Blog Entry 2 What is a Fairy Tale?

A fairy tale is a structured story often told by word of mouth, which allows it to be tweaked, or altered into different versions depending on the storyteller and the listeners of the story. A fairytale contains functions that depict a hero/heroine that is sent on some kind of journey or quest, with a specific goal to overcome some hardship or villain, and save something; a village, a person, princess, kingdom, etc. from some sort of curse or peril. In a fairy tale there is always a beginning “Once upon a time” and an ending “They all lived happily ever after”.

There is always a stark contrast to keep the story going; good vs. evil, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, peasant or prince, etc. Supernatural and magical elements are common in fairy tales; it's not unusual for the hero to encounter a dragon, or a witch, ogre, giant and so on.

 The fairy tale's not really meant to be long like a novel,  but more like a short "episode".Therefore, there's a high level of one-demensionalty, and severe lack of depth to the characters and plot in order to make this possible. Family relationships merely exist for the sake of keeping the plot going, and simply disappear by killing off the character. For instance, the wicked stepmother will just happened to have died for some unknown cause in the end of the story. There's rarely any depiction of emotion; for example, you never get to know if the hero was sad that he slew the dragon, all that matter's is that he slew the dragon. The hero is always presented with a helper, such as an enchanted sword, magic beans, or a frog. They appear just when they're needed the most.

Everything conveniently happens just in time for the hero.He's just in time to break the spell over the kingdom; He's just in time to kill the witch. And of course naturally, the villain, or evil curse MUST be vanquished, defeated. The villain is usually punished, or killed in the end. What fun would it be without a reward involved? If there's got to be a punishment involved then contrast rules that there must be a reward. The hero always gets riches, or marries their "true love" usually the prince/princess, which they've known for the long time of first site. In the end everything gets resolved. We are left hanging with some sort of moral lesson that is either revealed to us, or left to figure out on our own. And of course the story has proper closure when we hear the timeless ending of "They lived happily ever after."

If a fairy tale was questioned with "logic" as it was bieng told, it wouldn't be able to stand on it's own.  The story would never be finished by the storyteller. Infact the whole appeal of a  fairytale would lose all meaning. Magical elements, and "acceptance" that the story simply goes a certain way, is what allows a wolf to blow down a house of straw, or for a house to be made of candy and sweets in the middle of a forest. That's why it's so appealing to children; it's simple, they don't care about the lack of character depth, or the fact that the bad guys never win. In fact, they usually get mad when you don't tell it the way it's supposed to go.

Fairy tales have a trademark repetition with multiple ever-so-important motifs and symbols. A kiss of true love to break a spell, or a wicked stepmother are a few huge ones. But it's told in so many different versions, with villains ranging all over the supernatural map, that they never lose that magical appeal that begs you to hear it "just one more time".