Fairy Tales Retold - Culture's Influence

Stephanie Sheppard

Dr. John Geck

English 1080

2 December 2016

Fairy Tales Retold: Culture’s Influence

        Culture is known as the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group. It has an enormous impact on the lives of human beings; Whether it be their accents, behaviors, interests, what they read, or what they do for entertainment. If culture is so powerful, and has an influence on virtually everything we see, read, think, and do; Then how does it affect the way we retell or interpret fairy tales? In order to determine the culture’s true effect on retellings, we can implement a process of analysis which must first look into how fairy tales are created and the key components that go into the generic fairy tale, such as the protagonist, antagonist, plot, setting and theme. Next, it’s imperative we conclude how culture could influence these components, then analyze how and why fairy tales affect people and how cultural similarities could increase the emotional response to the story. Once this process has been employed, one only has to make comparisons between similar fairy tales around the world and from both ancient and modern texts to prove the influence of culture on the retellings of fairy tales.

        According to Jack Zipes in The Changing Function of the Fairy Tale, fairy tales are “like musical compositions except that the letters constitute words and are chosen individually to enunciate the speaker/writer’s position in the world, including his or her dreams, needs, wishes, and experience.” He notes how during the inception of the fairy tale, they distinguished themselves from oral folk tales, creating their own genre with certain expectations and qualifications, including their own unique “conventions, motifs, topoi, characters and plots.” Specifically, phrases such as “once upon a time” and “happily ever after” are almost a staple in most traditional fairy tales. Looking at some of the most popular fairy tales such as Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and Hansel and Gretel, they all contain similar elements and storylines such as mythical creatures or animals that talk, human protagonists, an evil/wicked antagonist, a task, and most importantly, a happy ending. These components as well as others seem to repeat themselves in most fairytales, making up the unique aspects of the fairy tales Zipes was referencing. This concludes that the genre of fairy tales can be broken down into a list of predictable scenarios (eg. “The protagonist is confronted with an interdiction or prohibition which he or she violates in some way” (Zipes, 10)) that all follow a simple principle that the good guys win in the end. Retellings of fairy tales often take individual or several components, such as plot, character, and setting, and change them. For example, Disney’s retellings of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White were all adapted from previous tales by authors Charles Perrault, and the Brothers Grimm. In order to help the fairy tales be more age appropriate for children, certain components such as the addition of a fairy godmother in Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty being awoken by a kiss instead of by the birth of her child were implemented. This is an example of culture being an influence on fairy tales in that dark stories are no longer seen as fitting for children to read and were adapted to fit that time and place’s societal norms.