For centuries, the whimsy of fairy tales has been ingrained into childhoods. They are stories which have been told over and over with intentions to provide entertainment and hope.
I still remember dressing up like a princess with friends for birthdays or waving a wand around my living room and believing, wholeheartedly, in the ineffable magic and kindness that such tales taught. They are stories which have survived as time passes. Societies shift and evolve in ways which span from jarring to fluid, yet fairy tales remain. Parents and children keep Cinderella, Snow White and Rapunzel alive.
At first, it feels like it’s for the sake of tradition. As if parents remember the stories fondly themselves and want to share. Yet, every generation that has eagerly listened to these magical words have been different from one another. A simple decade can provide a totally different outlook on life.
It’s easy to look back at 19th century Europe and say with confidence that children’s lives today are different to what they were. Poverty, low life expectancy and unfathomable inequality hindered the chance of blissful ignorance we often believe all children should be allowed to cherish. Many first world countries see such a cruel life as a different world, because it was.
Back then, children had little time to be what we consider young. They were confronted with harsh realities from an early age. The Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales reflect that.
Although the core messages were the same with Cinderella still teaching how kindness triumphs evil and true love finds away, it was presented in a much gorier style. Today, children don’t have to hear about how the stepsisters cut off their heels to fit into glass slippers, or how their eyes were pecked out as punishment by crows for wrong doings. It’s simply a different time.
Parents don’t want to expose their children to violence and horror if they don’t have to. So, we sensitise the stories and turn them into ones with only happy endings. No one watches Rapunzel’s prince lose his sight to bushes of thorns in Disney’s ‘Tangled’.
These changes haven’t been done in malice. I don’t believe it is anyone’s purpose to completely alter the original versions of these stories. They’re still extremely accessible online and published for those curious today. Yet, the change still happened.
We spoke a lot about the subjectivity of storytelling during this first half of semester. Pieces of history are changed and retold, sometimes with intentions of erasure. I don’t believe it’s always done maliciously though, sometimes stories change because the world has as well. The evolution of fairy tales reflects this perfectly.
So maybe Snow White waking up from true loves kiss isn’t as accurate as a piece of apple being dislodged from her throat. The child within me can still think of this moment and believe that the world has little magic in it after all.
References:
Grimm Brothers, Cinderella, 1857.
https://germanstories.vcu.edu/grimm/cinder.html
Grimm Brothers, Rapunzel, 1857.
https://germanstories.vcu.edu/grimm/rapunzel_e.html
Grimm Brothers, Snow White, 1857.
https://germanstories.vcu.edu/grimm/schneeeng.html
Sawant, Presanna, “The Evolution Of Fairy Tales.” The Curious Reader. February 27, 2019.
https://www.thecuriousreader.in/features/evolution-of-fairy-tales/
Love the topic Emily! And ok, I’ll admit it- I have watched way too many retellings and fairytale spin-offs. I have eaten them up since I was a child. As you pointed out, fairytales have been watered down heavily from their original form and perhaps for good reason. Sawing off toes/heels, accidental eye gouging and children committing murder (a lot) doesn’t exactly encourage kids to become the peaceful and law abiding citizens we would all want. In saying that though, I do love Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes. These lean into the violence so much that they go even further- its not just blood and gore but morally suspect characters and the internal questioning of fairytale archetypes. I am sure many other art scholars are familiar with just how far these stories go and I am also willing to bet that a fair few of us really do enjoy these retellings. As you pointed out, this change from the dark to the more family friendly did indeed happen- but was Dalh onto something in swinging back the other way? Should a happy medium be toyed with when it comes to the psychological health of children? As Billy Ray Cyrus did once tweet, much to think about…
Reading this post I was reminded of Sandman, Dream Country, 5: a midsummer night’s dream by Neil Gaiman. This led me to reread it and have some thoughts that, fortunately, wound up relating to the post again.
On rereading there were two ideas that stood out to me:
– That the play was a reinvention of an old tale
– And that the words will “echo down through time”
Thus we have the old stories, like fairy tales, being retold over and over. This gives an author producing a work derivative of (or ‘simply’ retelling) one of these stories a decent expectation that the audience will be familiar with what is going to happen and so they know that when they change something they will be surprising the reader and it will be a point of focus. And, after all, if you don’t have to create the plot, you can spend so much more time on making it read well.