What kind of a culture would inspire a storyteller to tell stories like these? What kind of assumptions are made about women, children, the discipline of children, the value of individual life?
The tradition of oral storytelling dates back thousands of year. Fairy tales were not originally intended for children. Fairy tales were created, retold and accepted by families, cultures, and regions. Storytellers had the power to decide what social practices were acceptable for a society and had the influence over their audience to subtly implement changes through the acceptance of the stories being told. This is the reason that fairy tales slowly changed over time before they were documented in literary works. The Brothers Grimm …show more content…
The King’s son was rich and handsome except in “The Frog King”. In “The Frog King” the frog acquired the usual characteristics of the King’s son after he was thrown up against a wall. A hardworking and observant huntsman was the hero in “Little Red Riding Hood”. In “Hansel and Gretel”, “The Bremen Town Musicians”, and “Rumpelstilzchen” the main character/s had to deal with their own problem. Gretel burned the witch in the oven. The donkey, hound, cat, and cock banned together to avoid death at their current home and worked together to find new food and shelter (Nationalgeographic.com/Grimm). In “Rumpelstilzchen”, a little man did a favor for the miller’s daughter by spinning straw into gold for the King. The king married the girl and they had a child. The new queen soon had a child and had to discover the name of the little man in order to keep her first born (Pitt.edu/Rumplestiltskin I don’t think that “The Brave Little Tailor” had a hero. He was made to perform many tasks for the King before the King gave him what he promised, however, the tailor was a devious person that manipulated everyone in his path in order to get what he wanted (Pitt.edu/The Brave