BRIEF HISTORY OF FAIRY TALES
Since the beginning of humankind, stories have been passed down orally from generation to generation {oral history/story-telling}. Many stories were created to explain forces of nature, create a sense of community, carry on the wisdom of the culture, lessons to become a good member of society and for sheer entertainment.
Fairytales were actually created years and years ago. For example, some versions of the classic tale ‘Cinderella’ go back to the year 2000 B.C. passed down by word-of-mouth from one generation to the next. As time passed, so did the story. The original stories would have held valuable information about the way people lived, their beliefs, language, philosophies, dance, art, music, traditions and customs {culture}.
Around the 17th c, people began to record these oral fairy tales. The most famous writer of the time, Charles Perrault, came from France. Children at this time were considered no different than adults. Therefore, these fairy tales were really not written for children but adults, and original versions included a great deal of gore and violence. He was also the first author that began to define male and female roles (gender roles). For example, in many of his fairy tale versions, it was the sole goal of the female to marry the wealthy handsome prince. He wrote this way because around the late 1600’s, women were supposed to depend on males to support them and obey them in all matters.
Around the 1800’s, the Grimm brothers first started to write fairy tales because of financial reasons. They observed that society was changing and how the world was looking at children was also changing. Children were no longer being considered little adults. Society started to think that children needed to be treated with more care and thought. Therefore, the Grimm brothers revised their stories to instruct children about life lessons, and amuse them. The Grimm stories began to have happier endings.
Today, Disney versions of these classic tales look a great deal different than they would have even one hundred years old. As in the original versions where story lines reflected the time period, modern-day versions reflect the 21st century.
Amazingly, countries as far awayas Egypt, China, Korea, Siberia, and Vietnamrecorded similar versions of stories. One thing is evident; people throughout the world prefer stories in which truth prevails over deception, generosity is ultimately rewarded, hard work overcomes obstacles, and love, mercy and kindness are the greatest powers of all {good wins over evil}.
However, what other lessons are young boys and girls learning from these tales? This unit will briefly explore what we need to think about when reading these stories or any written information