless?</p>
<p>Well, men. As the story became increasing popular, male writers and artists became interested in adapting the tale. But in doing so, they found in Cinderella not a story of female wish-fulfilment but a more general sense of escapism. </p>
<p>It was Perrault who introduced the famous pumpkin and the glass slipper, giving the tale its two most iconic features. The Grimms turned the stepsisters ugly, as well as removed the fairy godmother in favour of a magical wishing tree. These adaptations reflected unconscious misogyny, stripping the story of much of its feminist potential and making it instead about enchantment over representation.</p>
<h2>Cinderella goes to the cinema</h2>
<p>These traditions continue in Cinderella’s cinematic adaptations. The first person to adapt Cinderella for the big screen was the French magician turned film director <a href="https://www.melies.eu/English.html">Georges Méliès</a>. In his hands, the character became little more than a passive, frightened waif, her job seemingly to stand in the corners of the shots and look amazed at the latest special effect appearing on screen.</p>
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<p>Decades later, Walt Disney used Cinderella as part of the studio’s strategy of mining European folk tales for popular entertainment, a tradition begun with <a href="https://www.fantasy-animation.org/all-episodes/episode-1-snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs-david-hand-1937?rq=snow%20white">Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)</a>. </p>
<p>Released in 1950, Disney’s Cinderella reflected the conservative values of US society at the time. The figure of the wicked stepmother took on a supervillainesque quality in the form of Lady Tremaine. While the figure of the stepmother had been the antagonist in most versions of the folk story, Disney’s Tremaine was a villain to rank among the studio’s many infamous examples of monstrous women. In Disney’s hands, an often nuanced character within the original tale was turned into a vivid caricature of feminine power and greed.</p>
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<p>The most recent live-action remake starring Cate Blanchett as Tremaine did little to change these preconceptions of the folk tale, as Cinderella became a nostalgic symbol not only for childhood storytelling but for Disney as its most popular storyteller. The role of women in the creation of Cinderella as we know it was lost to animation and special effects.</p>
<p>So what is the moral of the story of this particular fairy tale? If anything, it’s that Cinderella is not a story that needs a complete reinvention. Instead, the story needs reclaiming from the hands of those who would dismiss it as just a fairy story or would use it as a vehicle for spectacle at the expense of the story buried beneath.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163402/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Sergeant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Cinderella has been taken further and further away from its origins that we forget it was originally a radical story about female desire, servitude and violence.
Alexander Sergeant, Lecturer in Film & Media Studies, University of Portsmouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161188
2021-05-25T19:39:37Z
2021-05-25T19:39:37Z
Who’s afraid of Cruella de Vil? New stories are humanising female villains of old
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402247/original/file-20210524-23-uhh43w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3180%2C1796&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Disney’s new live-action Cruella transforms the infamous Dalmatian killer into an aspiring fashion designer who is driven to embrace the darkness and a life of crime. </p>
<p>It is the latest adaptation reclaiming female villains of fairy tales and children’s literature, providing them with an origin story — and extending them a degree of sympathy. </p>
<p>The female villain is common, in part, because of the Brothers Grimm. </p>
<p>As the Brothers collected and published fairy tales in the early 19th century, they progressively changed these stories to <a href="https://theconversation.com/reader-beware-the-nasty-new-edition-of-the-brothers-grimm-34537">conform to appropriate morality</a> for children. These alterations included silencing strong female characters and demonising powerful women — ensuring evil behaviour was clearly contrasted with good. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/reader-beware-the-nasty-new-edition-of-the-brothers-grimm-34537">Reader beware: the nasty new edition of the Brothers Grimm</a>
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<p>Children’s literature followed suit, with easily understandable divides between the good (and beautiful) and the evil (and ugly). L. Frank Baum’s one-eyed Wicked Witch of the West in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was designated the “bad witch” in sharp contrast to the good witch, and to Dorothy. </p>
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<p>But recent adaptations of these stories discard the usual focus on the “good” princess or heroine. </p>
<p>Instead of consigning the female villain to a simplistic caricature of evil, films such as Maleficent (the evil fairy from Sleeping Beauty) and the musical Wicked (the Wicked Witch of the West) offer nuanced (and newly beautiful) depictions of iconic foes.</p>
<h2>An inhuman beast?</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402249/original/file-20210524-19-1162rg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="101 Dalmatians still" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402249/original/file-20210524-19-1162rg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402249/original/file-20210524-19-1162rg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402249/original/file-20210524-19-1162rg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402249/original/file-20210524-19-1162rg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402249/original/file-20210524-19-1162rg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402249/original/file-20210524-19-1162rg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402249/original/file-20210524-19-1162rg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">If she doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney</span></span>
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<p>In Disney’s 1961 animated 101 Dalmatians, Cruella is angular and unattractive, with spindly limbs and a shock of half-black and half-white hair. She is a spinster; not maternal in any respect. She not only lacks her own children but seeks to harm puppies. She feels no concern for the young and vulnerable. </p>
<p>Vanity is Cruella’s final flaw, evident in her excessive interest in her appearance and the pleasure she takes in luxury objects, clothing and make-up.</p>
<p>The jazzy song that punctuates the film is thick with condemnation. Cruella is “like a spider waiting for the kill”, “a devil”, “vampire bat” and “inhuman beast” who “ought to be locked up and never released”. </p>
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<p>Wanting to wear puppy fur is certainly alarming enough, but Disney’s animated film provides no other details about Cruella’s dark side, nor her motivations. </p>
<p>In Dodie Smith’s children’s novel on which the film was based, Cruella marries a furrier. The large stock of furs and coats she has not yet paid for are destroyed by the Dalmatians and her own Persian cat (who avenges the deaths of many litters of kittens that were drowned by Cruella) leaving the de Vils to flee England for their unpaid debts.</p>
<p>This new Cruella film encourages compassion by depicting the events that lead to a conscious embrace of wrongdoing. This incarnation was once Estella de Vil (Emma Stone), orphaned at 12 and growing into a teenager with a record of petty crime and a dream to work in the fashion industry.</p>
<p>Her fashion boss and mentor Baroness von Helman (Emma Thompson) advises Cruella not to care “about anyone or thing”, providing a model of self-absorption and vanity for emulation.</p>
<p>Cruella says she “was born brilliant, born bad, and a little bit mad” — but this film makes clear she was “made” from the damage and loss orphaned Estella experiences. </p>
<h2>Embracing the monster</h2>
<p>The current recuperation of the female villain follows the makeover of Gothic monsters such as the vampire in popular fiction and film. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, vampires are repulsive and threatening. From True Blood to Twilight, today’s vampires are more commonly depicted as attractive love interests. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402463/original/file-20210524-17-13k3ixp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Twilight movie still" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402463/original/file-20210524-17-13k3ixp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402463/original/file-20210524-17-13k3ixp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402463/original/file-20210524-17-13k3ixp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402463/original/file-20210524-17-13k3ixp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402463/original/file-20210524-17-13k3ixp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402463/original/file-20210524-17-13k3ixp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402463/original/file-20210524-17-13k3ixp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Edward Cullen was not your grandmother’s vampire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Summit Entertainment</span></span>
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<p>The stories we tell have begun to both embrace the monster, and explain how they were created. Many cultures have lost faith in the grand narratives provided by former certainties in life such as religion. A sharp divide between good and evil is no longer as easy to maintain. </p>
<p>Well-known stories intended for children, such as those reshaped by the Brothers Grimm, were typically based on unambiguous morals that rewarded the good and punished the bad. </p>
<p>These new live-action adaptations introduce a more complicated sense of morality. While the actions of female villains may still be disturbing, the focus on their ill-treatment in early life humanises them and dismantles the idea of people being inherently “evil”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402468/original/file-20210524-13-y4wdsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Maleficent production image." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402468/original/file-20210524-13-y4wdsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402468/original/file-20210524-13-y4wdsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402468/original/file-20210524-13-y4wdsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402468/original/file-20210524-13-y4wdsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402468/original/file-20210524-13-y4wdsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402468/original/file-20210524-13-y4wdsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402468/original/file-20210524-13-y4wdsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Some are not born evil, these reworking say, they have evilness thrust upon them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney</span></span>
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<p>The short form of traditional fairy tales and children’s novels can offer minimal scope for characterisation, leaving us none the wiser as to what motivates the villain. </p>
<p>Why does Hans Christian Andersen’s disgusting Sea Witch (immortalised as Ursula in Disney’s The Little Mermaid) <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:The_fairy_tales_of_Hans_Christian_Andersen_(c1899).djvu/156">feed a toad</a> from her mouth and make a doomed bargain with the poor mermaid? Andersen’s story (and the Disney film) give us no clues — but perhaps the <a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a28333685/little-mermaid-remake-cast-release-date-plot-trailer/">upcoming</a> live-action adaptation will.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-grown-ups-still-need-fairy-tales-87078">Friday essay: why grown-ups still need fairy tales</a>
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<p>Expansion of the stories of villains such as Maleficent, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Cruella not only complicate naïve ideas about good and evil, but also allow us to take pleasure in aligning ourselves with the antihero. </p>
<p>Just so long as no puppies are harmed in the process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161188/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Smith has previously received Australian Research Council funding. </span></em></p>
Today’s stories embrace the monster — and explain how she was created.
Michelle Smith, Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105625
2018-11-02T09:57:11Z
2018-11-02T09:57:11Z
Disney’s Nutcracker: the latest movie to explore the dark side of fairy tales
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243449/original/file-20181101-83661-d59ko4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Laurie Sparham © 2017 Disney Enterprises, Inc.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Disney’s latest offering, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5523010/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Nutcracker and the Four Realms</a> comes with a warning for anyone who might imagine lighthearted, singing, dancing holiday entertainment. <a href="https://ew.com/movies/2017/12/19/nutcracker-and-the-four-realms-trailer/">“The legend you know has a dark side.”</a>. So be warned.</p>
<p>The film opens on a sombre note: the Stahlberg children face “<a href="https://disney.co.uk/movies/nutcracker-explore-the-realms">their first Christmas without their mother</a>”, It’s a curious twist, introduced presumably by the movie’s script writers, which appears neither in the original fairy tale by E.T.A. Hoffmann nor Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet, both of which inspired the film.</p>
<p>As if being losing her mother is not enough, heroine Clara Stahlberg soon faces a whole range of spooky creatures – including a wonderfully creepy Helen Mirren as Mother Ginger – bent on destroying the magical realms her late mother created. </p>
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<p>It is a long way away from such Disney classics as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097757/?ref_=nv_sr_2">The Little Mermaid</a> (1989), which turned Hans Christian Andersen’s complex and often grim fairy tale into a cheerful children’s story with a romantic happy ending.</p>
<p>But this change of tone is right on trend. For the past decade or so, cinema has increasingly transformed well-known children’s stories into chilling adult fantasies. Terry Gilliam’s 2005 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0355295/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Brothers Grimm</a>, for example, explored the dark reality and sometimes horror behind the familiar stories.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243455/original/file-20181101-83648-1snkbar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243455/original/file-20181101-83648-1snkbar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243455/original/file-20181101-83648-1snkbar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243455/original/file-20181101-83648-1snkbar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243455/original/file-20181101-83648-1snkbar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243455/original/file-20181101-83648-1snkbar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243455/original/file-20181101-83648-1snkbar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Truth is much more terrible than fiction: Monica Bellucci as the Mirror Queen in The Brothers Grimm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dimension Films</span></span>
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<p>More recently, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1735898/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Snow White and the Huntsman</a> (2012) and its follow up <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381991/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Huntsman: Winter’s War</a> (2016) aim to draw on the popularity of action-fantasies such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120737/?ref_=nv_sr_1">The Lord of the Rings</a> (2001-3) and the epic TV drama <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Game of Thrones</a> (2011-19). <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1428538/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters</a> (2013) reimagines the eponymous lost children of Grimm’s original tale as gun slinging professional killers. A review in <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2013/01/25/hansel-and-gretel-review/1864211/">USA Today</a> warned parents not “make the mistake of taking the kids to this blood-spattered revenge-fest”.</p>
<p>We’re seeing the same sort of thing on television, too. Netflix’ latest release, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7569592/?ref_=nv_sr_1">The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina</a>(2018), reimagines the popular 1990s sitcom, starring Melissa Joan Hart as the teenage witch, as “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45989783">something a lot darker and scarier</a>”. Rather than being concerned with the usual teenage romances and quick spells to help with make up and home work, the new Sabrina has to face satanic cults and evil forces that threaten mankind.</p>
<h2>Dreams and fears</h2>
<p>But what is behind this focus on the darker side of fairy tales? If looking closely at the core of most of these stories, we realise that they almost always have a rather dark core, where people are eaten, maimed or tortured. </p>
<p>In Grimm’s version of Cinderella, the ugly step sisters mutilate their feet to fit into the golden slippers, while the evil queen in Snow White is forced to dance herself to death in red-hot shoes. Yet, for a long time, cinematic representations of these stories tended to eschew the scarier bit and firmly focused on the happily ever after.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243450/original/file-20181101-83657-1c0yg1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243450/original/file-20181101-83657-1c0yg1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243450/original/file-20181101-83657-1c0yg1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243450/original/file-20181101-83657-1c0yg1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243450/original/file-20181101-83657-1c0yg1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243450/original/file-20181101-83657-1c0yg1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243450/original/file-20181101-83657-1c0yg1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fairy tale tinged with horror: Kristen Stewart in Snow White and the Huntsman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2012 - Universal Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Enchanted-Screen-The-Unknown-History-of-Fairy-Tale-Films/Zipes/p/book/9780415990615">his book</a>, The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films, Jack Zipes, a well-known scholar and translator of fairy tales, suggests that for most children nowadays film adaptations of fairy tales “have become better known than the classical texts, which, in comparison, have virtually lost their meaning due to the fact that the films have replaced them”. Zipes suggests that this is especially true for the dark and complex fairy tales told by writers such as Andersen. It was a generation of fairy tales that expressed people’s darkest thoughts and fears, at a time when almost constant war, conflict and incurable illnesses plagued Europe.</p>
<p>Psychological <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_forgotten_language.html?id=NgJ_AAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">studies on fairy tales</a> have sometimes drawn a distinction between myth and fairy tale – noting that one has a tragic and one has a happy ending. But this generates problems with stories such as Andersen’s <a href="http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheLittleMatchGirl_e.html">Little Match Girl</a> or <a href="http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheSteadfastTinSoldier_e.html">The Steadfast Tin Soldier</a>, both of which have a sad and tragic ending (spoiler: the match girl freezes to death while the tin soldier melts down in a stove). </p>
<p>These fairy tales lack the final consolation that J.R.R. Tolkien called “eucatastrophe” – or sudden happy ending – in his influential 1939 essay <a href="http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Eucatastrophe">On Fairy-Stories</a>. Many of the recent cinematic retellings of classic fairy tales blur the already shaky boundaries between myth and magic. This is illustrated nicely in “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms”, which turns the ballet’s fight between the Mouse King and the gingerbread soldiers into an epic battle for the survival of the magical kingdoms.</p>
<h2>Growing up Grimm</h2>
<p>Fairy tales are also often considered to reflect the challenges of growing up. If this is the case, then maybe these confusing modern takes reflect the challenges faced by contemporary children and young adults? The new Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) has been described as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45989783">“woke” and a “feminist icon”</a>, Hansel and Gretel turn their childhood trauma into a profession by becoming witch hunters for hire and for Clara in Disney’s new film, her grief for her newly deceased mother is processed through fighting a battle defending the realm her late mother created. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243447/original/file-20181101-83651-3iqgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243447/original/file-20181101-83651-3iqgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243447/original/file-20181101-83651-3iqgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243447/original/file-20181101-83651-3iqgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243447/original/file-20181101-83651-3iqgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243447/original/file-20181101-83651-3iqgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243447/original/file-20181101-83651-3iqgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton as Hansel and Gretel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2013 - Paramount Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As growing up becomes more complex, so do family units, external challenges and relationships between characters.</p>
<p>Oral traditions of storytelling have always adapted myths and fairy tales to their respective times and places. The recent focus on the dark, confusing and threatening aspects of those stories no doubt reflects the challenges of our times. But not all is lost. Even this newer, darker and more epic retelling of The Nutcracker maintains the element of hope, happiness and Christmas cheer and so still has the power to enchant and console.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105625/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sylvie Magerstaedt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The latest fairy tale movie from Disney has a dark twist, so it’s right on trend.
Sylvie Magerstaedt, Principal Lecturer in Media Cultures, University of Hertfordshire
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97042
2018-06-07T10:59:23Z
2018-06-07T10:59:23Z
How fairy tales have stood the test of time
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222025/original/file-20180606-137291-gkez6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An illustration of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "The Brave Little Tailor.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Brothers Grimm have been dead more than 150 years, but they <a href="https://blog.calm.com/relax/lost-grimm-fairy-tale-is-first-ai-bedtime-story">recently released a new story</a> with a little help from artificial intelligence.</p>
<p>The Princess and the Fox was created after a group of writers, artists and developers used a program inspired by predictive text on phones to scan the collected stories of the Brothers Grimm to suggest words and similar phrases. Human writers then took over, to help shape the AI’s algorithmic suggestions into the latest Grimm fairy tale.</p>
<p>The new tale tells the story of a talking fox who helps a lowly miller’s son rescue a beautiful princess from the fate of having to marry a horrible prince she does not love.</p>
<p>But here’s the thing, the Brothers Grimm didn’t actually write their fairy tales in the first place. They collected them – from friends, servants, workers and family members. Fairy tales, of course, have always been retold. They come alive in the telling – whether that’s a child listening to an audio book in the car, watching Snow White and the Huntsman on DVD or singing along to Shrek The Musical in the theatre. </p>
<p>The Grimms’ fairy stories <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/grimms-fairy-tales-exerted-profound-2285773">were first published in 1812</a> and have never gone out of print. The Grimm Brothers were involved in the struggle for German independence. As part of the case for nationhood, they wanted to prove that Germans, as a distinct people, had their own folklore. They were political campaigners too, and among the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6ttingen_Seven">Göttingen Seven</a> who refused to take an oath of loyalty to the new King of Hanover when he rejected a more liberal constitution. They lost their jobs as a result and Jakob Grimm – like many characters in the fairy tales – had to go into exile. </p>
<p>Since then Grimms’ Fairy Tales have been translated into a hundred languages and retold again and again. They have inspired thousands of other works, from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bloody_Chamber">Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIyV17TbdUA">The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The princess and the Fox was written in part by AI.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTUyODEzMjU2NiwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfNzM0MTIxMjQ0IiwiayI6InBob3RvLzczNDEyMTI0NC9odWdlLmpwZyIsIm0iOjEsImQiOiJzaHV0dGVyc3RvY2stbWVkaWEifSwicENVWFVRQ24yMVJxWUl5emR6b0FweUo1R2hVIl0%2Fshutterstock_734121244.jpg&pi=33421636&m=734121244&src=NvspoIUya7T1JZ8IKLwJYA-1-41">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jakob Grimm wasn’t just a collector of folk tales either. He was also a philologist (someone who studies language) and lexicographer whose work is still influential today. As well as being a master storyteller, the ideas he developed are still being researched in universities.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_law">Grimm’s Law</a>, named after Jakob Grimm, looks at how sounds change as they pass from one language to another – “P” tends to become “F”, while “G” becomes “W” and so on. </p>
<h2>Happily ever after</h2>
<p>The Grimms’ fairy stories are still passed down through generations. And even though the cast of princesses and swineherds seem a very long way away from the world most of us inhabit, the stories are still a crucial part of our cultural heritage. The stories the brothers found in Northern Germany at the beginning of the 19th-century now belong to everyone. </p>
<p>As a child growing up in Oxford <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ganz">my father</a> – a refugee from Germany and, like Jakob, a philologist – used to tell me the Grimm’s story of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frog_Prince">The Frog Prince</a> on our Sunday walks in the grounds of <a href="https://www.blenheimpalace.com/">Blenheim Palace</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blenheim Palace Gateway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my father’s version of the tale, the princess first met the frog by the lake – in reality built by Capability Brown for the first Duke of Marlborough – when she dropped her favourite plaything, a golden ball, into the water. When they lived happily ever after, the couple commemorated their meeting by putting golden balls on the top of Blenheim Palace. Now when I think of the story I think of Blenheim Palace, and I hear the splash of the frog in the lake, just as I thought I heard it long ago as a child. </p>
<p>This is exactly what stories can do, they fold all of their tellers and places together – and therein lies their mystery and their magic – once a story exists, it changes how we experience the world. And that will be the only test of “the new Grimm’s tale”, The Princess and the Fox – whether it will be retold and come to life in the telling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Ganz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Fairy stories come alive in the telling — and the retelling.
Adam Ganz, Reader Department of Media Arts, Royal Holloway University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/90131
2018-01-17T09:11:37Z
2018-01-17T09:11:37Z
#MeToo, Sleeping Beauty and the often controversial history of fairy tales
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202114/original/file-20180116-53317-15pv91j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Henry Meynell Rheam</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s one of the more bizarre episodes to have seen the light of day since the #MeToo movement got going late last year. In November 2017, the British newspaper <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/23/mother-calls-sleeping-beauty-banned-primary-school-promotes/">The Telegraph</a> reported that the mother of a schoolboy who had brought home a copy of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty was calling for the text to be banned. The reason she gave was that the heroine could not have consented to the kiss that released her from her enchanted sleep. </p>
<p>This news story emerged in the aftermath of the revelations of serial sexual harassment allegations against numerous Hollywood stars, generating the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/metoo?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Ehashtag">#MeToo</a> hashtag, with which millions of women worldwide shared their experiences of sexual molestation and objectification.</p>
<p>Yet despite the headline – “Mother calls for Sleeping Beauty to be banned” – when you actually read the piece it turns out that, in fact, the mother had suggested that rather than ban the story, the tale might be used as a starting point for discussing personal consent and bodily autonomy with children. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X1gutTERrkc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>This didn’t deter plenty of media outlets from jumping aboard the bandwagon – whether in support of the proposition that the fairy tale be banned or updated, or scoffing at the notion as needless censorship. And, of course, there was a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/sexist-sleeping-beauty-fairy-tales-may-need-updating-new-generation/">follow up</a> on the problems with other fairy tales.</p>
<h2>Small minds</h2>
<p>While fairy tales have existed for millennia as oral folktales, they first entered print in their recognisable form in the 17th century – and initially among the aristocracy. Over the subsequent 300 years or so, fairy tales have frequently been a source of controversy and ideological battle. </p>
<p>A cursory glance at only a few examples illustrates the variety of ways in which they have caused anxiety and consternation. The Neapolitan courtier, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giambattista-Basile">Giambattista Basile</a> first produced his collection of fairy tales (including Rapunzel and Cinderella) in 1634. A little later, the French académicien Charles Perrault published his <a href="http://www.pitt.edu/%7Edash/perrault.html">Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé</a> (1797), containing such prized tales as Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Blue Beard – and Sleeping Beauty. Written for an educated and urbane courtly readership, Perrault’s tales smuggle in risqué innuendo under the veil of moralism.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202115/original/file-20180116-53292-n3579o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202115/original/file-20180116-53292-n3579o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202115/original/file-20180116-53292-n3579o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202115/original/file-20180116-53292-n3579o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202115/original/file-20180116-53292-n3579o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202115/original/file-20180116-53292-n3579o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202115/original/file-20180116-53292-n3579o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202115/original/file-20180116-53292-n3579o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Little Red Riding Hood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gustav Dore (1864)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Britain, one of the first and most influential critics of fairy tales was the philosopher John Locke. In his seminal treatise <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/some-thoughts-concerning-education-by-john-locke">Some Thoughts Concerning Education</a> (1693), Locke cautioned parents against allowing servants to frighten their children with tales of “<a href="https://maskofreason.wordpress.com/the-book-of-mysteries/know-your-ghosts/europe/rawhead-and-bloody-bones/">Raw-Head and Bloody Bones</a>”. </p>
<p>As a Rationalist, Locke feared that peasant superstition would damage the healthy development of children. In this period, fairy tales in Britain were circulated in the rude tradition of “<a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/chapbooks">chapbooks</a>” (rough almanac prints sold by itinerant “chapmen”) and made little distinction between children and adult readers. </p>
<p>It was the pioneering publisher <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Newbery">John Newbery</a> (among others) who fused Locke’s respectable suspicion of rude chapbooks with an entrepreneurial appreciation of the potential market for children’s books. His <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/a-pretty-little-pocket-book">A Pretty Little Pocket-Book</a> (1744) cleverly replicated entertaining aspects of chapbooks – but shorn of their cruder elements in order to appease middle-class parents. This trend continued into the 19th century, when such celebrated authors and adaptors of fairy tales as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jan/18/theatre.classics">Hans Christian Andersen</a> and the brothers <a href="http://www.pitt.edu/%7Edash/censor.html">Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm</a>, all tailored and censored their writings to avoid causing upset.</p>
<h2>Culture police</h2>
<p>The Romantic generation of artists and writers venerated fairy tales for inspiring childhood fantasy and wonder and as texts that opposed the rationalism of the Enlightenment. But, in the wake of the French Revolution, political and literary culture came under immense scrutiny in Britain from a newly energised Conservative government and press. </p>
<p>With the increased <a href="http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/rom.2006.12.3.212">policing of culture</a> for signs of dangerous Jacobins and Democrats, conservative evangelical educationalists including <a href="http://abolition.e2bn.org/people_60.html">Hannah More</a> and <a href="https://18thcbritishchildrensliterature.weebly.com/sarah-trimmer.html">Sarah Trimmer</a> undertook the role of castigating children’s writers deemed politically and religiously seditious. One of their main targets was the anarchist philosopher – turned children’s publisher – <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Godwin">William Godwin</a> (the widower of the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the father of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein). In order to escape censure, Godwin often published anonymously, or under a series of comical pseudonyms, such as Theophilus Marcliffe.</p>
<p>Godwin was involved with many Romantic-era writers now considered illustrious, but who at the time were often obscure figures. Two of these friends – the poet William Wordsworth and the essayist Charles Lamb – Godwin endeavoured to involve in his publishing, with revealing controversies.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202117/original/file-20180116-53310-1f9eooj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202117/original/file-20180116-53310-1f9eooj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202117/original/file-20180116-53310-1f9eooj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202117/original/file-20180116-53310-1f9eooj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202117/original/file-20180116-53310-1f9eooj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202117/original/file-20180116-53310-1f9eooj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202117/original/file-20180116-53310-1f9eooj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202117/original/file-20180116-53310-1f9eooj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 19th-century depiction of Beauty and the Beast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walter Crane via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Charles Lamb and his sister Mary are best-known for their highly popular <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/26/tales-from-shakespeare-charles-and-mary-lamb-100-best-non-fiction-books">Tales from Shakespeare</a> (1807), which was published by Godwin. But when Godwin commissioned Charles to write an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey for children, the two got into an argument over Lamb’s initial refusal to tone down the gory scene in which the cyclops Polyphemus vomits the remains of Odysseus’ crewmen whom he had consumed. Godwin feared losing custom from a squeamish middle-class readership. </p>
<p>In 1811, Godwin wrote to Wordsworth – who had in youth briefly been his protégé – asking him to translate Beauty and the Beast from the French. Wordsworth’s cantankerous response is extraordinary (in part, he was irate for having to pay the postal fees). The poet responded to the philosopher that he could not bring himself to the task as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I confess there is to me something disgusting to me in the notion of a human Being consenting to mate with a Beast, however amiable his qualities of heart. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Wordsworth was, in middle age, moving increasingly towards Toryism, and his astonishing response may be interpreted as underlining his rejection of Godwin’s radicalism. It also seems to indicate Wordsworth’s growing religious conservatism, as he justifies his statement by quoting from the poet John Milton’s <a href="https://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Emilton/reading_room/pl/book_8/text.shtml">Paradise Lost</a> – describing Adam as set apart by God from animals: “Among the Beasts no mate for thee was found”.</p>
<p>Throughout their history, fairy tales have caused consternation and outrage among the religious and the secular, the progressive and the conservative, wrestling over what goes on in the minds of growing children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pete Newbon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The row over Sleeping Beauty is just the latest in a long history of controversy surrounding fairy tales for children.
Pete Newbon, Lecturer in Romantic and Victorian Literature, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87078
2017-11-23T19:12:47Z
2017-11-23T19:12:47Z
Friday essay: why grown-ups still need fairy tales
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194925/original/file-20171116-19845-16kf5ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C226%2C991%2C932&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Edmund Dulac's 1910 illustration of Sleeping Beauty</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For as long as we have been able to stand upright and speak, we have told stories. They explained the mysteries of the world: birth, death, the seasons, day and night. They were the origins of human creativity, expressed in words but also in pictures, as evidenced by the cave paintings of <a href="http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/chauvet/">Chauvet</a> (France) and <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journey-oldest-cave-paintings-world-180957685/">Maros</a> (Indonesia). On the walls of these caves, the paintings, which date back to around 30-40,000 BC, tell us <a href="https://faculty.gcsu.edu/custom-website/mary-magoulick/defmyth.htm">myths or sacred narratives</a> of the spirits of the land, the fauna of the regions, and humankind’s relationship to them.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194909/original/file-20171115-19782-1nt7r77.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194909/original/file-20171115-19782-1nt7r77.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194909/original/file-20171115-19782-1nt7r77.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194909/original/file-20171115-19782-1nt7r77.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194909/original/file-20171115-19782-1nt7r77.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194909/original/file-20171115-19782-1nt7r77.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194909/original/file-20171115-19782-1nt7r77.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194909/original/file-20171115-19782-1nt7r77.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A hyena painting found in the Chauvet cave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As humanity progressed, other types of stories developed. These were not concerned with the mysteries of the meaning of life but with everyday, domestic matters. While they were more mundane in the issues they explored, such tales were no less spectacular in their creativity and inclusion of the supernatural.</p>
<p>These smaller, everyday stories, combining the world of humans with fantastical creatures and seemingly impossible plots are now classified as <a href="http://www.syracusecityschools.com/tfiles/folder713/unit03-folk_tales_and_fairy_tales.pdf">fairy tales or folk tales</a>. Such tales, originating in pre-literate societies and told by the folk (or the average person), capture the hopes and dreams of humanity. They convey messages of overcoming adversity, rising from rags to riches, and the benefits of courage.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194931/original/file-20171116-19806-rvyk8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194931/original/file-20171116-19806-rvyk8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194931/original/file-20171116-19806-rvyk8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194931/original/file-20171116-19806-rvyk8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194931/original/file-20171116-19806-rvyk8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194931/original/file-20171116-19806-rvyk8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194931/original/file-20171116-19806-rvyk8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194931/original/file-20171116-19806-rvyk8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hansel and Gretel by Arthur Rackham.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fairy tales are also extremely moral in their demarcation between good and evil, right and wrong. Their justice references the ancient tradition of an eye for an eye, and their punishments are ruthless and complete. Originally for adults (sometimes for children), fairy tales can be brutal, violent, sexual and laden with taboo. When the earliest recorded versions were made by collectors such as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Brothers-Grimm">Brothers Grimm</a>, the adult content was maintained. But as time progressed and Christian morality intervened, the tales became diluted, child-friendly and more benign.</p>
<p>Despite these changes, it is apparent that fairy tales are still needed today, even for grown-ups. In an uncanny, sometimes inexplicable way, we consciously and unconsciously continue to tell them, despite advances in logic, science and technology. It’s as if there is something ingrained in us – something we cannot suppress – that compels us to interpret the world around us through the lens of such tales. And if we are not the tellers, we are the greedy consumers.</p>
<h2>‘Fairy tale’ princesses and ‘wicked witches’</h2>
<p>The 20th anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, for example, has been cast – like her life – as a fairy tale. Throughout the year, she has been commemorated in articles with headings such as “a <a href="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/a-troubled-fairy-tale-princess-diana-remembered-20-years-later/article36064254/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&">troubled fairy tale</a>”, “<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/beyond-the-diana-fairytale-the-royals-endure/news-story/3adbbfdf7656e8f71bd2ce66f9f57cbe">beyond a fairy tale</a>”, and “<a href="http://nationalpost.com/news/world/myth-princess-diana-had-a-wicked-stepmother-just-another-fairy-tale">just another fairy tale</a>”. While these articles have endeavoured to deconstruct the familiar narrative, they have not been entirely successful.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194929/original/file-20171116-19806-fbonru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194929/original/file-20171116-19806-fbonru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194929/original/file-20171116-19806-fbonru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194929/original/file-20171116-19806-fbonru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194929/original/file-20171116-19806-fbonru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194929/original/file-20171116-19806-fbonru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194929/original/file-20171116-19806-fbonru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194929/original/file-20171116-19806-fbonru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fairy tale wedding? Prince Frederik and Princess Mary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jerry Lampen/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The notion of a fairy tale princess has also characterised the coverage of Princess Mary of Denmark and Duchess Catherine of Cambridge. Even after 13 years of marriage, our own “Aussie princess” is described as living a fairy tale, evident in 2017 media stories with titles such as “Princess Mary and Prince Frederik’s fairy tale royal romance”. Likewise, Kate, once a commoner, now a princess, has featured in articles titled “<a href="https://www.aol.com/article/lifestyle/2017/08/08/prince-william-kate-middleton-love-story/23070764/">Prince William and Duchess Kate’s fairy-tale love story</a>” and “<a href="https://writeroyalty.com/kate-middleton-most-royal-fairy-tale-gown-to-date/">Kate’s Most Royal Fairy Tale Gown (To Date)</a>”. As the titles of some of these stories show, they also feature the mandatory prince charming (William), or the prince who is revealed to be not-so-charming after all (Charles). Others extend the fairy tale formula to include <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/aug/11/princess-dianas-wicked-stepmother-review-aka-why-di-never-stood-a-chance">wicked stepmothers</a> (Di’s real life stepmother) and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9707/17/fringe/diana.image/">wicked witches</a> (Camilla).</p>
<p>Is such recourse to fairy tales merely a media stunt to sell stories packaged in an easily consumable, gossip-laden snack box? Or do these articles reflect that deep-seated compulsion of ours to tell and, in turn, to listen to stories? The answers are “yes” and “yes”. But let’s forget the media’s role and look at the more interesting latter point.</p>
<p>Many fairy tales began thousands of years ago, the age depending on the tale itself. <a href="http://surlalunefairytales.com/beautybeast/index.html">Beauty and the Beast</a> has its origins in the story of <a href="http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-europe/ancient-fairy-tale-cupid-and-psyche-where-love-endures-against-all-odds-003393">Cupid and Psyche</a> from the Latin novel, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lucius-Apuleius">The Golden Ass</a>, from the second century AD.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194932/original/file-20171116-19836-akdte7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194932/original/file-20171116-19836-akdte7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194932/original/file-20171116-19836-akdte7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194932/original/file-20171116-19836-akdte7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194932/original/file-20171116-19836-akdte7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194932/original/file-20171116-19836-akdte7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194932/original/file-20171116-19836-akdte7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194932/original/file-20171116-19836-akdte7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacques-Louis David’s 1817 painting of Cupid and Psyche, the inspiration for Beauty and the Beast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this tale, the beautiful Psyche is visited at night by an invisible lover – hearing only a voice – whom she is led to believe is a monster. While recorded by the novelist, <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/apuleius/">Apuleius</a>, the story is almost certainly much older; perhaps having its origins in myth and ritual, and handed down by word of mouth.</p>
<p>The research of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/11/do-folktales-evolve-like-biological-species/281527/">Dr Jamie Tehrani</a> has unearthed an early date for <a href="http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/ridinghood/">Red Riding Hood</a>, which he has traced back to at least 2,000 years; not originating in Asia, as once believed, but most likely in Europe. Other tales studied by Tehrani have been dated to as early as <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35358487">6,000</a> years ago. </p>
<p>Fairy tales are excellent narratives with which to think through a range of human experiences: joy, disbelief, disappointment, fear, envy, disaster, greed, devastation, lust, and grief (just to name a few). They provide forms of expression to shed light not only on our own lives but on the lives beyond our own. And, contrary to the impression that fairy tales always end happily ever after, this is not the case - therein lies much of their power. </p>
<p>They helped our ancestors make sense of the unpredictability or randomness of life. They repeated familiar experiences of unfairness, misfortune, bad luck, and ill-treatment and sometimes showed us how courage, determination and ingenuity could be employed even by the most disempowered to change the course of events. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194922/original/file-20171116-19823-gvn4qk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194922/original/file-20171116-19823-gvn4qk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194922/original/file-20171116-19823-gvn4qk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194922/original/file-20171116-19823-gvn4qk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194922/original/file-20171116-19823-gvn4qk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194922/original/file-20171116-19823-gvn4qk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194922/original/file-20171116-19823-gvn4qk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194922/original/file-20171116-19823-gvn4qk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arthur Rackham’s Jack and the Beanstalk Giant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/jackbeanstalk/">Jack and the Beanstalk</a>, for example, tells how a chance encounter with a stranger (an old man who provides magic beans) can bring about terrible danger (meeting a giant) but also terrific good fortune (acquiring a hen that lays golden eggs). The tale also celebrates how a poor boy can make the most of an arbitrarily dangerous situation that could have gone either way - being eaten or becoming rich - through his bravery and his intellect.</p>
<p>Fairytales also celebrated unexpected good fortune and acts of kindness and heroism, thereby reinforcing – even restoring – our faith in humanity. As tales of the folk, they not only entertained, but reflected the turmoils and triumphs of the lower classes, and enabled them to fantasise about how the “other half” lived. </p>
<h2>Cinderella and social criticism</h2>
<p>But tales of kings, queens, princes and princesses - of which there are many - are not only a means of mental escape for the poor. They are also a means of social criticism. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194911/original/file-20171115-19782-jq86ns.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194911/original/file-20171115-19782-jq86ns.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194911/original/file-20171115-19782-jq86ns.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194911/original/file-20171115-19782-jq86ns.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194911/original/file-20171115-19782-jq86ns.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194911/original/file-20171115-19782-jq86ns.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194911/original/file-20171115-19782-jq86ns.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194911/original/file-20171115-19782-jq86ns.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">19th century engraving of Gustave Doré’s Cendrillon - Cinderella. From Dore’s 1864 edition of Stories or Fairy Tales from Past Times with Morals, originally published in 1697.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/cinderella/index.html">Cinderella</a>, as recorded by <a href="https://www.worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Perrault_fairy_tales.html">Charles Perrault</a>, the two stepsisters may have every material possession imaginable, but their cruelty renders them grotesque. And, of course, the lowly Cinderella triumphs. In the German version, <a href="http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/cinderella/stories/german.html">Aschenputtel</a>, recorded by the Brothers Grimm, the fate of the stepsisters is very different. Whereas Perrault’s version has the kindly Cinderella forgive them, the Grimms - clearly working from another tradition - describe how they have their eyes plucked out by pigeons! </p>
<p>Such stories of fantasising about a royal life and simultaneously despising it may have functioned as an emotional release similar to the ancient Greek experience of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/catharsis-criticism">catharsis</a> (the shedding of anxieties through watching outrageous tragedies and obscene comedies).</p>
<p>Taking the fascination with Diana’s life as a fairy tale, for example, we still employ the cathartic release of the genre to interrogate her and, for those of us so inclined, to find some meaning in the Di phenomenon. From the romantic courtship, to the wedding of the century and <a href="http://www.eonline.com/au/news/860008/the-epic-story-of-princess-diana-s-wedding-dress-3-months-25-feet-of-train-a-20-year-old-bride-and-a-fashion-legacy-for-the-ages">that dress</a>, to motherhood, glamour, betrayal, heartbreak, divorce, alienation and a new love cut short by an early death. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194913/original/file-20171115-19768-1mxw09e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194913/original/file-20171115-19768-1mxw09e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194913/original/file-20171115-19768-1mxw09e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194913/original/file-20171115-19768-1mxw09e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194913/original/file-20171115-19768-1mxw09e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194913/original/file-20171115-19768-1mxw09e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194913/original/file-20171115-19768-1mxw09e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194913/original/file-20171115-19768-1mxw09e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Diana on her wedding day in 1981.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mal Langsdon/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some, of course, have <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/diana-and-the-empire-of-phoney-emotion/20266#.Wf767GiCw2w">criticised</a> the warm, fuzzy emotionalism that has sprung from the fairy tale of Di’s life. If it is not to your liking, there are more robust tales with powerful messages of resistance and resilience. In tales such as <a href="http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/illustrations/hanselgretel/index.html">Hansel and Gretel</a> and <a href="http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/illustrations/donkeyskin/index.html">Donkeyskin</a>, the young protagonists are persecuted and abused by predators.</p>
<p>There is much to complain about in these tales from a politically correct or feminist perspective. They are violent and subversive: Gretel pushes a witch into an oven and in Perrault’s version of Donkeyskin, a king wishes to marry his daughter following the death of his wife. But they are more than narratives of abuse. They are also about courage and ingenuity on the part of the young survivors.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194924/original/file-20171116-19823-1n13kk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194924/original/file-20171116-19823-1n13kk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194924/original/file-20171116-19823-1n13kk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194924/original/file-20171116-19823-1n13kk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194924/original/file-20171116-19823-1n13kk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194924/original/file-20171116-19823-1n13kk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194924/original/file-20171116-19823-1n13kk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194924/original/file-20171116-19823-1n13kk0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miwa Yanagi, Gretel 2004, gelatin silver print.
Collection of the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Yoshiko Isshiki Office, Tokyo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Donkeyskin, variants of which are extant in English (<a href="http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/donkeyskin/stories/catskin.html">Catskin</a>) and German (<a href="http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/donkeyskin/stories/allfur.html">All-Kinds-Of-Fur</a>), champions the bravery and inherent goodness of the young heroine who dresses in the skin of a donkey and leaves the palace in order to escape her father’s desires. Her subsequent life as a servant, filthy, humiliated, reviled and renamed “Donkeyskin” by her fellow servants, never crushes her soul. </p>
<p>Within the fantasy and the convenient appearance of supernatural assistants or a romantic ending, both of which feature in Donkeyskin, these stories are powerful reminders that evil exists in the world in the form of human beings - but it is not definitive or unconquerable.</p>
<h2>Contemporary reworkings</h2>
<p>With the publication of the Grimms’ Children’s and Household Tales in 1812, artists and illustrators were the first interpreters of fairy tales. Visual responses have ranged from famous works by <a href="http://www.artpassions.net/dore/dore.html">Gustave Doré</a>, <a href="http://www.artpassions.net/rackham/rackham.html">Arthur Rackham</a> and <a href="http://www.artpassions.net/dulac/dulac.html">Edmund Dulac</a> to <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/cr-100369/maurice-sendak">Maurice Sendak</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2008/dec/19/booksforchildrenandteenagers">Jan Pieńkowski</a>.</p>
<p>More dissident responses have included the photographs of <a href="http://www.fallenprincesses.com/photos/">Dina Goldstein</a>, whose Fallen Princesses series (2007-2009) is an astute response to the Disney princess phenomenon of unattainable, debilitating images of femininity and romance in bowdlerised versions of the original tales. Here, Goldstein critiques the superficiality of the princess stereotype, reminding us that it is as facile for children as the Diana fairy tale dream is for adults. </p>
<p>Before Goldstein, photographer Sarah Moon also challenged the dilution of fairy tales in the modern west through her provocative (sometimes banned) interpretation of <a href="https://www.lensculture.com/books/5843-little-red-riding-hood">Little Red Riding Hood</a>. In this powerful rendition, Moon takes her child reader back to the original and raw meanings embedded in the tale through her exploration of the theme of the human predator in the symbolic guise of the wolf.</p>
<p>Moon’s decision to return to the terror and drama of the Grimms’ version is testimony to the need to challenge the dilution and contamination of the tales. Even the Grimms were guilty of adding and subtracting to the material, particularly when it came to the insertion of overt Christian morality. Equally if not more so, the <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Disneyfication">Disneyfication</a> of fairy tales has stripped them of the power and the pain to which Moon returns.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6MQq_jf_h5U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Writers and poets have also responded to the tales and, like Moon, have regularly sought to return them to their once formidable status. Women authors in particular have created powerful, sometimes heartbreaking – but always real and truthful – new versions. </p>
<p>Among the thousands of old tales in new clothes is the literature of second wave feminists, including the suite entitled <a href="https://letterpile.com/writing/The-Transformation-of-Anne-Sexton-The-Grimm-Complex">Transformations</a> (1971) by renegade poet Anne Sexton, who takes the domesticity of the original tales and mocks, ridicules, cherishes and – literally – transforms them. Angela Carter’s <a href="https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/an-introduction-to-the-bloody-chamber-and-other-stories">The Bloody Chamber</a> (1979), a magnificent collection of retellings of famous fairy tales, is full of female empowerment, sensuality and violence in a tour de force that both reinstates the potency of the stories and re-imagines them.</p>
<p>Novelist, poet and essayist, <a href="http://margaretatwood.ca/">Margaret Atwood</a> also transforms the originals. Her response to <a href="http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/armlessmaiden/index.html">The Girl Without Hands</a>, which tells the story of a young woman who agrees to sacrifice her hands in order to save her father from the devil, in a <a href="http://endicottstudio.typepad.com/poetrylist/girl-without-hands-by-margaret-atwood.html">poem</a> of the same name is a profound meditation on the continuation of both abuse and survival.</p>
<p>The fairy tales first preserved by collectors such as the Brothers Grimm - retold, bastardised, edited, annotated, banned and reclaimed - belong ultimately to the folk who first told them. And the folk continue to tell and retell them. Closer to home than the Black Forest, a new show at the The Ian Potter Museum of Art contains work by international and Australian artists, including Tracy Moffatt and Sally Smart. The show returns - once again - to fairy tales to express social concerns and anxieties surrounding issues such as the abuse of power, injustice and exploitation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194934/original/file-20171116-19799-bs21z8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194934/original/file-20171116-19799-bs21z8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194934/original/file-20171116-19799-bs21z8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194934/original/file-20171116-19799-bs21z8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194934/original/file-20171116-19799-bs21z8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194934/original/file-20171116-19799-bs21z8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194934/original/file-20171116-19799-bs21z8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194934/original/file-20171116-19799-bs21z8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dina Goldstein, Snowy 2008 from the Fallen Princess series.
digital photograph</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fairy tales are, indeed, good to think with, and their retellings shed light on cultural, societal and artistic movements. Both children and adults should read more fairy tales – both the original and the transformed versions, for they are one of our cultural touchstones. </p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.art-museum.unimelb.edu.au/exhibitions/future-exhibitions/exhib-date/2017-11-23/exhib/all-the-better-to-see-you-with-fairy-tales-transformed">All the better to see you with: Fairy tales transformed</a>, is on from Thursday 23 Nov 2017 to Sunday 4 Mar 2018 at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marguerite Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Fairy tales can be brutal, violent, sexual and laden with taboo. But they are are excellent narratives with which to think through a range of human experiences: from disappointment, and fear to envy and grief.
Marguerite Johnson, Professor of Classics, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/34537
2014-11-24T19:36:52Z
2014-11-24T19:36:52Z
Reader beware: the nasty new edition of the Brothers Grimm
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65346/original/image-20141124-19615-1v1y0wy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jacob and Wilhelm were Grimm, no question. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fairy tales have a tumultuous and fragile history. They originated as tales told by “folk”. They were passed down over generations to while away long winter nights, to provide entertainment at special occasions and for simple enjoyment.</p>
<p>Inevitably, as more people became literate and scholars began to record fairy tales, they were published. And then, with a wave of a magic wand, they entered the canon of European literature.</p>
<p>Scholar and editor <a href="http://www.tc.umn.edu/%7Ed-lena/Mythcon24%20Jack%20Zipes%20page.html">Jack Zipes</a> has long regarded this process of making literature from non-literary traditions as a process of sanitisation. The problem, as Zipes has explained, is that once fairy tales were recorded by scholars such as the brothers <a href="http://www.pitt.edu/%7Edash/grimm.html">Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm</a>, they became bourgeois, religious and moral with some of the naughtiest parts censored.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65175/original/image-20141121-10912-smheo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65175/original/image-20141121-10912-smheo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65175/original/image-20141121-10912-smheo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65175/original/image-20141121-10912-smheo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65175/original/image-20141121-10912-smheo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65175/original/image-20141121-10912-smheo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65175/original/image-20141121-10912-smheo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65175/original/image-20141121-10912-smheo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first edition of the Brothers Grimm fairytales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Zipes has long championed the restoration of fairy tales to their original form. This is a daunting task but it’s not entirely impossible. Traces of the violence, sex and taboo that characterised many tales are still in evidence in early editions of the Grimms’ Children’s and Household Tales (<em>Kinder- und Hausmärchen</em>).</p>
<p>The very first edition, published in German in 1812, is a strange beast in the literary history of fairy tales. </p>
<p>The Grimms originally produced a scholarly work to preserve the folk tales of the German people with a decidedly philological bent. Despite its title, the book was not intended for children to access independently. Unsurprisingly, neither it, nor the second volume released in 1815, was a bestseller. </p>
<p>But, as the brothers kept revising, re-editing and toning down the tales in subsequent editions, their fairy tales made them literary superstars – the J. K. Rowlings of the Romantic age – culminating in the famous, decidedly child-friendly 7th edition in 1857.</p>
<p>For more than 100 years, stories such as Cinderella and Snow White have delighted and enthralled children and adults alike. Censored in various translations based on the 1857 edition, retold in quaint picture books and made famous by Disney, these tales now bear little resemblance to the versions that appeared in the Grimms’ two-volume editions of 1812 and 1815.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65332/original/image-20141124-19627-1vdyk7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65332/original/image-20141124-19627-1vdyk7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65332/original/image-20141124-19627-1vdyk7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65332/original/image-20141124-19627-1vdyk7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65332/original/image-20141124-19627-1vdyk7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65332/original/image-20141124-19627-1vdyk7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65332/original/image-20141124-19627-1vdyk7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cinderella.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hermann_Vogel-Cinderella-1.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Zipes has now made major steps to revive the original tales recorded by the Brothers Grimm before they felt the pressure to sanitise and prettify their once gritty tales of wounded children, violent heroes and sensual heroines. </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/TOCs/c10300.html">Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition</a>, Zipes has produced the inaugural English translation of the two original volumes in a gutsy, robust style – warts-and-all.</p>
<p>Children, parents and teachers BEWARE!</p>
<p>English readers will be treated to some juicy gossip, such as the scoop on the sexual escapades of Rapunzel and the Prince and the inside story on the real identity of Snow White’s mother. Additionally, there’s a series of tabloid tales, likely unfamiliar to most readers. Read the collection and you’ll discover why.</p>
<p>So, is Zipes’ translation suitable for children? For that matter, are fairy tales in any shape or form suitable for modern kids? Such questions have dominated debates on pedagogies and parenting for decades. </p>
<p>With the rise of second wave feminism in the 1970s, some women argued for the replacement of fairy tales with stories depicting emancipated heroines rather than victimised and passive ones. Likewise, educators and parents have flinched at the violence in some tales and have banished those dealing with incest, abandonment and starvation.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65329/original/image-20141124-19621-11vr1us.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65329/original/image-20141124-19621-11vr1us.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65329/original/image-20141124-19621-11vr1us.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65329/original/image-20141124-19621-11vr1us.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65329/original/image-20141124-19621-11vr1us.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65329/original/image-20141124-19621-11vr1us.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65329/original/image-20141124-19621-11vr1us.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arthur Rackham Snow White.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arthur_Rackham_Snow_White.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But others are against the censorship of fairy tales. While the tales were originally meant for adults, children would have also heard them from time-to-time – either intentionally, by accident or through adult indifference. </p>
<p>In view of this reality, the pro-fairy tale contingent sometimes argues that what was acceptable for kids hundreds of years ago, should be acceptable today. </p>
<p>There is also the argument that children of the noughties are over-protected and thereby unprepared for the “real world” or the online world; a problem that could be rectified by exposing them to the unexpurgated Brothers Grimm. </p>
<p>It’s also argued that they also offer children hope as well as a championing the qualities of perseverance and bravery. As Zipes <a href="http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/2008/06/29/jack-zipes-fairy-tales/">argues</a>: “At their best, the storytelling of fairy tales constitute the most profound articulation of the human struggle to form and maintain a civilizing process.”</p>
<p>More extreme and controversial advocates of fairy tales include the now infamous <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/63547/Bruno-Bettelheim">Bruno Bettelheim</a>. A therapist who treated children using unconventional and allegedly dangerous methods, Bettelheim was a proponent of the benefits of using fairy tales in his therapy sessions. </p>
<p>While his well-known, Freudian-inspired work, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/444388.The_Uses_of_Enchantment">The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales</a> (1976) is quirky, it does put forward some interesting ideas on the use of such narratives in workshopping fears in safe, symbolic ways as well as opening up dialogues on mechanisms to overcome adult oppression and abuse. </p>
<p>But Bettelheim, it seems, did more harm than good and <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2003/feb/27/the-strange-case-of-dr-b/">his legacy is tainted by allegations of abuse</a>. But surely the fault should not be placed at the feet of poor old Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.</p>
<p>I suggest a cautious middle-road. Then, perhaps some of the more hair-raising tales could be shared with kids – but under the tutelage of sensible adults.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34537/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marguerite Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Fairy tales have a tumultuous and fragile history. They originated as tales told by “folk”. They were passed down over generations to while away long winter nights, to provide entertainment at special…
Marguerite Johnson, Associate Professor in Ancient History and Classical Languages, University of Newcastle
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