Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,951
edits
Category:Fairy Tale: Difference between revisions
m
removed Category:Literature; added Category:Literature by genre using HotCat
m (Mass update links) |
m (removed Category:Literature; added Category:Literature by genre using HotCat) |
||
| (10 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown) | |||
Line 2:
[[File:BabaYagaHut.jpg|frame|Outside [[Baba Yaga]]'s Hut, in a Russian [[Fairy Tale]]]]
{{quote|''"Fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already because it is in the world already. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey.
''The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St George to kill the dragon."''|'''[[G. K. Chesterton]]'''}}
A story which depicts a fantastic sequence of events. Often, fairy tales include creatures from folklore such as goblins, [[Wicked Witch|witches]], and dragons. Fairy tales usually take place "[[Once Upon a Time]]", with few (if any) references to real people, places or events.
Orally told fairy tales are told in extremely spare and laconic style. Even the [[She Cleans Up Nicely|fancy dresses the heroine wears to a ball]] are discussed briefly; "three dresses, one as golden as the sun, one as silvery as the moon, and one as bright as the stars" and the story goes on. Likewise, characters are defined by their actions. Even when motives are provided (which is only for human characters), they are short and simple: the heroine is out to find her fortune; the hero wants to marry the princess; the [[Wicked Stepmother]] is [[Greed|greedy]] and doesn't want her stepchild to have an inheritance, or [[Green-Eyed Monster|envious]] of her beauty, or if she has a stepson, destroy his wife; the [[Fake Ultimate Hero|false hero]] wants to marry the princess; the king falls in love with the strange woman he meets in the woods because of her beauty. And motives may not be; in [[The Brothers Grimm (
"Fairy tale" is often used in modern times to depict an idealized romance or ending, although many classic fairy tales are much darker than many people realize. Heroes may be the victims of [[Family-Unfriendly Violence|such violence]] as having hands chopped off or eyes gouged out; at the end of the story, villains may be [[Family-Unfriendly Death|disposed of]] by such methods as having them wear red-hot shoes and dance until they die, or putting them in a barrel lined with nails and having a horse drag it until they die. The spare style helps minimize the impact, as it can deal with the violence briefly and without gory detail, but even so many fairy tales have produced [[Nightmare Fuel]]. In some cases, this is intentional, to [[Scare'Em Straight]].
Line 19:
Several extremely popular tales such as [[Charles Perrault|Perrault]]'s "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty" did feature fairies, helping give weight to the name, while others like "[[Rumpelstiltskin]]" alluded to [[Our Fairies Are Different|a more sinister kind]] of [[The Fair Folk|folkloric fairies]]. On the other hand, Perrault's "Cinderella" is an odd-ball; normally the Cinderella figure is helped by [[Our Ghosts Are Different|her dead mother]], and "Sleeping Beauty" is as likely to be a victim of prophecy as a [[Curse]]). Many, such as "[[Rapunzel]]", "[[Puss in Boots (novel)|Puss in Boots]]", "[[Hansel and Gretel]]", and "[[Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (novel)|Snow White]]", contain no such figures. Some, like "[[The Emperor's New Clothes|The Emperors New Clothes]]" contain no magic of any kind.
See also [[Fairy Tale Tropes]] and [[
For a list of tropes common to fairy tales, see [[Fairy Tale Tropes]].
Line 25:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Speculative Fiction]]
[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]
[[Category:Literature Genres]]
[[Category:Lit Class Tropes]]
[[Category:Oral Tradition]]
[[Category:
| |||