History of Fairy Tales

This Youtube creator, Jen Campbell has multiple videos looking at the history of various Fairy Tales such as Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid and Cinderella. 

DECONSTRUCTING FAIRY TALES

To understand a fairy tale is to know its elements; what they are, how they work and how they contribute to overall story. As noted below there are three main elements in total, of characters, plot and theme; from there it has been broken down it into sub elements; 

Character

The most important of the element of a fairy tale is the characters.

  • The Hero/heroine and villain
    • Who is the hero/heroine
    • Who is the villain
    • What are their goals in the story
    • what do they look like, what family do they have, do they have an occupation that defines their character (for example; woodcutter, knight etc)
  • Royalty
    • Are there princes and princesses?

Plot

To be able to deconstruct a fairy tale you need to know what is happening in the story.

  • The opening and ending lines
    • How does the story begin and how does it end?
  • Problem and solution
    • What is the problem in the story? 
    • How is it resolved? 
  • Magic
    • Is there magic in the story?
    • Are the magical creatures in the story?
    • Does the villain have magic?

Theme

Finally you need to look at the themes, what parts of the story really stand out and play a part in it?

  • Themes in the story
    • what objects, symbols or elements appear in the story? (For example water is a big theme in The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen)
    • What purpose to they play in the story? (for example water plays a transformative role in The Little Mermaid, it is present when she turns from mermaid to human and when she makes another change at the end of the story)

Important things to also note are;

  • Who is the story’s intended audience
    • Think about gender, and age.
    • Why do you think the story was intended for them?
    • Think about the social contexts of the story.
    • Think about who is the author and what their background is.

These factors also play into how the story is communicated and the moral it is trying to convey.

Once you have picked your fairy tale, read it and answered the questions above, click the links below to see some of the resources that could help support your hypothesis.

Having trouble?
Contact the library

The purpose of this page is to give the students a reference place to learn how to deconstruct fairy tales. It provides easy to follow questions, as well as a video that helps to describe the history of specific fairy tales and it also provides links to the resource pages and contact the library page.