Vishwaja Maheshwaram

Prof. Hach

ENG 170/01

29 April 2020

Preconceived Notions of Fairy Tales

Good morning to the entire teacher’s present here, I am a Psychologist from New York and I completed my graduation from SUNY New Paltz. I am here at this conference to talk about “how fairy tales often confuse children from their reality?” Fairy tales usually have a message and a positive moral at the end of the story for the kids to learn. However, do all fairy tales portray only the good? They certainly do not (Doga). Fairy tales may seem very illogical and often raises a question into the child’s mindset as he learns about them. 

Children also tend to be easily influenced by the characters that might make a negative impact in shaping the children’s ideology and their learning experience, and are likely to form a bias towards such characters. One of the most popular fairy tales I would like to throw light upon is known as “Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Characters such as the evil stepmother in which she plans to kill Snow-White with jealousy when her magic mirror tells her that snow-white is prettier than her. This can definitely influence the younger kids’ perception of human nature and human values. For example, in the tortoise and the rabbit story, I learned as a child that slow and steady wins the race. Stories like Red Riding Hood taught me not to trust anybody blindly and to stay safe without being tricked into anything fishy.

 Fairy tales portray that only the rich and good-looking people deserve true eternal love and all the ugly looking characters deserve a miserable life (Doga). The plotting of murder in “Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs” is also planned meticulously with which kids can often be influenced by the creativity of the scene and take note of such actions for the wrongdoing in society. Such kind of stories discriminates humans based on their looks and beauty. Most often, always the prince seeks the most beautiful woman in the story. They portray an image, which shows that wealth, and respect is only given to the beautiful looking characters and how the stepmother plots to kill Snow-White when she realizes she is the prettiest of all. 

 Another concept of showing “happily ever after” in fairy tales can often mislead the young generation into perceiving life as beautiful as it is being portrayed. However, the reality of this cruel world around us later disappoints us through life experiences. These kinds of preconceived notions of fairy tales must be eradicated in the early stages itself. The truth is that the reality is very harsh and challenging to us in real-life. A news article from Purdue talks about how fairy tales discriminate against social castes and any other stereotypical scenario for the children (Patterson). The princesses are often portrayed as beautiful and charming which reinforces the message, that women should seek beauty and not pure human values. 

The present generation of kids, also known as the z-generation, often tries to look for accuracy, logic, and reality while listening to fairy tales, unlike the earlier generations. This generation thought process is advanced with given technological changes happening around the world every now and then.  Another incident in the story can be seen where all the animals of the jungle come to mourn for Snow-White, thinking that snow-white is dead. However, in practicality, this does not happen, as animals do not understand human emotions. In addition, qualities of dishonesty and cheating are also shown in this particular fairy tale as Snow-White accepts the poisoned apple offered by a man, which breaks her trust. Such kind of scenarios may influence the children into tricking and cheating others for their own benefits

Fairy tales should be re-modified and reinstate the principles of modernity and blunt reality with which the kids can be more associated. The younger generation should be more exposed to real-life stories and struggles that can be taken as life lessons. The children would rather learn through experience rather than fantasies of unreal truth. The aim of the fairy tales is to teach good morals to the children. This should be achieved by eliminating or rather, subduing the negative character to not be as influenced as it is. The children are often intrigued and fascinated by the negative roles. In this case, the stepmother is portrayed as an evil and jealous woman. Even the introduction of any negative element must be shown in such a way that it should not inspire the kids. The negative characters should be able to instill positive morals for the children. We need to change the way these fairytales are read out and modify them thereby including real-life scenarios and experiences which can be helpful for future generations to learn the right morals. 

 

Works Cited

Doga. “Negative Influences of Fairy Tales.” The Eagle, 22 March 2019, 

https://iszlschoolnewspaper.com/negative-influences-of-fairy-tales/. Accessed 8 February 2020.

Patterson, Amy. “Experts say fairy tales not so happy ever after.” Purdue News, 11 November 

2003, https://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever/031111.Grauerholz.tales.html . Accessed 8 February 2020.