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Two Types of Fairy Tales: Folk Tales and Literary Fairy Tales
According to Stith Thompson, a fairy tale is ¡° a tale of some length involving a succession of motifs or episodes, moving in an unreal world without definite locality or characters.¡± And as a practical matter, there are two types of fairy tales: the ¡°folk tales¡±, which means the oral stories that have developed through repeated oral retellings and the literary fairy tales, which are written down from the beginning and thus have a more established form.
Here, I¡¯d like to discuss the distinction between folk tales and literary fairy tales by using the ¡°Cinderella¡± of Perrault and ¡°Ashputtle¡± of Grimm brothers as a sample of each type. As we know, Perrault was a member of the French court, and he was creating literary folk tales for the entertainment of that court. Therefore, serving the interests of the more educated ruling classes, Perrault has adapted the old story about Cinderella, making it similar to the literary folk tales. On the contrary, the Grimm brother tried to preserve the fairy tales exactly as heard from oral sources, therefore their version kept the features of oral folk tales in spite of the standardization of the language. ... Or, I¡¯d like to say, between the oral story and the literary fairy tales. ... For example, when the two step-sisters were choosing their dresses for the ball, the elder said, ¡°I shall wear my red velvet dress and my collar of English lace.
Approximate Word count = 1223
Approximate Pages = 4.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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