Animal Characters Children's Literature

The Complex Role of Animal Characters

Animal characters are a fundamental component of fairy tales that are often representative and associated with a particular personification of human characteristics such as bravery or cunningness that are internalized by these characters. However, these animal characters also serve multiple different purposes within these literary works through complex and surprising functions that may not always be clearly seen.  The frog is the only animal character present in the fairy tale, “The Frog Prince,” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and is seen to serve his own multiple functions throughout the literary work; such as his ability to establish seemingly simple yet complex ideological morals, providing an establishment of hierarchy and providing an insight to internalized human characteristics. These elements add to the narrative to create a dynamic text that actively engages the reader.

Simple morals can become increasingly complex and reflect human characteristics that impact them. The frog is initially introduced as a grotesque individual that progresses throughout the story to represent certain overarching and ideological morals that appear obvious but through further analysis these morals become less clear and more complex. The frog does not seem to personally wish to impart these morals upon reader himself because even though these morals come as a result of his actions, it was not his intention.  When the frog initially agrees to retrieve the princess’ ball in return for her love, there is an established promise that needs to be upheld which the princess does not keep when she runs away and the frog calls after her, “Stay, princess, and take me with you as you promised” (241). This shows how vain the princess is and how she does not value her word to the frog as she considers herself superior. The consequence of this is that the frog returns as a reminder of what she has done by showing up at her door step. This frightens her and shows her that the frog is capable of doing things that she thought were not possible and unexpected, for he was able to retrieve her ball for her and get out of the spring. The king is the one who evokes the moral that if “you have made a promise, you must keep it” once he finds out the princess broke her promise by running away (242). This is a moral widely accepted by society as the right thing to do and seems to be a simple enough but upon further speculation the promise that was made was a strange one that requires a repulsive looking creature such as the frog to invade her personal space by entering her bedroom and sleeping next to her, as well as eat from the same plate as her. Although the princess does not wish to do so, she upholds these conditions because she was told to. This invites the reader to question the nature of promises that should be kept as well as the level of sincerity required to keep a promise, since this invasion of space is unsettling especially by a stranger.  The frog also had the princess promise to love him which is an unrealistic expectation that cannot occur simply by promising to do so. The deal the frog makes is representative of his own selfishness in terms of his almost blackmailing of the princess because he knows that she values the ball and only offers to retrieve it to benefit himself. Therefore the frog is shown to have internalized human traits that are uncomfortable to address and seemingly simple morals have complexities built into them that question the ideological views of society.