Upon taking this course, I’ve discovered that fairy tales are a relevant part of our world, and how much they really matter. Reading works from the different fairy tale theorists and writers really put into perspective for me how relevant storytelling and fairytales are. The many different approaches to fairy tales and what they mean and how they’ve evolved, and exploring different works by people like the Brothers Grimm and Perrault showed me how complex and meaningful fairytales are. Based on my own childhood experiences, fairy tales were a key way to stimulate my imagination by diving into fictional worlds and realities that these tales painted. They showed me many morals and characters who I strove to be like. They taught me right from wrong. Fairy tales factor into our lives in so many ways. They’re the building blocks for children navigating this world, and they are key tools for care givers to provide this aid for the next generation of future adults.
A theorist that helped me better understand fairy tales, and who happened to be my favorite, was Bruno Bettelheim. He takes a psychology oriented stance upon evaluating fairy tales, specifically Freud’s psychoanalytic approach which I’m already very familiar with, as a psychology major. His explanations such as: fairytales help children reach their maturity by helping them understand and face their subconscious thoughts and desires really helped me put in perspective how much psychology is important in fairy tales. I had never thought about fairy tales this deeply until Bettelheim’s writing connected my knowledge of psychology to these stories.
Something I learned that surprised me was just how many different interpretations of fairy tales there really are. Going into the course, I was fairly knowledgeable about the Brothers Grimm and the movie adaptation of the tales but was astonished to read and learn about just how many other interpretations there are. This is also the same for the various illustrations we looked at throughout, assessing how arts for the tales evolved with each adaptation of the tale, it’s so shocking to see there’s a whole world of fairy tales to be explored. The one thing that really put this into perspective for me was Darnton’s tracing of the famous fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood in his article, “Peasants Tell Tales” that we went over. He literally goes through a line of people who told the tale, and who got it from who, the accounts of Little Red varying from writer to writer as we see the tale evolve. This is what fascinated me the most.
What interested me the most about our topic was how similar themes are seen throughout the majority of fairy tales. Upon learning and reading about the different fairy tales, we see many similar themes throughout including, the girl being saved by a man or prince, a physical transformation, or the focus on beauty, inside and out. It was interesting to me that we saw the same themes re-iterated throughout many tales, to me, this is to really drive home right and wrong to children. Focusing on the girl having to be saved by a man it really interested me how it was never the opposite and these gender roles were universal for all tales. It would be interesting to see one of these classic tales with a spin on these roles, where the girl saves herself or even the girl saves the guy.
Lastly, I’d like to brush upon something we didn’t fully miss, but something I wished we focused more upon. I wish we focused more upon the fairy tales themselves more, reading more like ones we missed such as, “The Little Mermaid” rather than primarily focusing on the theorists and writers. Though the articles we read were very important and thought-provoking, the fairy tales themselves caught my attention, especially with reading them in class which was very endearing and fun to me. Though, I don’t think we’d be able to fully understand the weight and importance of fairy tales without reading the articles we read, so for classes in the future I would love more of a balance between the two! Thanks for a great semester, I really enjoyed this class!
