The Evolution of Fairy Tales and How They Will Last
By Patrick Lucas
Fairy tales are an ever changing type of story that will stay for a long time. The more a single story is told, the more minor changes are made. As these minor changes happen, over a long time, the story will change into a totally different one featuring only the same main plot points. When these fairy tales first appeared the changes were because of oral tradition. Oral tradition is when a story is told by word of mouth as opposed to being written down or communicated in some other form. It was used for a long time and fairytales and folktales would be told instead of read. According to Jan Vansina, any story passed along this way with time, will transform due to “failure of memory.”(40) Storytellers will not remember certain parts or they will erase and add their own parts to the story which leads to many different versions. This also allows stories to have a myriad of authors as well. These changes help the stories to change and conform to the public. Today, movie adaptations feature outlandish differences to the fairy tales told a long time ago. All these differences can be seen quite easily in Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Snow White. The changes and differences help the tales evolve to fit the public’s needs.
The story of Little Red Riding Hood’s history is an interesting one. The story is told on every continent and in every major language (Orenstein 3). In the earliest written version of this tale Red Riding Hood strips off her clothes, gets into bed with the wolf, and dies. This is quite obviously a lot different than the story told today where she keeps them on and is later saved by a woodsman. All versions feature some sort of moral. For this early version, it was to teach women that men can be immoral. Later on the moral will shift to the opposite of this. When the woodsman is introduced in order to save her at the end of the story, the moral switches into a more positive one. Good men can save a woman from one of these immoral men. In one of the versions entitled Little Red Cap, the main character encounters a second wolf on the road and goes on her way without talking to him because she learned her lesson. The wolf later pretends to be Little Red Cap to the grandmother. Unbeknownst to the wolf, Red Cap was already inside her grandmother’s house. They lured the wolf to a trough using the smell of sausages and he drowned himself.
Cinderella is one of the oldest fairy tales ever told. It started as the Greek tale of Rhodopis, a slave girl who married the king of Egypt. Over time this story changed and then the Grimm brothers were introduced to offer a significantly different view. In their version she is known as “Ash Girl,” and instead of a fairy god mother, she has a magical tree that gives her whatever she needs such as the ball gown and her golden slippers (Dundes 26). These golden slippers are made of different materials in many different versions of the story. The slippers actually started as fur which in French is “vair.” Is it possible that the reason children today grow up with Cinderella having glass slippers is because the French word for glass is “verre?”(Orenstein 15). The Disney version of Cinderella is incredibly different from the previously written tales. This concept is especially prominent in what happened to her step sisters. In the Grimm brothers version, They both cut off parts of their feet in order to fit into the slipper. The prince doesn’t actually notice this until two pigeons sitting on a bush tell him. At the end of the story, the two pigeons peck both of the step sisters eyes out. This is of course completely different from the Disney version. Disney simply excluded the sisters after a certain point in the story. Using the tale of Cinderella as a reference, the timeline of the change of fairytales from adults only into more kid friendly stories can be seen. The values and concepts these stories deal with have changed over time into a more positive message.
Snow White has an interestingly vast number of different works from which to look to. She has many different names such as Maria, Gold-Tree, and in the Italian version she does not even have a name. Every version of the story seems like an entirely different work. The main plot points aren’t even recognizable when comparing versions except for that a wicked woman tries to kill her, Snow White dies, and then is raised from the dead. In some versions such as the Scottish version she dies more than once. Most older versions of the story other than the Grimm brothers do not even feature the seven dwarves. The closest to this is an Italian version that features seven robbers. Since the dwarves were added as the stories were being written down by the brothers Grimm, it can be inferred that they were added in order to lighten up the story for children’s ears. In Edgar Taylor’s translation in 1823, Snow White is instead named Snow-Drop and he softened the content even more. Another interesting anomaly when considering the Grimm brothers translation is that they stated that her mother died in child birth. The antagonist is represented as her step mother. However, before this translation it was Snow White’s biological mother who was the antagonist. Again, this change might have been made in order to slightly soften the tale for children.
Today, fairy tales are changing even more than previously with oral tradition. With the introduction of Disney movies, movies like Shrek and Red Riding Hood, we have the ability to immediately present a drastically new way to view the old stories. Disney is renowned for delivering fairy tales to children through movies. They definitely put their own spin on these tales just as the Grimm brothers and Perrault did. Throughout history these tales have been making slight change after slight change and slowly gearing themselves toward children. The outlandish changes they make such as changing the classic Don Quixote into Shrek the ogre are different. The introduction of movies allowed very large and bizarre changes.
However, recently movies featuring these classic characters have been made for adults. Red Riding Hood is the perfect example. In this version, she falls in love with the wolf and the huntsman is in love with her. This is considerably dissimilar from the versions, and the jump it made pushed it into the adult category. Other movies such as this featuring basically an extremely distorted and sexualized version of the classic tales have appeared everywhere.
People today are much different from how they were 200 years ago. Fairy tales will change along with. Perrault started writing them down for the children in his culture. The Grimm brothers did the same. These stories are going to be present for a very long time because they can change so very easily to fit into any person’s interests. Cinderella morphed into a children’s tale from a Greek myth. Red Riding Hood morphed into an adult version
In conclusion, fairy tales are fluid. Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Snow White all demonstrate how over time many different stories can be created out of changing another. Over time the variations have increased to the point where ridiculous changes are becoming acceptable. With the introduction of movies, fairy tales are morphing rapidly into stories that are ever-changing. If the stories continue to evolve to fit people’s wants, they will last forever
The story of Little Red Riding Hood’s history is an interesting one. The story is told on every continent and in every major language (Orenstein 3). In the earliest written version of this tale Red Riding Hood strips off her clothes, gets into bed with the wolf, and dies. This is quite obviously a lot different than the story told today where she keeps them on and is later saved by a woodsman. All versions feature some sort of moral. For this early version, it was to teach women that men can be immoral. Later on the moral will shift to the opposite of this. When the woodsman is introduced in order to save her at the end of the story, the moral switches into a more positive one. Good men can save a woman from one of these immoral men. In one of the versions entitled Little Red Cap, the main character encounters a second wolf on the road and goes on her way without talking to him because she learned her lesson. The wolf later pretends to be Little Red Cap to the grandmother. Unbeknownst to the wolf, Red Cap was already inside her grandmother’s house. They lured the wolf to a trough using the smell of sausages and he drowned himself.
Cinderella is one of the oldest fairy tales ever told. It started as the Greek tale of Rhodopis, a slave girl who married the king of Egypt. Over time this story changed and then the Grimm brothers were introduced to offer a significantly different view. In their version she is known as “Ash Girl,” and instead of a fairy god mother, she has a magical tree that gives her whatever she needs such as the ball gown and her golden slippers (Dundes 26). These golden slippers are made of different materials in many different versions of the story. The slippers actually started as fur which in French is “vair.” Is it possible that the reason children today grow up with Cinderella having glass slippers is because the French word for glass is “verre?”(Orenstein 15). The Disney version of Cinderella is incredibly different from the previously written tales. This concept is especially prominent in what happened to her step sisters. In the Grimm brothers version, They both cut off parts of their feet in order to fit into the slipper. The prince doesn’t actually notice this until two pigeons sitting on a bush tell him. At the end of the story, the two pigeons peck both of the step sisters eyes out. This is of course completely different from the Disney version. Disney simply excluded the sisters after a certain point in the story. Using the tale of Cinderella as a reference, the timeline of the change of fairytales from adults only into more kid friendly stories can be seen. The values and concepts these stories deal with have changed over time into a more positive message.
Snow White has an interestingly vast number of different works from which to look to. She has many different names such as Maria, Gold-Tree, and in the Italian version she does not even have a name. Every version of the story seems like an entirely different work. The main plot points aren’t even recognizable when comparing versions except for that a wicked woman tries to kill her, Snow White dies, and then is raised from the dead. In some versions such as the Scottish version she dies more than once. Most older versions of the story other than the Grimm brothers do not even feature the seven dwarves. The closest to this is an Italian version that features seven robbers. Since the dwarves were added as the stories were being written down by the brothers Grimm, it can be inferred that they were added in order to lighten up the story for children’s ears. In Edgar Taylor’s translation in 1823, Snow White is instead named Snow-Drop and he softened the content even more. Another interesting anomaly when considering the Grimm brothers translation is that they stated that her mother died in child birth. The antagonist is represented as her step mother. However, before this translation it was Snow White’s biological mother who was the antagonist. Again, this change might have been made in order to slightly soften the tale for children.
Today, fairy tales are changing even more than previously with oral tradition. With the introduction of Disney movies, movies like Shrek and Red Riding Hood, we have the ability to immediately present a drastically new way to view the old stories. Disney is renowned for delivering fairy tales to children through movies. They definitely put their own spin on these tales just as the Grimm brothers and Perrault did. Throughout history these tales have been making slight change after slight change and slowly gearing themselves toward children. The outlandish changes they make such as changing the classic Don Quixote into Shrek the ogre are different. The introduction of movies allowed very large and bizarre changes.
However, recently movies featuring these classic characters have been made for adults. Red Riding Hood is the perfect example. In this version, she falls in love with the wolf and the huntsman is in love with her. This is considerably dissimilar from the versions, and the jump it made pushed it into the adult category. Other movies such as this featuring basically an extremely distorted and sexualized version of the classic tales have appeared everywhere.
People today are much different from how they were 200 years ago. Fairy tales will change along with. Perrault started writing them down for the children in his culture. The Grimm brothers did the same. These stories are going to be present for a very long time because they can change so very easily to fit into any person’s interests. Cinderella morphed into a children’s tale from a Greek myth. Red Riding Hood morphed into an adult version
In conclusion, fairy tales are fluid. Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Snow White all demonstrate how over time many different stories can be created out of changing another. Over time the variations have increased to the point where ridiculous changes are becoming acceptable. With the introduction of movies, fairy tales are morphing rapidly into stories that are ever-changing. If the stories continue to evolve to fit people’s wants, they will last forever
Works Cited
Dundes, Alan. Cinderella: a Folklore Casebook. New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1982. Print.
Green, Thomas. Folklore. 2. Santa Barbara: 1997. Print
Orenstein, Catherine. Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Print
Sherr, Paul. The Short Story and the Oral Tradition. San Francisco: Boyd & Fraser Publishing Company, 1970. Print.
Vansina, Jan. Oral Tradition. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1961. Print.
Dundes, Alan. Cinderella: a Folklore Casebook. New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1982. Print.
Green, Thomas. Folklore. 2. Santa Barbara: 1997. Print
Orenstein, Catherine. Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Print
Sherr, Paul. The Short Story and the Oral Tradition. San Francisco: Boyd & Fraser Publishing Company, 1970. Print.
Vansina, Jan. Oral Tradition. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1961. Print.