Animal Imagery In Fairy Tales

The tradition of telling fairy tales to children effects not only the listener but also the reader. Maria Tatar, in her book Off with Their Heads!, analyzes how fairy tales instill and reaffirm cultural values and expectations in their audience . Tatar proposes that fairy tales fall into three different tale-types: cautionary tales, exemplary stories, and reward- and- punishment tales. These three types portray different character traits as desirable and undesirable. Due to the tale’s varying literary methods it can change the effectiveness of the tale’s pedagogical value. In Tatar’s opinion, all of these tales are similar in the way they attempt to use punishment, reward, and fear to encourage or discourage certain behaviors. In the cautionary fairy tale “The Virgin Mary’s Child”, the use of punishment and fear to discourage certain behaviors is enhanced by the Christian motifs and values employed by the tale. These literary devices encourage the audience to reflect on and internalize the lessons that are presented in the fairy tale.

People have always watched fairytales at a very young age, growing up to believe in them. Some watched them to obtain some kind illusion, for pure entertainment, and others for the sake of love. However, not every fairytale has a purpose of giving us an illusion, of entertaining us, or making us believe in love. Shrek is not a typical fairytale. Even though many people see Shrek along with other fairytales as any other movie created for entertainment, it is a satirical critique of the archetypes involved in a fairytale. While in many fairytales we have a knight, a damsel in distress, a partner, and a villain, Shrek changes

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Lais of Marie de France, the authors use animals as metaphors for human actions, and as characters. By analyzing the use of these animals, we are able to explore the meaning the authors were trying to communicate through specific scenes. The Book of Beasts, a translation by T.H. White (1984 ed.), provides a medieval standpoint when analyzing the use of animals in the Lais and in Gawain.

An animal is any “living organism other than a human being” (OED). When the definition of animals directly divides them from humankind, examples of half-human, half-animal creatures are meaningful yet complicated symbols. A Midsummer Night’s Dream plays with the mystical and supernatural by frequently breaking down the barriers between animals and humans. Fairies are neither human nor animal, and they live in a world, Fairyland, which is separate from and invisible to humans. Considering the definition of animal is anything that is not human, the world of fae is unconsciously rooted in animalistic imagery. This world is also home to other half-human creatures such as satyrs, centaurs, nymphs, mermaids and sprites. A Midsummer Night’s Dream thus highlights and breaks down the barriers between the human and non-human world, and with seemingly little purpose. This essay will analyze the use of animal imagery, particularly through the donkey and serpent, to argue that animal imagery intensifies the emotions of the play, from exaggerating comedic elements to accentuating the dark and nightmarish aspects of Fairyland.

To survive a tragedy such as the Holocaust, one must leave all morals behind and release the animal within them. In novels Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, by Art Spiegelman, and Night, by Elie Wiesel, both authors use literary devices to exemplify animalistic attributes found within the story. Elie Wiesel uses animal imagery to describe the characters in the novel, Night as opposed to Spiegelman, who uses animal metaphor to represent characters in the graphic novel, Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began. Both novels have their unique ways of symbolizing animals, however, Night is much more effective than its counterpart, Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began. In Night, Elie Wiesel utilizes animal imagery to convey the theme

Folktales are a way to represent situations analyzing different prospects about gender, through the stories that contribute with the reality of the culture in which they develop while these provide ideas about the behavior and roles of a specific sex building a culture of womanhood, manhood and childhood. This is what the stories of Little Red Riding Hood of Charles Perrault (1697) and Little Red-Cap of the Grimm Brothers (1812) show. This essay will describe some ideas about gender in different ways. First, the use of symbolic characters allows getting general ideas about the environment in the society rather than individuals. Second, it is possible to identify ideas about gender from the plot from the applied vocabulary providing a

Cowhig, Ruth. "Blacks in English Renaissance Drama and the Role of Shakespeare's 'Othello'." Shakespeare for Students: Critical Interpretations of Shakespeare's Plays and Poetry, edited by Mark W. Scott, Gale, 1992. Student Resources in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ2126700032/SUIC?u=dove10524&xid=714df15e. Accessed 21 Mar. 2018.

Given that his stance on the ownership of fairy tales is strikingly different from the prevalent, popular opinion that “establishes fairy tales as national property”(355) or is “thought to reach back like sacred works”(353), by positioning his own belief of “Individual Ownership of Fairy Tales”(362) towards his conclusion, Haase gains a terrific advantage in being able to persuade the reader, since the alternatives, “Revered Place of Folklore”(353), “The Nationalistic View of Folklore”(354), “Vessels of purportedly universal human truths”(358), have all been rendered sufficiently unsound. Had Haase not used this particular stratagem, he would have opened up his essay to a lot of speculation, skepticism, assumptions and even repudiation. If he were to present his case differently, say chronologically tracking the ideas of ownership throughout history, it would be interesting to see whether the inference that a reader drew from the essay or his ultimate acceptance of Haase’s view would be entirely so straightforward. He is also completely humorless while writing about fairytales, failing to inculcate wit, sarcasm, quips, lively phrases, or even scholarly badinage, in any shape or form, which is a rather curious departure from the amusing perception of the subject at hand. This, however,

Fairytales, arguably some of the most historical forms of literature, have remained popular throughout the decades. Tales such as “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Frog King” and “The Swan Maiden,” were originally written between the mid-eighteenth century and mid-nineteenth century. Whether it is the fanciful love-story or the magical transformation which attracts and has kept attention throughout the decades, fairytales, specifically those in which either the protagonist or antagonist undergoes a physical change, teach an important lesson to readers. In this day and age, the media has put so much pressure on particularly young women to look a certain way; what seems to be missing is the idea that physical beauty does not necessarily parallel inner beauty. The theme of transformation in many fairytales serves to portray certain truths about

Fairy tales are timeless entities that will always be relevant in people’s lives. Fairy tales and stories offer entertainment, advice, and moral examples. The creation of fairy tales is important in the development of social norms. Children everywhere would read fairy tales and learn from them. As a result, these fairy tales are translated into multiple languages and allows people with different backgrounds to understand and relate to the story. People take these stories and adapt them to life around them. Within these adaptations of the same story, it is normal to observe slight differences that contribute as evidence in identifying the culture or societies in which these stories come from. Whether it is the slang of the dialogue or the change of location, modern producers and writers are known to take these classic stories and adding a significant twist to adjust to their cultural agenda. The movie, The Princess and the Frog, is a modern example of writers and directors creating a modern twist to the popular story of the Brother Grimm’s The Frog King. The Princess and the Frog and The Frog King both encode the mores, values, and beliefs of the cultures of the societies from which they come because, even though they both have similar plot ideas, the differences of the location and the differences of the overall specific plotlines attribute to understanding how their own specific cultures influence the adaptation and the actual story.

However, few realize that there are many communal ideas imbedded in the plots that often go unrecognized. Fairy tales, more often than not, highlight a multitude of social aspects which might seem inappropriate for children. Constantly evolving, fairy tales, as indicated by Yolen and Zipes, illustrate the sexist views of the dominating class, the societal beliefs as they change throughout history as well as the community’s values especially during crisis.

In fairy tales, female characters are objects, and their value centers around their attractiveness to men. Since fairy tales rely on cultural values and societal norms to teach morals or lessons, it is evident that fairy tales define a woman’s value in a superficial way. Fairy tales teach that, typically, beauty equates to being valuable to men because of their fertility and purity; whereas, ugliness equates to being worthless and evil, including being ruined because of their lack of virginity. Descriptions readers see from fairy tales like “Rapunzel,” and “Little Snow-White” revolve around the women’s, or girl’s, physical appearance, and both stories play out to where the women remain in a state of objectification. In addition, they are damsels

When imaging the ideal audience of fairytales, children are quick to come to mind, although, our perception of Little Red Riding Hood as an innocent fable is far from the truth. Alternatively, the origins of this story are derived from Italo Calvino’s “The False Grandmother”, a story immersed in symbolism and metaphorical symbols intended strictly for a mature audience. The preceding tale was “Little Red Cap “written by Charles Perrault and then later the “Little Red Riding” written by the Brothers Grimm. Although the details of these tales vary, they all maintain similar storylines. The stories revolve around the young female character Little Red Riding Hood who is sent off on a mission to bring her grandmother a basket of goods. During her adventure she encounters a wolf who engages in a hot pursuit to eat both the Grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood, only to succeed in the earlier rendition of the story. In this essay I will prove that when the Grimm’s Brothers and Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood stories are critically analyzed, it becomes evident that they are inappropriate tales for children as they exemplify the consequences of a minor transgression by Little Red Riding Hood as being the misleading cause of the violence and seduction that occurs thereafter.

Classic literature will always be remembered and retold over the generations as life lessons and morals that we try to live by. These morals are often used to help children learn these guiding values and morals. These lessons are presented to us as fairy tales and movies or cartoons for children. We never realize or ponder, “where did that moral come from?” or should I say, “who originally created this fable and life lesson that I am watching unfold in a Disney movie?” A fable is short and witty written piece and is deeply riddled with certain messages or lessons using, but not limited to, tales of animals. Fables were for adults but through time have been woven into everyone’s’ childhood. Fables, ghost stories, and urban legends are modern day fairytales or fables. Just as “The Grasshopper and The Ant” and “Tortoise and the Hare” were spread by oral tradition, urban legends and morals are spread in the same manner; thus creating contemporary folklore often with a moral sting in the tail. While it’s true that urban legends are still told while sipping hot chocolate and roasting marshmallows at a campfire, others are spread through classics movies like Walt Disney animation.

In conclusion, the animal imagery employed in Othello and Maus highlights how racial stereotypes create imbalances. Iago’s abuse of the power of these racial labels conveys his desire to influence Othello and to seek revenge, while ironically hinting at the black stereotypes that reside within Iago himself as a white man. Spiegelman’s unique approach to the Holocaust uses animal depictions in Maus, which sheds light on the inhumanity of many Nazis and the way in which they set out to achieve total power. In both texts, the reduction of man to an animal conveys how racism can cast barriers that allows on force to dominate other and this is the reason why Othello and Maus are destined to transcend their stage and time respectively.