This document summarizes key aspects of folktales and fairy tales, using Cinderella as an example. It discusses how folktales were traditionally passed down orally and served to teach lessons. Common story elements are identified, such as characters like royalty, animals, good and bad people, and themes involving magic, problems, and happy endings. The cultural role of folktales in shaping values and behaviors is described. Specific versions of Cinderella from different cultures are analyzed and compared to the original French story. Psychological interpretations of Cinderella are also mentioned.

1. Presented by: Stefphoney Grinage & Rosanna Depaz
Galen University
ENGL 220

2. A magic story
which cannot
be true

3.  Oral
 Goodness is rewarded
 Storytellers
 Teach valuable lessons
 Reading as oppose to hearing a tale

4.  Discussion about folktales in general
 Thompson shows how folktales have been presented
throughout the history.
 Nature of folktales (household tales or any type of story
passed on from one generation to the next).
 More traditional folktales comes from medieval times and
India.
 Oral stories are found in all civilization an they are
factored by religion.

5.  Begins with once upon a time
 Setting is usually in a castle, forest or town
 Story has good/nice characters
 Story has mean/bad characters
 Some characters are animals or members of royalty
 Story has magic
 Story has a problem
 Problem in the story is solved
 Good wins/outsmarts bad
 Ends with “happily ever after”

6.  Anthropologists, linguists, educators, psychologists,
psychiatrists and literary critics see fairytales as a kind of
genetic code – a means by which cultural values are
transmitted from one generation to the next.
 Fairytales may really be ways of inculcating young and
impressionable children with culturally approved values.
Adults and children use fairytales in complex and subtle
ways.

7. Good & Bad sides
Religious significance
Understand beginnings

8.  The culture played a large role in shaping each Cinderella
stories around the world.
 Example:
Perrault's Cinderella is from the Medieval French
Culture.

9. Cinderella

10.  Vedas (Hindu)
 Cinderella’s sisters were the
powers of darkness.
 Cinderella waited after her
sisters.
 Mitra (sun)
 Cinderella cannot linger with
Prince in the heavens.
 Cinderella appeared as
evening twilight.

11. Women & The
Cinderella
Complex
Relationship
 Gender
divide
 Longevity
 Single life
 First date
 Internet
 Tolerance

12. Background Characteristics
 Tales were a way to explain  Young heroine
unknown forces.
 Tales were oral because of  Epitome of beauty
low literacy.  Treated poorly by her
 Oral tales expressed the family
ideas that everyone needs to
be helpful to survive.  Seen for her true worth by
 A means to instruct the rising a man of high status.
aristocracy as a proper
behaviour in the middle
ages.

13. Faith or Choices Faith or choices
 Domestic Violence
 Labels
 Weight
 Plastic surgery
 Self Esteem
 Education/rights
 Aging
 Labour (authority)
 Marriage/family

14. Chick flicks Barbie

15.  Sibling Rivalry (Bruno Bettelheim)
 It relates to something that ever1 has to go through in their
lives..sibling rivalry
 Our conscious and unconscious minds
 But it also inspires confidence
 Relates to those children towards the end of their oedipal stage
 The German language to live among ashes
 Loss of her father’s love (Jacqueline Schectman)
 Makes a comparison b/w the four archetypes in Cinderella and the
stages of grief families and the children she treats in therapy.
 Stepmother : structure and truth
 Stepsisters: unacknowledged grief
 Father: loss wife
She points out for the readers to see how quietly and without notice
fathers can be emotionally absent in a fractured family.

17. Love Story
By: Taylor Swift

18.  Message: justice will prevail, even when it appears the
unrighteous are prospering from their evil deeds
 Theme: Christian
 Purpose is to teach truth
 The stepmother and stepsisters represent people who try to
prosper through evil deeds.
 Fairy Godmother: angel from heaven
 Prince is the reward

19. Bettelheim, B. (1999). Cinderella. In L. Behrens &Rosen (Eds.), Writing and
reading across the curriculum. (pp.567-574). New York: Longman
Perrault, C. (1999). Cinderella. In L. Behrens &Rosen (Eds.), Writing and
reading across the curriculum. (pp.527-531). New York: Longman
Thompson, S. (2005). Universality of Cinderella. Retrieved: March 25th, 2011.
Website: http://www.Theuniversalityofcinderella.org
The London Globe. (1896). Who Cinderella really was? The New York Times.
New York.
Warner, Marina. Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment: Lectures, Sermons
and Essays. London: British Film Institute, 1993.