Daily Archives: November 17, 2024

My thesis as of right now is, Fairy tales are frequently criticized for their violence and gender stereotypes, they essentially help children because they build toughness, while teaching moral and ethical guidelines, and inspire their creative minds. As of right now I chose this as my thesis because in “The Positive Impacts of Fairy Tales for Children” by Leilani VisikoKnox-Johnson is one article from List A that grabs my interest. I was drawn to this article because it discusses the positive behavioral and growth impacts fairy tales have on kids. Visiko Knox-Johnson specifically addresses how fairy tales teach within kids the need of kindness and determination, two qualities that are essential components of emotional intelligence. According to the essay, youngsters can learn how to deal with challenges in real life by studying the symbolic struggles that fairy tale characters encounter.  While in List B, Maria Tatar’s article “Why Fairy Tales Matter” is my favorite from List B. Tatar provides an in-depth investigation of the reasons behind the ongoing cultural significance of fairy tales in her study. The claim made by Tatar that fairy tales give kids a safe and meaningful way to deal with challenging emotions like betrayal, sadness, and fear really caught my attention. Since they enable kids to comprehend and manage complicated emotions, she believes that these emotional experiences even the most severe ones are essential to kids emotional growth.

I believe that fairytales give children a misconstrued image of what is just and good. Fairytales rarely show the villains being punished for the bad stuff or the pain they have inflicted on others, which shows a disregard for justice. In the article “Sex and Violence” written by David Isaacs, something that caught my attention would be when the author mentioned fairytales being used to help children with sexual confrontation. “Some of the power of these stories may be that they help children confront and come to terms with their own sexual and aggressive thoughts and feelings” (Isaacs). However, I do not believe that this is the job of fairytales. Additionally in the article “Good and Bad beyond Relief” by Jerilyn Fisher and Ellen S. Silber, it mentions the absentee father never making an appearance. “The fairy tale father, oblivious to his child’s misery, never intercedes; nor is he reproached for being inattentive” (Fisher and Silber). This is something I noticed myself but never thought it was a big deal; so to see it written about in this way really piqued my interest.    

I believe that fairy tales are good for children because I strongly think they just understand that fairy tales are meant to be for entertainment purposes only and within the entertainment there is also a lesson to be learned within the story that can be applied to their real lives.    One article that caught my interest from List A was “The Positive Impacts of Fairy Tales for Children” by Leilani VisikoKnox-Johnson, University of Hawaii. The author mentioned “Fairy tales not only aid in child development, but they also offer a rich source of material to draw from in a therapeutic manner”. I think it’s super impressive that they can utilize the magic of storytelling to bring forth what emotions and feelings the child may be experiencing due to either a situation or a sickness.    On list B i chose “Rediscovering the Power of Fairy Tales” by Mary Howarth”. The author describes how much it benefits the children when they reinact some fairy tales. As a teacher, the author introduces the children to “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” and stated  “One common progression for the quieter children is to move from Littlest, to Middle-Sized, to Biggest Billy Goat. the children were able to play different characters and so through this method the teacher observed their progression.   

Why I believe fairytales are important, so let us just start here with “The Little Snow White” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm for example. When reading the story, I notice that Snow White is a curious yet brave girl who ventured into the woods wen she was kicked by her father. Upon her adventure, the stepmother always watches her on every corner. This led to her unknowingly venture to trouble. She even got “killed” by eating a poisonous apple by a suspicious old hag. But by the end she had a happily ever after story while the stepmother , who tried to take the beauty away from her, danced into the bottomless pit. The benefit of fairytales to children is by granting them creativity as they learn and evaluate lessons from the whole story, and knowing that they can relate to Snow White being that they have a listening curve in a young age. And to relate with the stepmother since emotions can easily be expressed with jealousy and bad mishaps, so bad behavior can be avoided one way from reading fantasy novels. When it also comes to fairytales, children don’t have to be literal about what they view of. We imagining bad people as monsters, or the blue sky as another ocean, or the moon as… Well, a big ball of swiss cheese! Whenever fantasy comes to light in children’s minds, the sky’s the limit.

After reading the articles my thesis would be depending on how gruesome the fairy tale is I will determine if I will read the tale to a child. Especially from my perspective being a mother I would never want to read my child a book about sex or children being slaughtered. “Fairy tales give conscious expression to complex unconscious, infantile fantasies about sexual wishes, anger, guilt and fear of punishment within the family” (Isaacs).  Nevertheless, some of the Grimm brothers’stories have life lessons within them which I feel like they can be good for children depending on their age. For instance, the Snow White story by the Grimm brothers basically explained a scenario of “The boy who cried wolf” because she never learned a lesson until it was too late even after the dwarfs told her not open the door anymore. I have to do a more thorough research on the articles in list B, being transparent none of the options in List B caught my attention and some of the websites they popped up on didnt give me access to the full article. Works Cited: “Sex and Violence in Fairy Tales” editorial by David Isaacs, Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health

My thesis for the research essay is that fairy tales are harmful for children because they teach old ideas about beauty, gender roles, and what is right or wrong. These stories often make kids think that how they look is the most important thing, especially for girls, who are shown that being beautiful is the key to being valued.  From List A, the article I picked is Liz Grauerholz’s “The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children’s Fairy Tales.” This stood out to me because it shows how fairy tales focus too much on women’s looks. I agree with her idea that these stories teach girls they need to be pretty to matter, which can make them feel bad about themselves if they don’t fit those beauty standards. From List B, I chose “Why Fairy Tales Matter: The Performative and the Transformative” by Maria Tatar. This caught my attention because it explains how fairy tales shape the way people think and act. I liked how she points out that these stories pass down old ideas about how boys and girls are supposed to behave, which don’t work in today’s world. Both articles explain how fairy tales can hurt kids by keeping old ideas about beauty and gender alive. I think these stories are more harmful than helpful because they teach kids to follow unfair rules instead of being true to themselves.