"Folktales and Fairytales, a Child's Need for Magic" Lecture

Folktales are stories of the folk, the common people

Now committed to paper and electronic media, these stories were traditionally passed on orally, no doubt, changed in each telling by the storyteller

Among the most common folktales are myths, fables, legends and epics

Folktales were apt to change

Some have hundreds of versions

Each tale had variations which contained elements peculiar to a particular society or culture

Folktales form the roots of all literature

Story lines from folktales form foundations of many books and films

Folktales speak to humans' basic emotions, to our most minor as well as horrific fears and to our deepest hopes

Folktales assume the audience is familiar with tradition, beliefs, and cultural norms

Particular features are embedded in the cultures so it is difficult for audiences outside of a particular culture to identify with or immediately understand the meaning and purpose of another culture's folk literature. Ex: Native Americans view #4 as sacred

Basic themes, even plots are often the same across cultures

There are remarkable similarities in tales from cultures as
widespread as China, South America, Europe, Africa

Monogenesis-one beginning or origin- is the theory that all tales were ultimately derived from a single source and gradually dissemenated

Polygenesis-many beginnings- is the theory that tales emerged independently of each other in many parts of the world

Polygenesis attributes marked similarities to the fundamental similarities in the human psyche-hopes fears, dreams, physical and emotional needs

Folk lit probably arose to meet a variety of human needs:

• to explain the mysteries of the natural world in absence of scientific information
• to articulate fears and dreams thus making them accessable and manageable
• to impose order on the apparent random, even chaotic nature of life helping us understand our place in the universe
• to entertain ourselves and others
• to warn us to beware (of mistakes of others for ex)
• to laugh at ourselves, our follies

Many folktales grew into hero legends and myths. When Greeks were frightened by thunder, they invented a
story about an angry god who shook the heavens

Most folktales were for adults and children alike

Purpose of Folktales
The stories of the people, the folk:

• served as educational tools for preliterate societies
• passed on knowledge essential for survival
• reinforced practices and social mores of a culture
• emphasized certain virtues
  ex: the significance of marriage
• established social or political order
  ex: the superiority of one clan or tribe over its neighbor
• explained creation
• reflected fears
• embodied popular attitudes, beliefs, and values
• entertained
• captured colorful village characters
• warned about bad behavior
• shed light on mysteries or unusual events
• highlighted life in the village or in the kingdom
• dramatized life as it was lived
• recorded in the minds of listeners what was truly important at the time

Kinds of folktales

• Animal stories - the oldest of all tales; primitive peoples lived in close proximity with wild animals part myth, part fable, part fairy tale Ex: Anasi the Spider/Africa; Native Americans' stories involving turtles, beavers, eagles, hawks, coyotes and wolves. "The Fisherman and his Wife" is an animal story.
• Fables - a narrative used expressly to convey a moral message; uses animals as characters Marchen or Wonder stories-these are stories of enchantment, magic, wonder set long ago in faraway lands..Sleeping Beauty is an example
• Noodlehead tales - include as principle characters fools albeit loveable fools! Often the fool trades one possession for another and is left with nothing (but happiness). "Hans in Luck" is an example
• Pourquoi stories - the French word for "why?" this story seeks to explain natural phenomenon
• Cumulative tales - successive additions add to the power "The Gingerbread Man" "The Little Red Hen"
• Fairy tales - simple narratives dealing with super-natural beings; told for the amusement of kids
• Tall tales - comic stories preposterous exaggeration Davy Crockett, John Henry, Johnny Appleseed
• Ghost stories - being frightened for enjoyment; sometimes called "jump tales"
• Myths - stories of gods, goddesses and heroesLegends- stories that document a time in histor or a memorable character, a human, not a god, for ex, Homer's Illiad and Odyssey
• Epics - tales derived from Christian sources- King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the Quest for the Holy Grail, usually more secular than religious

Folktale Conventions
Setting: Once upon a time in a kingdom far away....
defines time and place, simple, direct, "everyplace"

Characters:
-simple and direct, usually flat, straightforward -everything is on the surface
-do not internalize feelings
-not psychologically complex
-motivation tends to be singular
-one overriding desire such as greed, love, fear, hatred, jealousy
-stereotypical: wicked stepmother, weak willed, ineffectual fathers, jealous siblings, faithful friends
-either all good or all bad
-physical appearance redily defines a character; an ugly wicked witch, a beautiful princess
-hero/heroine usually isolated, cast into the open world, must be aided by supernatural, helpless victim of evil forces

Plot: Action is formulaic
Journey is common
Repetitious patterns - 12 tasks, 3 wishes, 4 tests
Suspense and action are more important than
character development
Happy endings

Theme and Conflict: Simple, serious, powerful
Struggle to achieve autonomy (get away from parent)
Undertaking of rite of passage, sometimes to sexual maturity
The discovery that eventually we are all alone on our own journey to maturity
Anxiety over failure to meet a parent's expectations
Anxiety of one's displacement by another

Style: Formulaic repetitions reflect oral origins
Economic-to be committed to memory and embellished
Conventional openings, conclusions
Stylized intensification- with each repetition the
element is further exaggerated or intensified
"and the third Billy Goat Gruff...and the 4th test.."
Difference of classes emphasized with dialect
peasant spoke differently than a king..

Motifs: a recurring thematic element
a journey through a dark forest
enchanted transformations
magical spells, cures
encounters with helpful animals or mysterious
creatures
tricksters' antics
foolish bargains
impossible tasks

Imagery: powerful images added to drama and were
memorable, for example, a glass slipper, Jack's bean
stalk, Rapunzel's hair, a spinning wheel that makes
gold thread, poisoned apple, golden egg, magic wand
Magic is always matter of fact; characters acknowledge
magic as a natural part of life. No one is ever surprised
or astonished when elves grant wishes or a fairy god
mother appears out of thin air

Issues: Violence is prevalent
foolish little pigs are devoured, wolves are boiled
alive, witches are pushed into hot ovens. In "The
Rose Tree" an innocent girl is kiled by her stepmother
and her liver is fed to the father; the brother avenges
the brutal crime by splitting the step mother in two
with an ax, yet there is no reference to blood and gore.
Most violent folktales leave the details up to the
listeners . Some believe this provides harmless release
for children-outlets for fears, frustrations, hostility

Issues: Bruno Bettelheim, in The Uses of Enchantment argues that
The violence in folktales gives children a vicarious means of coping with their inner frustrations
Folktales, through their rich symolism and evocative story patterns actually fulfill unconscious psychological needs in some children
Illustrations inhibit a child's imagination

Bettelheim's thesis encourages close Freudian readings of folktales and sees them laden with symbolism, particularly sexual- note how many folktales end in marriages, suggesting that they are coming-of-age stories of awakening sexual maturity.

The issue of antifeminism is noteworthy; "perhaps more potently damaging than the violence in folktales is the depiction of negative female stereotypes (the frail young girl in need of a good man) or the unfortuante deprecation of stepmothers in general. Many stories portray women as rather helpless (beautiful) creatures whose futures depend on the kindness of capable (handsome) men, whom the women must attact by their pleasing appearance and sweet nature. The distorted presentation of women should not be surprising given the traditionally patriarchal nature of Western society. Men were the earliest serious collectors of the tales, and the male gender bias is evident in the tales they chose to recored. However, in recent years many volumes have been published that reveal positive female role modes in stories the world over. Not only are collectors unearthing forgotten tales that help to elevate the status of women, modern adapters are finding ways of recreating new tales out of the old" (Russell, 165-166).

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