Pinocchio; a Story for Children

Fairy tales have existed for years, some starting as oral stories for decades before ever being recorded on paper. These tales continue to hold an importance in the present such that they reflect the changes in time and progression of thought and ideas. Over time, many fairy tales are retold for various reasons including reforming them to be used for new audiences to make the story more relatable or to convey a different point of view to various specific audiences. This can be seen in various renditions; Andrew Anderson’s Shrek can be compared to Steig’s “Shrek!” and Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty in the Wood” and evaluated as a retelling of either based on specific criteria. Although some may argue that William Steig’s “Shrek!” appears more closely similar to Anderson’s Shrek, as evaluated from the presence of similar characters, general plot structure, and targeted audience, the movie Shrek is more closely a retelling of Charles Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.”

Our culture is full of fairy tales. Girls are taught at a young age about Prince Charming and happy endings while boys are taught to be the girls’ heroes. They are taught these dreams and desires through fairytales and movies. These fairy tales started out as entertaining stories, but as they were handed down from one generation to the next, they slowly became more than that. They became bedtime stories for children, and as such, they have great importance because they teach children how to be in the world. One such fairy tale I want to focus on is Cinderella.

The Disney version of the story, Cinderella, illustrates a different moral than that of the original story. This story believes an ideal child should do what they are told and follow directions and in the end they will reap the rewards. In this story, Cinderella’s mother dies and her father remarries to a woman who has two daughters. While the daughters are pampered, Cinderella must work to keep the house from falling into disrepair. She befriends the animals and they help her to get ready to go to the ball by finishing her chores and making her a dress. When the evil stepsisters discover the dress they become furious because the mice used trimming from their clothing when making the dress. In revenge, the stepsisters rip the dress, leaving Cinderella out of options and out of hope. Just as Cinderella is about to give up, her fairy godmother appears and with a wave of magic creates a dress and turns a pumpkin and the mice into a horse and carriage. The only problem is that everything will turn back to what it was beforehand at midnight. Cinderella and the Prince fall in love at the ball but she must quickly leave because the

The central focus of this unit is to identify the elements of stories and how their themes may relate to each other in a variety of ways. Students will be guided in a variety of comparison and contrasting activities in order to gain understanding of main ideas, characters, and cultural themes across similar fairy tales from different cultures. This unit focuses on three different versions of Cinderella from different cultures. I chose to focus on the common elements of the fairy tales and the cultural differences because this was something the students were struggling with previously.

The novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, tells the heartbreaking tale of a woman in the middle-east, the hardships she must face, and the various social dynamics she encounters. The film Pinocchio is mentioned or alluded to in the beginning and in the end of the novel. The classic 1940's film, Pinocchio, details the adventures of a wooden puppet, the creation of an old and lonely woodworker, for whom the film is titled after who is turned into a "real boy" by a magical fairy. Pinocchio must prove his worth in order to fully transition into a human child. Unfortunately, he is often led astray by his habitual lying, at which point his nose grows, and when he is taken to Pleasure Island, a land filled with mischievous and immoral young boys, by a manipulative man. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, the film Pinocchio is symbolic of the main character, Mariam, and her father's relationship, and it also serves as a milestone to mark the beginning and end of this touching narrative.

The Grimm Brothers version of Cinderella is a written down oral story that people passed down from generation to generation, meant to teach a lesson about piety and good behavior. Before the Grimm Brothers ever wrote it down, the story had been told several times by memory. It is thus not surprising that the descriptions of certain events in the story, such as the way Cinderella went to the Ball, are lacking in details. It is obvious that these parts of the story are unimportant to the overall message of the story. Instead, it focuses on the piety of Cinderella and the wickedness of the step-sisters. Through the events of the story, it becomes obvious that the goodness of Cinderella is justly rewarded, and that

This modern fairy tale contains diverse characters but none of them are as important as the grandmother. In fact, through her narration the reader gets the basic

Perhaps, the reasons these films are so popular and influential to children is simply because their focus is directed distinctively towards them. Each character in Disney films possesses a distinct personality wherein children who watches these films may tend to characterize themselves as the character also.

There are many awe-inspiring people in this book, but there are five main characters who truly affect what happens. First, there is Lizzie Hatter, daughter of the Queen of Hearts. She tries to become a person of high enough caliber to someday take her mother’s position, even though her attempts at this cause her to feel lonely and awkward. These problems make her a very riveting character to read about. Then, there is Pinocchio's daughter, Cedar Wood, who is a puppet whose honesty is compulsive and physical feelings are imaginary. Because no one will share secrets with her for fear she will have to be honest and tell them to someone else, she often feels awkward and lonely. She is very discomposed in all social settings, and I feel that this is something almost all readers can relate to. The next main character is Maddie Hatter, and she is a paragon. As the daughter of the Mad Hatter, she is a jocular, zany character who has an ability to hear the Narrator. Despite her lack of logic, she has a fun point of view that is delightful to all readers. The last of our fearless, yet often fearful foursome, is Kittie Cheshire; she is the Chesire Cat’s daughter. As for the role she plays in the development in this novel, she is gratuitous. Also, there’s the Jabberwocky. It is a beast originating in Wonderland, with flaming eyes and sharp jaws and

“The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Andersen is one of the worlds most cherished fairy tales. Through the years, this story has inspired its fair share of different adaptations and spinoffs, as well as intertwined itself in popular culture. Although it is widely considered a children’s story today, upon close examination, we can find various elements of literary devices and themes, all of which provide the seasoned reader with a deep connection to the story. To honor the tradition of story-telling, it is essential that a short summary of the story be given.

Grimm’s fairy tale is very very very basic, it gives a small paragraph of a young princess who drops her golden ball into a very deep well. While she is sitting and crying a small frog comes along and tells the young princess that if she takes care of him and loves him then he will retrieve her beloved ball. She agrees and he does so, but when he comes up with the ball she takes off running back to her castle. Later that night the princess and her father are eating at the grand table when there is a knock on the door, the princess runs over and too her surprise it’s the frog explaining that he got her ball for her so she must take care of him, she slams the door in his face and runs back to her table so he yells out and he father hears him and demands of the princess that she must take care of him. Mad and upset she

It tells the story of Princess Aurora, King Florestan's daughter. The fairies have been invited to Aurora's christening, and each one in turn dances and gives a magic present. However, the wicked fairy, Carabosse, interrupts the ceremony and is furious that she wasn't invited. She announces

In the beginning, just as many films begin, we open the story. This simple action helps the audience literally envision the beginning, the opening, the first page of a story. This makes the film more personable, as if we were reading the book with a family member before going to bed. In the timeline, we would call this the exposition in which happiness and no opposing forces have occurred yet. Pinocchio is still a wooden puppet and we are introduced to the characters of the film. What I find is interesting is that Even from the beginning, Pinocchio was the closest to human out of all the toys and wooden clocks in the

Pinocchio is one of the most celebrated works in Italian literature. It was written by Carlo Lorenzi in 1883. Like many other writers in Italy at that time he wrote it under a pseudonym Carlo Collodi.

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.