ONCE UPON A FAIRY TALE:
AN OVERVIEW OF TRADITIONAL AND ALTERNATIVE FAIRY TALES
By
Vidya N. Rajmoolie
A project submitted to the
Faculty of Education
In conformity with the requirements for
The degree of Master of Education
Queen’s University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
April 2011
Copyright © Vidya N. Rajmoolie, 2011

ABSTRACT
“
Fairy tales and fantasy do help to shape great minds. Einstein was an avid reader of fairy tales” (Polette, 2005, p.1).
Children’s literature contains many genres, one of the most popular being fairy tale stories. After all, a child’s first exposure to literature is usually a fairy tale written by either the
Brothers Grimm or Perrault (Kuykendal & Stern, 2007). Fairy tales have continued to delight children, young and old, for centuries and play an important role in a child’s view of society because of what they read in fairy tale literature. Fairy tales are one of the most interesting genres of literature and should be a bigger part of the elementary school curriculum as these are stories that children have grown up with their whole lives. By reading these stories and exploring them further in education, students will have a better understanding of the fairy tale and what it represents. When exploring new genres of literature, we tend to look for black and white when in reality; fairy tales provide many different shades of gray (Charles, 2009).
Fairy tales, both traditional and alternative versions, will be compared and contrasted to discover what meanings their themes have, what views of male and female characters are presented and how much fantasy and reality exist within these stories. The traditional fairy tale stories of the Brothers Grimm titled Snow White and The Sleeping Beauty will be used to compare with and contrast against the alternative fairy tale stories titled Snow White in New
York, Sleeping Ugly and The Paper Bag Princess . Further exploring these two genres of fairy tales is a curriculum unit designed for the Ontario Curriculum’s Grade Five Language Arts
Reading component. Through this unit, students will learn about these types of stories and how their own views on characters, gender roles, fantasy and reality in fairy tales contribute to society, whether positively or negatively. i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank the Lord for giving me the strength, patience, perseverance & wisdom to complete this Project. “God is my refuge and strength...He will help her when morning dawns” (Psalm 46).
I would like to thank Dr. Elizabeth Lee for supervising this project. Thank you for your feedback during our meetings. Many of your suggestions for this Project have made it what it is today.
I would like to thank Dr. Rebecca Luce-Kapler for taking the time to be the second reader on this Project. Your expertise on literature has contributed greatly to the finished product.
I would like to give a special thank you to Dr. Liying Cheng and Dr. John Freeman. Both of you have always guided me down the right path with your kindness and faith in my potential which is something I will always appreciate.
Also, I would like to give a special thank you to our graduate assistant, Ms. Celina
Caswell, for all of your help and kindness. Thank you for always taking the time to answer any questions I had regarding this program.
And, last but definitely not least, a very special thank you to my wonderful loving family:
Mom & Dad, thank you for always being there to encourage me so this Project could become a reality, whether it was through your support or love for me; I love you.
Jonathan & Mark, thank you for always standing on either side of me, through the good and bad times, and for always believing in me; I love you. ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................................................ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS...............................................................................................................iii
CHAPTER 1....................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Purpose.............................................................................................................................................2
Rationale..........................................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 2....................................................................................................................................5
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................5
Traditional Fairy Tales.....................................................................................................................5
Contemporary Picture Books.........................................................................................................15
Alternative Fairy Tales..................................................................................................................22
Curriculum Design.........................................................................................................................34
CHAPTER 3..................................................................................................................................41
Plot Summaries of the four Traditional and Alternative Fairy Tales.............................................41
ANALYSIS....................................................................................................................................50
DISCUSSION................................................................................................................................98
CHAPTER 4................................................................................................................................105
CURRICULUM UNIT................................................................................................................105
CHAPTER 5................................................................................................................................120
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................120
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................122
APPENDICES.............................................................................................................................128 iii

Appendix A: Lesson 1.................................................................................................................128
Appendix B: Lesson 2..................................................................................................................130
Appendix C: Lesson 3..................................................................................................................132
Appendix D: Lesson 4.................................................................................................................135
Appendix E: Lesson 5..................................................................................................................136
Appendix F: Lesson 6..................................................................................................................139 iv

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
“
Fairy tales and fantasy do help to shape great minds. Einstein was an avid reader of fairy tales.
Understanding real humanity, nobility of character, and the vitality of love through traditional tales rather than through counterfeit, superficial, remote, and plastic mannikins of the media world, helps one to live life deeply. Students need to be given the opportunity through fairy tales to develop an elasticity of mind
.” (Polette, 2005, p.1).
As a young girl, I always wanted to be a princess, was an avid daydreamer and believed that my very own Prince Charming would rescue me one day. These characteristics resulted from either my extreme femininity or the fact that this is what traditional fairy tales taught me to believe. This message is usually the one that fairy tales tend to instil in children (mostly young girls) after hearing or reading these traditional stories. Naturally, I loved hearing and reading fairy tale stories about castles, magic and romance that promoted certain ideas of femininity, which I unconsciously believed to be true. These fairy tale stories comforted me, roused my already active imagination and took me to a world where I could imagine my biggest ‘dream come true’.
Then there were alternative fairy tales that had started to appear in the 80s and, of course, the curious reader that I was, I read some of them. Sleeping Ugly and The Paper Bag Princess are hilarious takes on traditional fairy tales that made me ponder questions such as: So, a Prince won’t fall in love with me just because I’m beautiful? And I don’t have to wait for a man to rescue me (because I can rescue myself)? And maybe good girls don’t finish last! I learned that it was okay to have dreams of ‘happily ever after’ as long as I could be realistic about them. But then again, how realistic is wishing I could live in a castle and ride around in a horse-drawn
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carriage with Prince Charming? Being a life-long dreamer who loves to read and wishes I could get lost in my own fairy tale makes it only natural for me to write about fairy tale literature in this project.
Purpose
The purpose of this project is not only to discover more about traditional and alternative fairy tales but to share their meanings of themes, gender roles, fantasy and reality with teachers and students. Discovering more about fairy tales will be developed through a curriculum unit designed for the Ontario Curriculum Grade Five Language component. The fairy tale genre, including both traditional and alternative, of literature will be compared, contrasted and observed by looking at how female characters are portrayed, how gender roles are affected and what themes are presented in these timeless stories.
Young girls have so many role models to look up to today. Do the women in fairy tales belong in that category of being admired as strong female role models or are they just weak, beautiful women to read about in a fantasy story? Females are viewed in society as the weaker sex but taking a closer look at these fairy tales will determine whether or not these stories should be praised or loathed by society when looking at gender roles in fairy tales, especially when the older traditional stories are compared to the newer alternative stories.
The fairy tale genre is an underrated one as its popularity is reflected through popular culture and media (e.g. Shrek or Tangled ads, home ware, bedding, etc.). Many children in the world have grown up hearing at least one fairy tale and whether or not they enjoyed it, they will most likely remember it throughout their lives. The plot, theme and language of a fairy tale are so simple yet unforgettable. “The language of fairy tales is in the form of symbols where
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everything means something more or something else” (Charles, 2009, p. 13). By being able to deconstruct and explore the many meanings fairy tale stories represent, students can “acquire the experience of imaginative meaning that can be applied to one’s life as a means of understanding and making sense of it. We are all the heroes (or heroines) of our own life stories” (Charles,
2009, p. 14).
The curriculum unit designed for Grade Five Language will explore the imaginative meaning of fairy tales and, hopefully, come to a positive result as these issues are looked at within the chosen fairy tale stories. This project will focus on two popular traditional fairy tale stories, Snow White and The Sleeping Beauty , both written by the Brothers Grimm and their alternative fairy tale counterparts, Snow White in New York (written by Fiona French), Sleeping
Ugly (written by Jane Yolen) and The Paper Bag Princess (written by Robert Munsch).
Rationale
As a female, who has been both a teacher and student of education and literature, I want to see young children explore the different genres of literature and their meanings related to themselves and society. After all, a child’s first exposure to literature is usually a fairy tale written by either the Brothers Grimm or Perrault (Kuykendal & Stern, 2007). This exposure usually sends certain messages to children that include how gender roles are to be portrayed. I am concerned about some of the issues of female role models within the media and would like to start with some famous ones in fairy tale literature, such as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.
These are two of the most popular beauties in fairy tales that send a strong message about love and appearance to young female readers.
By exploring the message these characters present, young children can decide whether or not they want to follow the examples that these traditional or alternative fairy tale story
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characters set. With alternative fairy tales becoming more popular, are they the stories that are moving forward with positive female stereotypes? Traditional fairy tales teach us that women must be beautiful and timid while alternative ones state that women can be their own heroes by being strong and independent. Surely, every female would love the best of both worlds but does that combination really exist in the fairy tale world? Reading and learning about these two types of fairy tales can expand students’ knowledge of literature, as well as decide how women and men are portrayed in fairy tales, either positively or negatively. Students can also learn how to engage their imagination, express their creativity and construct their own meaning through reading about fairy tales (Charles, 2009). Studying fairy tales will bring out the creative dreamer and artist found in the right brain that longs to be nourished (Charles, 2009) and, hopefully, by learning about fairy tales, students can unleash the creativity in their imagination even farther than they ever thought they could.
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CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Traditional Fairy Tales
“
If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales
.” ---Albert Einstein.
What is a Fairy Tale?
A fairy tale is a magical story that takes its reader or listener to an enchanted world where dreams come true, morals are taught, evil is demolished and good triumphs over all. The fairy tale is full of wonder and excitement that brings enchantment and a promise of a happy ending.
As Charles (2009) simply puts it: “Fairy tales are stories about ordinary human beings and elements of magic” (p. 9). Some fairy tales do end unhappily but as an exception to the rule of a typical ‘fairy tale ending’ or ‘fairy tale romance’, which indicate that the majority of fairy tales do end happily and are full of romance, hope and joy. But rather, the term ‘fairy tale’ or ‘fairy story’ is referred to as a tale that is filled with magical romance and a happy ending
(McGlathery, 1991).
But why are fairy tales called fairy tales when there is no mention of actual fairies in the stories? Only a small number of the stories actually refer to fairies (some of which include
Cinderella , Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan ). The term ‘fairy tale’ suggests a genre that is characterized by tales in which fairies are present, or even rarer, as the main character. The name
‘fairy tale’ is misleading because the focus is not on the word ‘fairy’ but it is “about Faerie, the realm in which fairies exist” (Charles, 2009, p. 10). It is a place where talking animals live, dreams come true and where anything can happen.
Fairy tales are a part of folklore traditional stories which were translated from the oral
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tradition of storytelling among adults centuries ago. They were not always happy nor did they have child-friendly plotlines. The stories may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as myths and legends (which generally involve belief in the truth of the events described) and explicitly moral tales, including beast fables. Fairy tales typically feature folkloric characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. Often the story will involve a far-fetched sequence of events. These tales were intended to be stories provided for entertainment, not necessarily for ‘happily ever after’ believers. The fairy tale stories are a subgenre of folklore that include stories of myth, legend and magic (Surlalane Fairy
Tales, 2007). Oral fairy tales began to be written down so others could share the tales for centuries to come but each time they were written down, various authors would change different aspects of the plot or characters as time passed by.
A fairy tale is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as “a story for children about fairies, or about magic and enchantment//a very probable story//a lie” (Webster’s Dictionary, 1990). A fairy tale is also depicted as a story that contains mysterious or supernatural elements that is based on myth or legend and usually never contains real-life events or people. Whereas stories that take place in the future are usually a fantasy or dream and are usually spiritual but never religious (Lane, 1993). A fairy story can also be defined as a story of satire, adventure, morality, or fantasy and can be understood by magic alone. The fairy tale is a story that represents satire but the magic in it is to never be made fun of but taken seriously because of its ability to transcend time and space through the magic of storytelling (Tolkien, 1965).
The term ‘fairy tale’ refers to an original fairy tale story. It comes from the oral tradition of centuries ago. It is the classic fairy tale that the modern Western society refers to and knows
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best. The traditional fairy tale is one that has an identifiable author, for example, Hans Christian
Andersen, the author of The Ugly Duckling.
Elements of a Fairy Tale
The fairy tale typically contains these main elements in its criteria. There is a prince or princess who is searching for his or her true love, one or more of that character’s parents is dead, a moral is always taught (this was emphasized more after fairy tales became mainly children’s stories), elements of magic are included (mythical creatures, spells, curses, etc), there is almost always a ‘happily ever after’ ending that includes a wedding, the evil character meets his or her demise, a valuable lesson is learned and the main character gets everything he or she wants and deserves because of the goodness in his or her heart portrayed throughout the story. The fairy tale usually starts off with the classic ‘once upon a time’ to open the story and sets the mood for a plot that includes enchantment, magic and wonder.
Many well-known fairy stories share a common format: a forlorn, orphaned young person, cast out from his or her former home, and who, after various trials and tribulations, is rescued and united with a loved one -- a parent or royal personage (Hall, 2000). Cinderella serves as a good model: the orphaned child is trapped and bullied by her wicked step-mother and ugly step-sisters, meaning that the human soul is estranged from its spiritual nature or ‘father in heaven’ and comes under the unpleasant control and influence of the lower side of nature (Hall,
2000). These are not her natural blood relatives, suggesting that the human soul rightly belongs to its better side. Dislodged from its proper status, the soul struggles to recover its legitimate state. By purity and virtue it gains the support and help of its fairy godmother, the spiritual soul.
Many tales use the godmother and giver of gifts to represent the soul's finer qualities unfolded
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through merit (Hall, 2000).
Good and Evil Representation in the Fairy Tale
The fairy tale also tends to contain some form of good and evil as a struggle. Virtue and goodness are present in the story but are either hidden away and need to be brought out by the protagonist by defeating the evil obstacles to triumph in the end or emphasized for the reader to learn a valuable lesson or moral from reading the story (Bettelheim, 1989). Good and evil are always omnipresent in fairy tales and are always present in each character (Bettelheim, 1989).
Each character is either fully good or fully evil; there are no exceptions to this rule. “The figures in fairy tales are not ambivalent-not good or bad at the same time as we all are in reality...a person is either good or bad, nothing in between” (Bettelheim, 1989, p. 9). The good characters are always rewarded for their virtue while evil characters are punished for their wrongful deeds throughout the story or eventually at the end of the story when good has triumphed (Bettelheim,
1989). Evil is represented by the protagonist’s foil and good is represented by the main character and his or her close friends or followers. Good usually takes shape in the form of beauty as represented in the lead character or protagonist while evil is represented by ugliness such as a beast or witch of some form to emphasize the contrasting elements of the two traits. But evil does have some appealing factors represented by these wretched characters that include power, wealth or domination that characters like the evil Queen step-mother ( Snow White , Cinderella ), fire-breathing dragon ( Sleeping Beauty ), sea witch ( The Little Mermaid ), etc. tend to possess
(Bettelheim, 1989). But most children do not tend to gravitate towards these characters
(excluding the children that do side with the ‘bad guy’) because I believe that they know evil is short-lived (crime doesn’t pay!) and not only tend to identify with the good characters but root
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for them to succeed at all costs to fulfill the dream of a happily ever after at the end of the story.
Setting of the Fairy Tale
Fairy tales are stories of made-up places, time and characters. The places are ‘far, far away’ and have no detail as to where these places actually are. No country, city or address is given except for the hint of the story usually taking place in the past where no one currently alive was around to see. This unknown setting is referred to as ‘timeless past’. The ‘timeless past’ reference also applies to describing the setting when small details are mentioned in the story such as ‘she swept the hay in the barn at night’ which tells the reader that the characters live in a barn, perhaps somewhere remote in the countryside.
Time within the Fairy Tale
Time is not given or explained except for the classic line of ‘once upon a time’ which gives no indication as to where or when the story takes place. It gives the reader the indication that this tale has taken place a long time ago. This time is not described at all except that it was in a magical place and time that the reader can only dream about in his or her imagination.
Characters of the Fairy Tale
The characters usually consist of a protagonist or main character who carries the story or whom the story is about. This person may be someone of stature or peasantry, depending on what the story entails. This main character is usually a young man or woman whose parent(s) has
(have) died and he or she is searching for love, adventure or meaning in his or her rather passive, meaningless life. He or she is most likely poor (unless it is a prince or princess born of royalty) and yearns for something more satisfying in his or her life. There are always friends, or secondary characters, which support or help the protagonist find what he or she is looking for
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and provide some kind of comic relief to the plot of the story. Then there is the role of the evil antagonist who is usually setting out to destroy the protagonist in some way because of jealousy, greed or revenge. This character is usually defeated by the protagonist and meets his or her demise at the end of the story. Other secondary characters seen in the story are ones who act as parental figures who offer guidance and advice, as well as magical or mythical creatures, such as dragons, beasts, witches, etc that serve as obstacles and aides to the evil character(s) to destroy the main character throughout the story. A moral or lesson is learned and made clear to the reader, leaving him or her satisfied and content with a story that ends happily ever after. The protagonist either triumphs in the end and lives happily ever after or learns a valuable lesson after choosing the wrong thing to do which leads to his or her demise (even though this ending rarely takes place).
Transition from Oral to Written Form
Fairy tales have been around for thousands of years and started out as oral stories told by many people around the world. The most popular fairy tale stories in Western society are from
Europe that have been told for generations and eventually became written down into literary form. These were stories of good and evil but mostly told as a form of entertainment. In time
(within the past hundred years or so), fairy tales slowly became lost from oral tradition to become written in storybook form. At this time, scholars really started to explore the fairy tale genre. The “oral folk tale and the literary fairy tale were now both clearly separate entities uniting the two forms because of few (if any) records of actual written stories with exception of illustrations or rare cultural artifacts” (Zipes, 2006, p. 42).
The oral folk tales were told around the world for hundreds of years but no one is certain
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who told the tales or where they originated from. The stories travelled around the world through gifted storytellers and travellers from Europe, Asia and Africa through trade and migration
(Zipes, 2006). Various storytelling scribes began to write them down in hopes of preserving the tales, which eventually became literary fairy tales. Writing these stories down was not only to preserve them but share with future generations. The Brothers Grimm believed that the original fairy tales were most likely religious-based but storytellers gradually changed them to become
“secular wonder tales” (Zipes, 2006, p. 46) for readers around the world. The original fairy tales were intended for adult audiences even though most of these oral folk tales were changed from the original, harsher reality to tales of enchantment. The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian
Andersen began telling these stories as more child-friendly fairy tale stories written for the entertainment of young children. This was the original transition from oral to written form of the fairy tale story.
Fairy Tale versus Folk Tale
The distinction between fairy tales with a specific author and those from the folk tradition comes from folklorists who follow Thompson and further distinguish between the ‘fairy tale’ (=
Kunstmarchen) and the ‘folk tale’ (= Volksmarchen); these two types may also be defined as
‘literary fairy tales’ (the kind with an identifiable author) and ‘folk fairy tales’. The folk tale is the older form, and it is oral and communal. That is, it has developed through repeated oral retellings within a society or community; each person who retells it makes his or her own contributions to the story, altering it in some way. If it does not continue to meet the needs of the community as well as of the individual teller and his or her audience, it will disappear from the oral tradition (from J.L. Fischer, as cited in Hastings, 2004). Characteristics of oral texts include:
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1. Emphasis on plot; setting and characters are generic rather than specific and 2. Repetitive; repetitious elements help in the memory process (Hastings, 2004).
Fairy tales were known as ‘folk tales’ before they became ‘fairy tale stories’. They were oral stories that were about magic, enchantment and folklore. Though many of those elements still exist in the traditional fairy tale, folk tales were passed on through oral story-telling and were lost over time because they were not written down so they could be preserved and told for centuries to come.
This is where the literary form of storytelling begins. Old fragments of folk tales were pieced together to create fairy tales that were written down into stories that could be told and shared for years to come as well as new fairy tale stories that were created and began to be written down. These stories began to develop by popular authors such as Hans Christian
Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. These authors’ goals were to preserve the fairy tale in writing for children and adults of the future to enjoy and remember them.
The fairy tale is a literary production modelled to a greater or lesser extent on folk tales.
As a literary work, it has a more set form; i.e., you can make a claim for an authoritative version, that of the original author (for example, Andersen's
‘Wild Swans’
; Hastings, 2004). Since it is reproduced in text, it does not necessarily have to meet community needs for different ages; it has the ability to be transmitted across gaps. Nevertheless, the most successful fairy tales usually exhibit the same kind of sociopsychological effect that Fischer sees in the folk tale (Hastings,
2004).
Apo and Hackston (2007) write that some characteristics of literary texts include: 1. More specific characters, often with greater interiority and developed personality and 2. Greater
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description of individuals and of settings and 3. Repetition tends to be minimized as distracting from flow of story. After the intellectual changes of the 1960s, researchers of fairy tales were also forced to take a stance in the orality-versus-literacy dichotomy. For ‘Democrats’, the formula of the fairy tale was now ‘people + orality = authenticity and originality’ (Apo &
Hackston, 2007). Even though collectors began to turn their attention to orally transmitted tales only in the 1800s, the genre was projected into a bygone era, extending from the Ice Age to feudal times (Apo & Hackston, 2007). The folk tale was assumed to be the obvious and primary source of the literary fairy tale.
Printed narratives were seen as tainted with the ideology of their authors. Because writers, for one reason or another, generally modified or discarded popular motifs, folk tales suffered: they lost their original, deep meanings derived from folk belief and praxis of life (Apo & Hackston, 2007).
The Brothers Grimm played a large part in the retelling of fairy tales but their versions were quite different from the ones that we are used to now. The stories collected by Jacob and
Wilhelm Grimm in the early 1800s serve up life as generations of central Europeans knew it— unpredictable and often cruel.
“
The two brothers, patriots determined to preserve Germanic folktales, were only accidental entertainers. Once they saw how the tales bewitched young readers, the Grimms, and editors aplenty after them, started ‘fixing’ things. Tales gradually got softer, sweeter, and primly moral.
Yet all the polishing never rubbed away the solid heart of the stories, now read and loved in more than 160 languages
” (National Geographic, 2010).
Fairy tales have changed throughout the years from tales of entertainment for adults to watered-down tales of enchantment stories for children. They have improved, perhaps, for the
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better but have definitely lost their raw edge that was originally intended for an adult audience in the literary world. Fairy tales have become sweeter, happier and more hopeful, which have created a more positive outlook on the folk, or fairy, tale. They still provide a form of entertainment in the literary world but with a gentler and more child-friendly attitude that will continue to dominate the literary world of today and tomorrow.
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Contemporary Picture Books
“ What is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversation?
”
---Alice (
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, L. Carroll).
What is a Picture Book?
A picture book is a story that is told with words and illustrations. It combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format. It is aimed at young children and communicates information
(telling stories) through combining pictures with written text and is unlike any other form of verbal or visual art (Nodelman, 1988). The images in picture books use a range of media such as oil paints, acrylics, watercolour and pencil. Some of the earliest and well-known picture books include classics such as Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit from 1902, Margaret Wise
Brown’s
Goodnight Moon (1947) and Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad are Friends (1970). Newer ones include Dr. Seuss’ series of picture books and Maurice Sendak’s
Where the Wild Things
Are (1963) as mentioned by Goldstone (2002). These books tend to be popular because of the imaginative stories and unforgettable pictures that tell a story uniting these two aspects.
The standard definition for a picture book is that it is 32 pages and generally for ages four to eight. Manuscripts are up to 1500 words with 1000 being the average length. Plots are simple with one main character that embodies the child's emotions, concerns and viewpoint. The illustrations play as great a role as the text in telling the story. Within the picture book story, the text is almost always purchased separately from the art work (Reichard, 1997).
Elements of a Picture Book
One main element of the picture book is that it has its own distinctive format and can always be defined as a work of art as well as words. It is categorized by its format, not its content, and is an interdependence of the illustration and text (Goldstone, 2002). The words and
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art complement each other to help define the other’s meaning and importance to the story.
The text is usually simpler than novels and linear which keeps its reader focused with a standard beginning, middle and end that sets the tone for the illustrations to follow as well.
Characters stand out and tend to be appealing to all audiences. In traditional fairy tales, the protagonist struggles with a sense of self and usually needs to complete a fantastical journey before he or she is ready to return home safely. The overall tone is comforting and warm, leaving the reader satisfied and content with a sense of optimism. This is usually the standard overall tone for most picture books of yesterday as well as today (Goldstone, 2002).
When picture books have text, it is relatively straightforward. A few picture books use rhyming text, to teach children about word rhythms and patterns. More complex text which will be read aloud to the child may be in a smaller font, fitting more of a story in words onto each page. Pictures are present in the picture book to provide a visual description of the text at hand and vice versa with the words of the story providing a description of the illustrations provided in the picture book.
The History of a Picture Book
The picture book as a concept emerged in 1744, when the idea of introducing children to reading through pictures was thought of. Numerous famous authors and illustrators, such as John
Newbery and Beatrix Potter, wrote picture books. In most modern picture book creations, the author and illustrator are two different people. Once an editor in a publishing house has accepted a manuscript for a text from an author, the editor starts the search for an illustrator (that is, unless the author serves as the illustrator as well; which does happen in picture book creations at times).
Typically, a publisher receives the text of a picture book from the author, and then sets out to
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find an illustrator. They then collaborate on that particular book and usually work on more future projects together.
Most children start looking at picture books at the age of two or three and they may continue to enjoy them for several years. Initially, parents typically hold picture books for their children, reading the text aloud and pointing out interesting features of the illustrations. These types of picture books are most prominent when children are learning how to read and the pictures can help them connect the words of the story with what they see to help their reading.
Picture books have been studied and observed by many cultures over the years, especially in Germany and Sweden, where much time is devoted to researching picture books. In Germany, one of the earliest collections appeared in 1968 entitled, Aspekte der gemalten Welt , (Nikolajeva
& Scott, 2001). It discussed many aspects of the picture book and why books with illustrations were so vital to children’s increased reading of picture books. The relationship between text and picture was observed and researched intensively for the purpose of finding out how the relationship works and which of the two is more important, if so at all. Sweden provided many concepts as well that included ‘iconotext’ (Hallberg, 1982, as cited in Nikolajeva & Scott, 2001) which showcased picture books as scientific and with more meaning than other types of books
(primarily because of the text and picture relationship) and coined the picture book as “epic, expanded, and genuine” (Nikolajeva & Scott, 2001, p. 6).
What makes the picture book unique is the fact that it is observed as a work of art that is based on two levels of communication, which include the verbal and the visual (Nikolajeva &
Scott, 2001). These picture books were always known for their text, rather than the images that were paired with the book. Literary research always favoured the text as more important or
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focused on (Nikolajeva & Scott, 2001), whereas now the picture book is known for the images rather than text. The picture was always strung alongside the text and helped enhance it in some way, rather than complement the written part of the book. The pictures being secondary in picture books have changed now since the text and picture relationship tend to enhance the other and work in unison to provide the essential picture book for its readers.
Illustrations in Picture Books
The artistic medium of a picture book can vary widely. Pastels, paints, coloured pencils, pens, watercolours and collage are all used to illustrate picture books. The illustrator tries to make a picture book visually lush, with detailed, interesting pictures to capture the imagination.
Hopefully, children will want to ponder each page while savouring the details of the pictures.
The pictures draw children into the book, leading him or her to be intrigued by other books, perhaps later to read books with few or no illustrations.
The illustrations in picture books are unique to the text itself and tend to highlight what the written part of the story is trying to tell its reader. The text is dependent on the accompanying pictures or specific meaning and interpretation of what the words of the story are trying to tell
(Nodelman, 1988) “because the words and the pictures in picture books both define and amplify each other, neither is as open-ended as either would be on its own” (Nodelman, 1988, p. 8).
Illustrations in picture books are usually highlighted as the main feature in these types of books. Children (especially younger ones) tend to gravitate towards the brightly coloured drawings to help them not only tell the story but to understand it. If a child sees an illustration of the sun, he will not only see the colour yellow but a physical representation of that hot, brightlycoloured ball of gas in the sky that the word ‘sun’ would not be able to tell him as clearly or as
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quickly.
Illustrations tend to dominate in picture books as the main element of the story book and the words of the story are not usually as prominent. Words of the story are paired with the illustrations to highlight the other. Most picture books feature larger and more prominent drawings as the central focus of the book unless they are in a collection of stories, novels or short stories. Examples include anthologies of fairy tales or poetry books where the story is dominant and the pictures represent a portion or the main theme in the plot (such as Sleeping Beauty sleeping in the castle as the dominant illustration, which is the central idea or plotline in that story, and then maybe an illustration of the dragon or castle for the secondary plots that include the climax: the prince defeating the dragon or the setting to where the story takes place). Text and picture together create a more powerful story that can be seen visually as a work of art because the words need the illustrations to tell a story and in some cases, vice versa. As
Nodelman (1988) states: “...the pictures in a picture book form a sequence---they can contribute to the act of storytelling because they do not imply the cause-and-effect relationships of time...pictures imply meaning, even one picture on its own can organize space in ways that suggest some of the sequential ordering of time and provide some of its focus” (p. 199).
In a study by Sylvia Pantaleo, Exploring Student Responses to Contemporary
Picturebooks (2008), she recalls asking children about what they learned from picture books and most of them observed that they learned to the “read the illustrations” (p. 7). They also discovered hidden meanings and to study the pictures in detail for more meaning within the text.
Reading the text and looking at the pictures helped the students to identify the story’s main ideas and themes because of the relationship between the text and pictures. This connection made for a
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better understanding of the story because the text explained the pictures and vice versa. They
“learned the importance of re-reading through the pictures as well as the bond between text and illustrations” (Pantaleo, 2008, p. 7). By being able to see what they are reading through pictures, students can read, write and express their ideas more clearly after reading picture books.
The Contemporary Picture Book
The contemporary picture book is an updated or more modern version of the classic picture book. But what does the word contemporary mean? Postmodern is another popular term for the contemporary picture book. It is used to describe attitudes, styles, and changes that have taken place in Western culture since World War II. These postmodern concepts found in children’s picture books are usually similar to the ones found in other types of literature and have elements of a cynicism or mocking in traditional art forms (Goldstone, 2002), which also lead to alternative, different versions or spoofs of the classic story or fairy tale at hand (which will be discussed in more detail further in this chapter).
Contemporary picture books are new types of picture books. When used in reference to fairy tale stories, they are the newest or most current version of that fairy tale story. These picture books are often a re-telling of the original stories with some kind of twist, new beginning or ending, or alternative storytelling to suit the current, or contemporary, lifestyle of the present or future. These versions of the contemporary fairy tale are usually re-vamped or told in a context that is current for the reader of today. “Narrative is the most vital element in literature for children, not only in the novel, but also in the modern (or contemporary) picture book”
(Roxburgh, 1982, p. 20).
Fairy tales are often selected as the basis for creating picture books because the storyline
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containing magical elements needs the interpretive support of illustrations. This is why fairy tale picture books are one of the most popular types of picture books. They paint a picture of a story that is so magical that one cannot imagine it as clearly without illustrations. A faraway land and enchanted characters are drawn out for the reader, which provide the most vivid story imaginable with illustrations, as well as text. The contemporary picture book is designed to tell a story using images that will engage children’s love of reading. It has, and will continue to, enhance the understanding of the fairy tale story through the element of visual imagery.
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Alternative Fairy Tales
“Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale of all.”
---Hans Christian Andersen.
As stated previously, ‘ a fairy tale is a magical story that takes the reader or listener to an enchanted world where dreams come true, morals are taught, evil is demolished and good triumphs over all. The fairy tale is full of wonder and excitement that brings enchantment and a promise of a happy ending
’. This is the definition of the traditional fairy tale. So, what exactly is an alternative fairy tale? The context in which it will be used here is that of the ‘fragmented’ or
‘spoof’ fairy tale. It is not necessarily the fairy tale that has been updated by children’s authors, or even Disney versions, but the fairy tale story that takes a twist or turn of some sort on the traditional fairy tale story. This fairy tale story is altered in some way that is still somewhat similar to the original but has an alternate ending, futuristic characters, or the villain’s side of the story, etc. This story can be somewhat silly or funny, the extreme opposite of the original or have a twist on what really happened in the story at hand.
What is an Alternative Fairy Tale?
An alternative, or fractured, fairy tale is a fairy or folk tale that has been modified to make the reader laugh at an unexpected characterization, plot development or contrary point of view (Kinsella, 2000). These stories are always based on popular fairy tales, ones that readers are familiar with. According to Kinsella (2000), if it is not a recognizable tale, then the humour will be lost. Serious fairy tales tend to be the best type of fairy tale story to fragment because the humour will be made known in the newer version of the story because it was not seen in the original. Tall tales and trickster stories do not work well as a fragmented story because the humour is already apparent in the story. The traditional royalty or magic elements can be made fun of and provide a better fragmented story for the reader to enjoy (Kinsella, 2000).
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Children’s literature tends to be sweet and playful often with a light humour attached to the story. But these types of alternative stories go an extra mile in taking the humour into a delightful twist that seems to appeal to children just as much. These stories tend to have a more sarcastic tone within the plot but the reader is appreciative of that because he or she knows that it is a play on the ‘real’ or traditional story. Examples include stories about secondary characters and things that happen to them while they were in the traditional story or the background story of where they came from. The reader knows that these events would never happen in the traditional story so they find it more enjoyable because of the sarcastic tone. These alternative books relate to the postmodern culture we live in and provide a bolder type of entertainment for child readers in literature, especially within the traditional fairy tale genre. Compared to the original fairy tale plotline, these stories contain a mocking undertone that shies away from the traditional gentle storyline and tone of the original fairy tale. Because the story is manipulated, it is more outrageous and hilarious for the reader. The story focuses more on twists and turns or on secondary characters for a more mocking tone that encourages the reader to think further into more imaginative realms (Goldstone, 2002).
The Fairy Tale as a Parody
One particular example is The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales , which is clearly a parody of the traditional fairy tale, or in this case, folk tale. It, among others such as The
True Story of the Three Little Pigs by A. Wolf , proves that folk tales can be the most likely target for irony and manipulation in the re-telling of traditional stories. Because of the obvious humour and fantastical elements at hand, these stories can be made fun of to a point where it is just ridiculous nonsense instead of a concrete story with meaning (Stevenson, 1994). These types of
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parody stories are created purely for entertainment value and to encourage children to read variations of familiar fairy tale stories, especially if they know they can achieve some laughter and enjoyment from them. These stories have no boundaries, no particular plot and have characters running all over the place (such examples of books that include these elements are
Little Red Running Pants and The Boy Who Cried Cow Patty ) (Stevenson, 1994). Again, these are folk-tale based, which already provide the comic background.
These stories are silly and give the reader nothing concrete to walk away with (but then again, are usually intended for younger children), unlike the alternative, or fractured, fairy tale.
The alternative fairy tale stills keeps some of its magical elements, the morals and main message of the story but with a modern twist or altercation for the reader to still walk away with a lesson learned and to be entertained as well. As Stevenson (1994) puts it, “fairy tales are narrative clay, made to be played with and reshaped, with no definitive version possible. Rather than enforcing morals, they flout the very idea” (p. 32).
Everyone has heard of fairy tales and the traditional ways in which they are told and read.
But the alternative fairy tale takes that original traditional story and leaves that soft, gentle comfort zone for a more raw and humourous tone. This is present in stories that revolve around popular traditional fairy tale stories such as Cinderella , Snow White , Sleeping Beauty , Beauty and the Beast , etc. These alternative stories are twisting the original plotline in some way, whether it is through the origins of the characters, setting or country change, character focus on secondary characters, story endings, character point of views, etc.
The term ‘alternative’ applies to this type of story because it updates or modifies the original fairy tale without completely changing the story. It allows the story to still keep its
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original elements of the plotline but with a mocking, sarcastic and often humourous undertone that can either enhance or enlighten the reader’s perception of that traditional fairy tale. This type of story changes the familiar to the unknown but in a way that the reader can still understand and follow along because he or she is most likely familiar with the original traditional fairy tale story.
Examples of how alternative is applied in popular culture include television shows such as cartoons ( The Simpsons , South Park ) or even movies (the live-action Beastly and Red Riding
Hood ) and plays ( Wicked ) (Goldstone, 2002). These shows are intended for adults but are also being slowly adapted into movies for children such as Shrek . This is an example of the traditional fairy tale that is told in an alternative way. Children can still understand and recognize it but it is a new take on the old fairy tale in a sarcastic and mocking tone. Goldstone (2002) outlines some rules for the alternative fairy tale story (particularly in picture books), which include having multiple narrators and a playful overtone where jokes and puns are frequent. The reader fills in gaps of the alternative fairy tale by using prior knowledge from the traditional story. Listed are some examples of an alternative, or fractured, fairy tale story:
The Viewpoint of the Villain
This type of story focuses on the protagonist’s nemesis or the villain of the plot. In most traditional fairy tales, the protagonist symbolizes goodness and purity and saves the day to live happily ever after. The villain is usually known for his or her evil nature and seeks revenge on the protagonist or wants to exert power over others. The villain is usually shunned and portrayed in a negative fashion to the reader. The reader never truly understands where the villain’s hate comes from. In the alternative fairy tale, this hate is sometimes revealed if the story is told from the villain’s viewpoint and an alternative explanation for the villain’s actions is given.
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Adult Literature Examples (of the Villain’s Viewpoint)
Some popular examples include the adult novel Wicked , written by Gregory Maguire which tells the story from the Wicked Witch of the West’s point of view in
The Wizard of Oz .
Another novel he has written is Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister in which Cinderella is portrayed as the spoiled princess villain and the step-sisters tell their side of the story of what
‘really’ happened, implying that the true heroines of the story are indeed themselves, not the original protagonist, Cinderella. Another example is Mirror, Mirror , also by Gregory Maguire, which recalls the traditional fairy tale story through the eyes of the evil step-mother in Snow
White. These types of stories give the reader a new outlook on the traditional stories by asking questions such as ‘what if?’, ‘why did this happen?’, or ‘could this have happened instead?’. It causes readers to question and investigate, as well as dissect, what could have, would have or even should have happened.
Children’s Literature examples (of the Villain’s Viewpoint)
The same process occurs in children’s literature with stories such as
The True Story of the
Three Little Pigs by A. Wolf , which is another fractured picture book example that sympathizes with the original villain, the Big Bad Wolf, and portrays him as the victim and story’s protagonist. The story is told from his point of view. He argues that his point of view is the correct story, not the view found in the traditional version, which is the three pigs’ point of view.
These stories provide not only a twist of comedy to the original story but illustrate how the alternative way of story-telling is appearing in children’s literature now.
This type of story can also be described as having an Alternate Ending (explained later on in this section) because the outcome is usually different and favours the villain. The villain has
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become the protagonist who explains his or her story to the audience and who has changed in a positive way. This new protagonist (former villain and antagonist) suggests that he or she was wrongly accused or falsely looked down upon by the audience in the traditional story. These stories can be classified in either the Alternate Ending or the
Villain’s Viewpoint
categories of the alternative fairy tale story.
Humourous Twist & Male and Female Roles Reversed
This type of story focuses on more satirical and humourous elements of the traditional fairy tale. It takes the original story and adds comic relief to it by making the characters do silly or outrageous things for a laugh. The reader is engaged and enlightened for awhile but walks away with the same things that they would have if he or she had read a traditional fairy tale, with the exception of having a few or more laughs along the way. Some examples of this type of story include Sleeping Ugly and The Paper Bag Princess . These books portray a silly or outrageous twist of events based on the traditional fairy tale.
Sleeping Ugly (written by Jane Yolen) can be described as a story about beautiful
Princess Miserella, Plain Jane and a fairy who all fall under a sleeping spell and then a Prince comes along and undoes the spell in a surprisingly different way. It is a modern twist on the traditional fairy tale story of Sleeping Beauty. In this case, the sleeping ‘beauty’ must still get the
Prince to awake her, despite her unattractive appearance. These stories are usually targeted for younger children in elementary school who would be familiar with the traditional story and find the simple humour in these updated stories understandable. These stories are also effective because they go against traditional fairy tale female stereotypes, such as the Princess always being beautiful or the Princess having to be rescued. They show young girls that being a
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Princess, or even just a female, can be empowering and that women can make it on their own, as well as save the day, suggesting that the traditional female roles can be changed for the better.
Jack Zipes describes Yolen’s view as her feminism not being one-dimensional. That is, not all women are good, nor are all men villainous (Zipes, 1987). Women can be the villain and men can be the victim in the alternative fairy tale as more of these stories are being written.
Another example is Robert Munsch’s book,
The Paper Bag Princess , which tells the story of a Princess who is about to be saved by the Prince but he is defeated by the dragon so the
Princess must rescue herself as well as slay the dragon. As a result of this, her face is ashcovered and her clothes are burnt, resorting to her wearing a paper bag. She eventually finds the
Prince who does not want to be with her because of her dirty appearance. She then leaves him to go off on her own. This story is an example of having both a humourous twist as well as being one of the fractured fairy tales that has a feminist take and is portrayed in many alternative fairy tale stories. It can be looked at as one of the most feminist alternative fairy tales of our time, despite being written by a male author. Another classic description of this story is found in The
New York Times as: “a dragon burns down a princess's castle and all her clothes. Her prince becomes wishy-washy in his affections. Is she upset? Of course. Wearing only a paper bag, she searches boldly for the dragon, finds him and turns him into a harmless old serpent” (Leimback,
1993). This also refers to the scorned female, who even after enduring such hardship, can still stand up on her feet to survive on her own, without a male figure rescuing her and defeating the beast on her own. The new fairy tale female is seen as strong and independent who will survive, even if she must do it on her own.
This type of story guides young girls’ views on whether or not
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a female can be rescued, whether it is by a Prince, or by her. This also touches on the subject of male and female roles reversed, where the female must rescue the male (if not first rescue herself) or the female must save the day to triumph as the hero.
In this type of alternative fairy tale, the passive female role and the aggressive male role are reversed. Women in fairy tales are usually timid, sweet and are the classic ‘damsel-indistress’ who need the male to rescue them. The men in fairy tales are strong and gallant, who always save the day, lady-love in hand. But in the alternative fairy tale, the female is the dominant figure who must save the day, save the man, or both! She is powerful, strong and will do anything to fight her way to the top. The basic plotline of the traditional fairy tale still exists but with a female overtone that dominates the story, as the male role originally would. This is strongly portrayed in alternative fairy tale stories such as The Paper Bag Princess .
This is also seen in the picture book, Shrek!
(by William Steig, 1990). This story was not very popular until its movie counterpart ( Shrek , 2001) was made and became a huge commercial success. The original story is a bit bland compared to the animated movie but has the same basic elements. The story is about an ogre who must rescue a Princess from her tower and defeat the dragon but he is actually a kind character who ends up getting the Princess because the Prince is the evil one. The Prince discovers that the Princess is actually an ogre who finds her true love in
Shrek, even though being together defies all fairy tale endings. She follows her heart to remain true as an ogre and in return, she gets to live happily ever after. It may not be the traditional or typical way a happily ever after goes, but the two ogres find love and do end up living happily ever after. This gives children (as well as adults) a new moral to think about, one where outward appearances do not matter, playing on the traditional stories of Sleeping Beauty (mimicking the
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Princess trapped in a tower, waiting to be rescued after the Prince slays the dragon) and Beauty and the Beast (but this time the Beast does not transform into a handsome prince, he stays the way he is). Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, whoever it may be. Entertainment Weekly (2009) affectionately put it ( Shrek ) on its end-of-the-decade, ‘best-of’ list, saying, "Prince Charming? So last millennium. This decade, fairy-tale fans--and Princess Fiona--fell for a fat and flatulent
Ogre. Now, that's progress.” This moral teaches young readers and viewers that one does not have to be beautiful on the outside to find love. What is on the inside is more important than on the outside, such as a caring heart and kind nature. Love always finds a happily ever after; no matter what it looks like on the outside.
Alternate Setting
This type of story also contains most of the same elements as the traditional fairy tale but the setting is different. The morals and lessons of the plot are the same but the time in which it takes place changes. These stories tend to be more modern and take place in present or futuristic times, as opposed to ‘a long time ago’ or ‘a faraway place’ in the past. One example is the modern story of Snow White in New York by Fiona French. This picture book tells the traditional story of Snow White but in the time and setting of modern-day New York City. Its focus is the fantastical pictures because they paint the real picture of the story through the setting of the plot.
New York’s popular spots and landmarks are showcased to enhance the story and provide the reader with a detailed account of what Snow White’s life would be like in modern-day New
York. She still has the step-mother and rich, lavish lifestyle but must escape her step-mother’s jealousy by getting a gig as a jazz singer in a club with seven jazz-men who take pity on her. Her step-mother eventually finds her to give her a poisoned cherry drink to kill her. The Prince is in
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the form of a newspaper reporter who follows her gigs for entertainment reviews in his column, as well as falls in love with her the first time he sees her. This is an excellent story of the updated and more modern Snow White for young girls to relate to, especially those who live in North
America and are familiar with the Western lifestyle.
Alternate Ending
The alternate ending story provides the reader with a new and improved ending to the traditional fairy tale story. Something is altered within the story to provide a new twist or complete change to the story’s end. The new plotline allows the writer to play with the original plotline to provide new and different alternatives to the ending. This ending is usually not as satisfying as the traditional one (for the traditional one always ends ‘happily ever after’ and is a pleasant one). If it changes and is better than the traditional ending, it is most likely because the traditional ending did not end happily, but that is a rarity. One example from adult literature is the popular story Wicked , where the ending is in favour of the supposed villain, The Wicked
Witch of the West, who is actually not so wicked after all and who ends up with a Prince and escapes her original demise of melting from water. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is also another example of when the supposed villains from the traditional story tell their side of things only to be portrayed as simple victims who deserved the happy ending instead of the protagonist the reader is familiar with and has always rooted for, Cinderella. Instead, she is portrayed as the spoiled and rotten character that the audience begins to see in a new, and definitely negative, light. This ending is happy but in the favour of the villain, as opposed to the original protagonist, who originally had the happy ending and is now left without one in the new, alternative version of the story.
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Other examples of this include The Paper Bag Princess , where the Princess ends up on her own. This drastically changes the traditional fairy tale ending where the Princess is rescued by the Prince and they live happily ever after. She lives happily ever after, just not with that
Prince. The same goes for The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by A. Wolf , where the wolf is the victim and ends up the victor at the end of the story. He tells the traditional story but from his point-of-view, where he ends up being the character the reader sympathizes with and who ends up with a happily ever after ending in his favour (instead of the pigs defeating him that leads to his demise).
The alternative fairy tale has become a new and innovative way of telling familiar stories of our childhood. Its modern pro-feminist take on the traditional fairy tale story is slowly becoming the norm for most of these stories. As Zipes says: “Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping
Beauty and the other chaste heroines have been radically transformed. Comatose princesses no longer wait for their dream princes or venerable fathers to rescue them. The princes tend to stumble over their own feet rather than perform valiant deeds. Fierce dragons and giants turn out to be friendly, while mysterious witches, once seen as evil, often possess the healing power of wise women” (The New York Times, 1987).
The setting, time and characters all vary depending on the alternative fairy tale story.
Unlike the traditional fairy tale stories, these stories feature different protagonists, humourous twists, male and female roles reversed, alternate settings and endings among others. There is no set description or criteria of what an alternative fairy tale should look like or have. These stories do always contain the morals and basic elements of the plot in the traditional fairy tales. But there is always a fun twist on the traditional fairy tale story that makes the reader laugh, think or
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just enjoy, no matter what it is about. It is about taking the known story and adding or taking away from it to produce something new and different, but still enjoyable. These stories range from silly picture books ( Little Red Running Pants ) to classic fractured stories ( The Paper Bag
Princess ) to adult-enjoyed adaptations ( Wicked ). Despite their message, setting or ending, they provide great alternatives to the traditional fairy tale story that will hopefully someday become traditional fairy tale stories of the future.
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Curriculum Design
“
Literacy is about more than reading or writing-it is about how we communicate in society. It is about social practices and relationships, about knowledge, language and culture.
”
-- UNESCO (Statement for the United Nations Literacy Decade, 2003-2012).
Introduction to Curriculum
Curriculum is referred as something that is indefinable, though many of have tried to define it. According to Barrow (1984), curriculum can be defined in so many ways that it is hard to narrow it down to just one or two concrete definitions for teachers to refer to or use. Kelly
(1977, as cited in Barrow, 1984) remarks that “the problems of definition are thus serious and complex and it may be that they are best avoided by not attempting to define it (curriculum) too closely” (p. 8). Barrow (1984) does not find this answer acceptable, claiming that there are two main ways to define curriculum: either look it up in a dictionary or study the usage ourselves. It is a big part of education and when used in a school setting, is a very detailed and organized tool that, hopefully, teachers and students will find to be useful and insightful.
The Curriculum & Language
The elementary school curriculum is a very important and crucial part of a child’s learning environment. This is why the content being taught must be not only beneficial to their learning growth but contain a variety of terms and subjects to enhance it. This includes a variety of foundational subjects as well as subjects not always included in or focused on during past curriculums (these would include secondary subjects such as Theatre, Poetry, or a specific genre of literature such as Fairy Tales, among others).
One of these important, as well as core, subjects include Language. This subject is
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probably the most important of all subjects students learn about because of its vital contribution to their writing, reading and language processing skills in school and later on in the workplace, as well as in everyday life.
This subject (of Language) contains many elements in the way it is taught to elementary school students. It includes areas such as poetry, reading novels and short stories (including exploring different genres of books), spelling and writing (essays or papers and short stories), to name a few. One particular genre is often overlooked or taught very minimally in the elementary curriculum. This genre is the folk or fairy tale story that explores different ideas about life, fantasy and romance as well as provides a strong influence on morals and the well-being of others.
Curriculum Design & Fairy Tales
The fairy tale is often introduced even before children start going to school and is usually the ever-popular bedtime story introduced by parents as a send-off into dreamland. Children around the world know of and hear these stories years before their formal education begin but yet they do not know the origins or meanings of the fairy tale itself. By introducing a curriculum unit on fairy tale stories to the junior level of elementary school, I hope that children will not only learn more about reading, writing and genre but discover how gender, human nature and general character are represented through fairy tale literature.
By designing a curriculum unit on fairy tales for Language, I hope that new and interesting ideas will be developed and can positively affect how the curriculum is developed in the future, whether it is designed by other teachers or parents. Curriculum design is an aspect of the education profession that focuses on developing subject matter for students attending a
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learning institution. Curriculum design is also used by parents or teachers who home school students, where the curriculum is much more flexible and may even be developed by those parents or teachers themselves. By adjusting and creating unique curriculum units will, hopefully, improve the way students learn because of the new and creative ideas teachers, like myself, have to contribute to the way they design their own curriculums.
Curriculum design is not just about planning a curriculum but “it is concerned with plotting the steps that need to be followed in devising and/or outlining a curriculum” (Barrow,
1984, p. 39). By carefully examining the curriculum at hand will make it, hopefully, simpler to create and design future curriculum units on any subject matter at hand. The focus of designing a curriculum, or curriculum unit, tends to be on the process of how it is designed, rather than who develops it that affects how it is being used in education; which will hopefully be positive, benefitting students, teachers and parents.
The History of the Curriculum
In The Curriculum , the first textbook published on this subject, Bobbitt (1918) states that the word ‘curriculum’ as an idea came from the Latin word ‘track or race-course’, which means course of study or syllabus. It represents the expression of educational ideas in practice (Tyler,
1949). Bobbitt (1918) went on to explain it as being the course of deeds and experiences through which children learn to become successful adults in the future and in society. The curriculum encompasses the entire scope of formative deed and experience occurring both in and out of school and not only experiences occurring in school; experiences that are unplanned and undirected, and experiences intentionally directed for the purposeful formation of adult members of society (Bobbitt, 1918).
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Bobbitt (1918) also defined the curriculum as a social engineering arena. Students will learn from this not only logically but scientifically because the curriculums would be designed by scientific experts. They would use their expert knowledge in various subjects as well as discover what qualities were most needed and wanted by adults in society. The curriculum also defined the experiences the students should have as an adult as opposed to the adult students ought to become.
Bobbitt (1918) then defined the curriculum as an ideal, rather than as the concrete reality of the deeds and experiences that form people to who and what they are.
The importance of the curriculum is the definition of the course objectives that usually are expressed as learning outcomes and normally include the program's assessment strategy.
These outcomes and assessments are grouped as units (or modules), and the curriculum comprises a collection of these units, which each become a specialized or specific part of the curriculum. A typical curriculum would include the teaching of language arts, communications, mathematics, information technology, physical education, geographical and historical education as well social skills units (including the Arts).
A curriculum is underpinned by a set of values and beliefs about what students should know and how they come to know it. The curriculum of any institution is often contested and problematic. Some people may support a set of underlying values that are no longer relevant.
This is referred to as the “sabretoothed (sic) curriculum” (Prideaux, 2003), which is based on the story of the cave dwellers who continued to teach about hunting the sabre-toothed tiger long after it became extinct. The curriculum must be responsive to changing values and expectations in education if it is to remain useful (Prideaux, 2003).
Prideaux (2003) outlines that the curriculum must be in a form that can be
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communicated to those associated with the learning institution, should be open to critique and should be able to be readily transformed into practice. The curriculum can be looked at or broken down into three levels which include: what is planned for the students, what is delivered to the students and what the students experience (Prideaux, 2003).
Curriculum and Education
In formal education or schooling, a curriculum is the set of courses, course work, and content offered at a learning institute. A curriculum may be partly or entirely determined by an external, authoritative body (e.g. the National Curriculum for England in English schools).
Curriculum formally has two meanings (Kelly, 2009). The first is the range of subjects and courses that students choose to study (this usually takes place within secondary and postsecondary education) and the second is a specified learning program already designed for them
(which almost always takes place in nursery or elementary school education) (Kelly, 2009).
The Language requirements of the Ontario Language curriculum is what this curriculum unit will be based on and the subject that this fairy tale unit will be designed for. The Ontario
Curriculum opens the summary of the Language section with “ literacy development lies at the heart of the Grade 1-8 language curriculum. (It) is a communal project and the teaching of literacy skills is embedded across the curriculum ;” (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 3). This particular fairy tale unit will pertain to the Grade 5 Reading component of the Ontario curriculum. This unit will follow the guidelines of five Language Grade 5 Reading requirements including Variety of Text 1.1
: read a variety of texts from diverse cultures, including literary texts (which include the genre of myths and folk or fairy tale stories) , graphic texts and informational texts ; Demonstrating Understanding 1.4
: demonstrate understanding of a variety
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of texts by summarizing important ideas and citing supporting details (which include myths and
fairy tales); Analyzing Texts 1.7
: analyze texts and explain how various elements in them
contribute to meaning, plot development, mood and theme; Point of View 1.9 : identify the point of view presented in texts, ask questions to identify missing or possible alternate points of view, and suggest some possible alternative perspectives and Metacognition 4.1 : identify the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 97-99).
Veronica Martenova Charles (2009) has designed a unit on fairy tales which includes these various approaches that are listed under ‘integration into curriculum expectations’ for use in fairy tale units designed for language study. A few of these approaches will be included in some form or another in the curriculum unit on fairy tale literature in chapter four. Some of these approaches that Charles (2009, p. 149) uses in her unit on fairy tales include:
Oral Communication

Contributing ideas, making inferences and predictions
 Extending understanding by connecting ideas to a child’s own knowledge and personal experiences, or to other media texts and to the world around them
 Using interactive strategies by making connections in the story and linking children’s own responses to what other students say during the story-creating activity
Writing
 developing ideas
 creating a story’s characters, setting, problem and resolution
 creating an original story, modelled on the tale told to them
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Media Literacy
 students choose a scene from a story, visualize the details and express their interpretation through drawing
 children can act out the story through a skit or play
All across the world, specific targets need to be met for education to ensure that students in every country can achieve a similar, as well as accurate, form of education. This is broken down into a curriculum, in this case, the Ontario Curriculum, which all elementary schools in
Ontario follow. An important aspect of curriculum design is to make sure these needs are being met at the right age group and grade level. I hope that this curriculum unit on fairy tales will somehow contribute positively to the learning and progression of how students learn about language in elementary schools as well as meet the required needs and standards for this particular grade.
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CHAPTER THREE
PLOT SUMMARIES OF TRADITIONAL AND ALTERNATIVE FAIRY TALES
Snow White : Summary of the Traditional Fairy Tale
Snow White is one of the most well-known tales written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19 th
century. It has been read by many parents as a bedtime story to their children. Dreams and love all come true for this kind, beautiful, young girl named Snow White. The Brothers
Grimm originally named this story simply ‘
Snow White
’ because the story is based around her character and she is present in almost every scene. Walt Disney later added ‘and the Seven
Dwarves’ to the 1937 animated film, with more emphasis and detail on the seven little men.
This story begins with a beautiful Queen who longs for a young daughter “with a skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony...” (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p.
218). This eventually comes true and the child is named ‘Snow White’. After Snow White is born, the Queen dies and the King remarries a year after. This new Queen, Snow White’s stepmother, is vain and always talks to a looking glass mirror in her bedroom. She asks it several times a day who is the fairest of them all, to which the mirror always replies is the Queen. As
Snow White gets older, she becomes more beautiful and the looking glass’s answer to the Queen changes to “Queen, you are full fair, ‘tis true, but Snow White is fairer than you” (Brothers
Grimm, 1883, p. 219). This upsets the Queen to no end so she tells one of her huntsmen to take
Snow White into the forest and kill her. As proof, she wants him to bring back Snow White’s heart. The huntsman does as he is told but feels pity for the young girl and lets her go into the forest. Instead, he catches a young boar and cuts its heart out for the Queen, who gladly cooks and eats it, thinking it is Snow White’s heart. After roaming the forest for days, Snow White finds a little cottage. She goes inside, eats, and then falls asleep in one of the seven beds there.
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The owners of the cottage are seven dwarves who come home from work to find a sleeping
Snow White. When she wakes up, they tell her that she can stay only if she agrees to cook and clean for them. The dwarves tell her to beware of any strangers around the house, as the Queen will surely find out she is still alive and will come to kill her. One day, an old woman comes to the door selling scarves. It is the Queen disguised, as she had asked the looking glass who the fairest of them all was and it answered that Snow White was, alerting the Queen that Snow
White was still alive. Snow White forgets the warning to not open the door for anyone and lets the old woman in and tries on a scarf. The Queen ties it too tightly and kills Snow White. The dwarves come home to find Snow White on the ground. They untie the scarf so she can breathe once again. A few days later, Snow White opens the door to another old woman selling combs.
The old woman, who is of course the Queen again and knows Snow White is still alive, combs
Snow White’s hair and she falls down dead again, as the comb is laced with poison. The dwarves come home to find Snow White on the ground again, take the comb out of her hair and she awakes again. Snow White knows not to ever open the door again but another old woman comes by a few days later and is offering apples for sale. The Queen, of course, had asked the mirror who the fairest of all was and it told her that Snow White was. So the Queen made a poisoned apple that consisted of a juicy red half that is poisoned and the other plain white half that is untainted. Snow White feels bad for the old woman but does not let her in so the Queen offers her a free apple and will even take a bite herself to prove the apple has not been tampered with.
Snow White agrees and the Queen bites the white side of the apple and passes the red side to
Snow White who takes a bite and falls down to the ground, dead. The Queen is finally at peace because Snow White is finally dead. The dwarves come home and try to revive Snow
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White but are unable to because she swallowed the poison and is already dead. They bury her in a glass coffin so her great beauty can be looked upon by all, even in death. A Prince passes by and falls in love with Snow White, even though she is dead, and begs for the coffin. The dwarves feel sorry for him and agree to let him take the coffin. As his servants lift the coffin, one of them trips and the poisoned apple is dislodged from Snow White’s throat and she awakes. The Prince asks her to marry him and she gladly accepts. They plan a grand wedding, which the evil Queen is invited to. She discovers that the new bride is still more beautiful than her (via the looking glass) and she goes to the wedding to see for herself. The Queen is so burdened with jealousy at seeing Snow White still alive and marrying a Prince that she gets into such a rage that she dances herself into the ground: “for they had ready red-hot iron shoes, in which she had to dance until she fell down dead” (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p.226).
Snow White in New York : Summary of the Alternative Fairy Tale
Snow White in New York , written by Fiona French, is another take on the traditional story of Snow White
. It is a modern, ‘spoofed’ version of the beloved tale of romance and jealousy.
This story is a picture book with short sentences that re-tell the story of Snow White with its New
York City setting. This version is an excellent way of telling the traditional story with all the same elements but set in a modern-day world that urban readers are familiar with. But it still has the original morals and plot that the original Grimm’s fairy tale does. The story starts off with the original “once upon a time” in New York about a “poor little rich girl” (French, 1986, p. 1) named Snow White and how her father is about to marry another woman many years after Snow
White’s mother has died. The local newspapers always write about Snow White’s Step-mother and how she is the “classiest dame in New York” (French, 1986, p. 3). Also mentioned in the
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story is the fact that the Step-mother is the Queen of the Underworld, which no one seems to know. She loves to watch herself in the New York Mirror, her favourite newspaper. But one day, the paper writes about Snow White being the belle of New York City, which angers the Stepmother and she decides to get rid of Snow White. She tells one of her bodyguards to go down town and shoot Snow White but when he cannot kill her; he leaves her alone in the city. Snow
White wanders around until she hears music coming from a jazz club. She goes inside to find seven jazz-men who feel sorry for her. They allow her to stay with them if she can perform as their jazz singer. Snow White happily accepts and the first night she sings, a newspaper reporter hears her sing and falls in love with her. He writes a story about her in the New York Mirror, which leads to trouble since the Step-mother will see eventually it. The Step-mother sees Snow
White on the cover of the newspaper the next day and becomes extremely jealous. So the Stepmother decides to throw a party in honour of Snow White’s success, which gives her the chance to put a poisoned cherry in Snow White’s drink. Snow White takes the drink and dies from eating the poisoned cherry. She is then put into a glass coffin for all to see. It rains for days, reflecting the dreariness and sadness of her death. The seven jazz-men are heartbroken to lose her and as they carry her up the church steps, one of them stumbles, dropping the coffin. This causes the poisoned cherry to leave her throat and Snow White opens her eyes. The first person she sees is the Reporter and they smile at each other. Snow White and the Reporter fall in love, have a grand wedding, and an even grander honeymoon.
The Sleeping Beauty : Summary of the Traditional Fairy Tale
The Sleeping Beauty is another one of the Grimm’s most beloved fairy tales that all children know and enjoy. It is a story of magic, wonder and love. Most readers are familiar with
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the Walt Disney version, which adds fairies and dragons, things that do not exist in this traditional fairy tale. It is a simple but enchanting story heard to many around the world. The
Brothers Grimm named this story ‘
The Sleeping Beauty
’ to emphasize that this is a tale about a beautiful girl who sleeps for most of the story. It is a simple story that is told from beginning to end with no major complications, and if there are any, can be easily solved.
This story begins with a King and Queen who are desperate for a child of their own. They hope and pray for one but their wish does not come true. Bettelheim (1986) describes this beginning as very “fairy-tale-like” (p. 231) because it starts with a wish that eventually comes true. One day, the Queen takes a bath and a frog approaches her and tells her that within one year, she will give birth to a daughter. Within a few months, the Queen has a baby girl. The kingdom rejoices and the King is so happy that “he ordained a great feast” (Brothers Grimm,
1883, p. 209) in the child’s honour. They invite everyone in the kingdom, including the wise women of the land. But the King and Queen only have twelve golden plates and therefore cannot invite the thirteenth wise woman to the feast. The big day comes and the wise women bless the child with gifts of virtue, beauty, riches, etc. Just as the eleventh wise woman finishes giving her gift, the thirteenth wise woman crashes the palace for revenge because she did not receive an invitation. She then proclaims that by her fifteenth birthday, the child “shall prick herself with a spindle and shall fall down dead” (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p.209), which terrifies the entire kingdom. But the twelfth wise woman, who has not given her blessing yet, says that she cannot change the prophecy, but will soften it. Instead of the child falling down dead, she would fall into a deep sleep for one hundred years. The King immediately has all of the spindles in the palace burned up so that the prophecy can never come true. As time goes by, the Princess (named
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Rosamond) grows up to possess all the gifts she was bestowed with, such as beauty, virtue and grace and all who meet her instantly love her.
One day, when Rosamond is fifteen years old, the King and Queen leave the castle for a trip and she is left at home. She decides to explore the castle and wanders into a small room in an old tower where she finds an old woman spinning a spindle. She asks to try it and the old woman lets her touch it. As soon as Rosamond touches the spindle; she pricks her finger and falls down into a deep sleep. The whole castle falls asleep as well, including her mother and father. Upon returning to the castle, they instantly fell asleep in the great hall, as do all of the servants in the castle; “and this sleep fell upon the whole castle” (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 210).
As time goes by, a hedge of thorns grows around the palace grounds and many hear the enchanting story of the Sleeping Beauty. A young Prince hears of this tale from an old man who says that a beautiful princess named Rosamond has been asleep in the castle for a hundred years.
Every man that had tried to cross the thorn hedge had been caught and pierced to death. The
Prince wants to try his luck at rescuing the lovely Rosamond as he thinks he can escape the thorns. The old man tries to stop him, but the Prince is determined as he truly believes it is his destiny. So the Prince journeys to the castle, sees the hedge of thorns and as he approaches it, it changes into a hedge of beautiful flowers, allowing him to enter unharmed as it just so happens that this is the last day of the one hundred year curse. He carries on towards the palace and finds the entire kingdom asleep, just as they were one hundred years ago. He walks throughout the palace until he comes to the old tower and opens the door to the little room she is in. He is so
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enraptured by her beauty, even in sleep. He kisses her and she awakes, which causes the entire kingdom to wake up as well. Rosamond and the Prince gaze upon each other and fall in love.
They then get married and live happily ever after.
Sleeping Ugly : Summary of the Alternative Fairy Tale
Sleeping Ugly is a classic story by Jane Yolen that has been around for over thirty years.
It is a twist on the traditional Sleeping Beauty fairy tale and even though has the same elements, is a completely different story. Characters are changed, new ones are added and there is a very different plotline. It still has a happy ending that teaches its reader a lesson on morals and why they are so important. It is a bit silly but quite enjoyable to read and there has not been another story like it for years.
The story of Sleeping Ugly starts off with a girl named Princess Miserella. She is a very spoiled and rotten girl. She is used to getting her way and is rude to everyone she meets. She enjoys telling lies as well as never using her manners when speaking to others. In the same kingdom in the woods, there is a small cottage where another girl lives named Plain Jane. She is very sweet, kind and always wants to help others, including animals that she always brings home to live with her. One day, Princess Miserella gets on her horse for a ride in the forest. They get lost and the Princess yells at and kicks the horse for forgetting the way home. The horse runs away, leaving her alone in the forest. So she walks along and comes across an old woman, who is sleeping by a tree. This old woman is a fairy who can grant wishes but the Princess does not know this and yells at and kicks the old woman, screaming at her to take her home. The old woman does not enjoy this but gets up and walks with Princess Miserella into the woods until they come across a small cottage, where Plain Jane lives. The cottage is rusty and smelly because
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of all the animals Jane collects but the fairy and the Princess still walk inside. Princess Miserella says that she will make Jane a maid in the castle if Jane takes her back home. The fairy thinks this is not a fair deal so she offers to grant Jane two wishes if she takes both the fairy and
Princess Miserella home. Princess Miserella hears this and tells the fairy that she can take them home if she can get three wishes. Jane tells them that they can both stay at her home instead of heading out for a long journey. The fairy sees the kindness in Jane’s offer and tells her that the three wishes will be given to her. This makes Princess Miserella very angry and she starts to stomp her feet repeatedly. The fairy tells her that if she does this again, the fairy will turn her foot to stone. So, of course, because Princess Miserella is stubborn and rude, she does it again.
So the fairy turns her foot to stone. Jane feels sorry for the Princess and asks the fairy to use her first wish to turn the Princess’ foot back to normal. Princess Miserella calls Jane stupid for wasting a wish, to which the fairy tells her if she says that again, she will make toads come out of the Princess’ mouth. So, of course, Princess Miserella says it again and toads began to jump out of her mouth. Jane loves toads and wants to keep them but sees Princess Miserella’s misery and uses her second wish to stop the toads from coming out of the Princess’ mouth. Instead of being grateful to Jane, Princess Miserella is angry and grabs Jane’s arm to take her back to her palace.
The fairy tells her not to rush off but the Princess does not listen. The fairy gets very angry and waves her wand to make the Princess go to sleep as she has had enough of her. The wand hits
Jane’s house so hard that the walls fall in. All three women fall on the ground, each in a deep sleep. This sleep was of those one “hundred year naps that needed a prince and a kiss to end them” (Yolen, 1981, p. 44). They sleep through the hundred years until finally a young Prince named Jojo comes into the woods, needing shelter from the rain. He finds the cottage and inside
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are the three sleeping women. He sees the beautiful Princess Miserella and knows that he must kiss her to awake her. But he has never kissed anyone except his mother and father and decides he must practice on the other two women first. He kisses the old fairy on her nose and then kisses
Jane on the lips. They both awake as he is about to kiss the Princess. The fairy picks up her broken wand while Jane gazes at the Prince and remembers their kiss. She wishes that he would love her back. The fairy hears the wish and grants it for Jane. The Prince looks at Princess
Miserella and even though she is so beautiful, she looks so angry. This reminds him of his three cousins who are all pretty on the outside but ugly on the inside. He looks at Jane and tells her that he loves her. They move into Jane’s cottage together, rebuild it and get married. They also build a smaller house for the fairy to live in. Jane and Jojo have three children together and live happily ever after. Princess Miserella is left still sleeping in their house where no one can ever kiss her, allowing her to never awake again.
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ANALYSIS
Through the end of the nineteenth century, children’s picture books were based on nursery rhymes and folk tales, which eventually became fairy tales (Sipe & Pantaleo, 2008) .
The twentieth century showed “the content of picture books being shaped by societal beliefs about the needs of an audience of young children. Simple stories that reflected notions of child development were created through traditional tales” (Sipe & Pantaleo, 2008, p.19) which eventually become known as traditional fairy tales.
In order to discover the underlying meaning of these fairy tales and to be able to analyze these fairy tales, they will be deconstructed using an analytical framework. First, I will consider the meaning of these stories through deconstruction, which will include a consideration of intertextual elements and the qualities of closure.
Deconstruction within a text is breaking it down to discover the relationship between the text at hand and the text it is being compared to. Deconstructing a text means that “...we should look for the lines of construction in a text in order neither to discover its ‘meaning’ nor to destroy the text, but to become aware of the frames of construction which support and shape the work”
(Stephens & Watson, 1994, p. 1). Readers tend to expect stories, even fairy tales, to contain a certain reality to them when told. They want to be able to identify with the story but still be able to live through the fantasy of it. What makes fairy tales (both traditional and alternative) so interesting is that they contain both elements, usually satisfying the reader with these demands.
These stories should be written in a more linear and, perhaps, more structured way for seeking out more elements of coherence in the way that they read literature (Stephens & Watson, 1994).
The intertexutal elements looked at will include how two stories are the same and how
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they are different. Both of these texts are quite similar but they might in fact be almost the exact same story when looking at them more closely. “All texts exist in relationship with other texts...a focused text is linked to other texts by reminiscences, similarities, re-workings, generic affiliations, intellectual contexts, story patterns” (Stephens & Watson, 1994, p. 1). Since two different texts are being compared, there are bound to be similar patterns within both stories as they are both from the same genre of literature and one is a re-telling or adaptation of the first.
The space between the texts is being looked at, which gives the reader a possibility of discovering multiple meanings (Stephens & Watson, 1994). Another element that will be considered is how one text takes similar ideas or themes from older stories to be shadowed or repeated in new stories. For example, the number twelve is shown as a significant number in the
Bible (which represents the number of Jesus’ disciples) and then in
The Sleeping Beauty, where it also represents the number of wise women.
Closure within a text is to close the story with a final end. This means that there is no mystery or wonder as to what is left to the story. All of the answers to questions are answered and the reader is left satisfied with the outcome of the ending of the story at hand. This is also
“an ending offering a sense of completion, with all problems and contradictions resolved; a sense that there is nothing more to be said” (Stephens & Watson, 1994, p. 1). Most questions asked about these stories will be answered and hopefully, there will be closure to these two stories after all has been said and written in this chapter.
When comparing traditional fairy tales (such as the Brothers Grimm) and alternative fairy tales (stories by modern-day authors), certain characteristics are taken into play. These include how morals are represented, who the characters are (including the protagonist, the antagonist and
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secondary characters), how the plot has changed (if it has), if the time and setting (as well as language and style) have been altered and how the illustrations in these fairy tale picture books are represented (through the format, costumes and pictures).
The books I have chosen to look at include the traditional Snow White (by Jacob and
Wilhelm Grimm) compared to the alternative Snow White in New York (by Fiona French) and the traditional The Sleeping Beauty (by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm) compared to the alternative
Sleeping Ugly (by Jane Yolen). The picture books used for analysis of the illustrations of the
Brothers Grimm traditional fairy tale stories are Snow White and the Seven Dwarves , translated by Randall Jarrell and illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert and Sleeping Beauty , illustrated by
K.Y. Craft and adapted by Mahlon F. Craft.
SNOW WHITE versus SNOW WHITE IN NEW YORK
To deconstruct Snow White and Snow White in New York, one must look at basic literary elements in fairy tale stories, such as the characters, plot, time, setting, language, style, themes, morals and gender roles between both fairy tale stories.
When looking at Snow White and Snow White in New York , intertextual elements such as similarities and differences will be looked at, as well as recurring themes that refer back to earlier stories. This will include looking at literary elements that include similarities and differences between stories, characters, plot, time and setting, language and style, themes and morals, gender roles, fantasy and reality and illustrations.
The qualities of closure when looking at Snow White and Snow White in New York will include answering any questions about these stories that include their similarities, differences,
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themes and questions that readers have when they finish reading both stories. It will also be a final conclusion to what these stories have in common with each other and what they represent in fairy tale literature.
There are many similarities and differences between Snow White and Snow White in New
York . Here are a few of the most prominent ones listed in the table below.
Table 1 : A comparison of the similarities and differences between Snow White and Snow White in New York .
Similarities:
-an evil Step-mother (as the antagonist)
Differences:
-the setting (19 th
century country vs. modernday New York City)
-the beautiful, innocent girl (as the protagonist) -ways of poisoning (three versus one)
-seven male characters to help -method of poisoning (apple versus cherry)
-dwarves versus jazz-men -a servant sent to kill the girl by order of the step-mother
-a looking glass that acknowledges beauty
-a gallant man that comes to save the girl
-a grand, rich setting for the characters to live in (such as a the traditional castle or modernday mansion)
-Prince versus Reporter
-castle versus mansion
-cottage versus jazz club
-absent father
-birth mother is dead
-the protagonist lives happily ever after with the hero
-rural (country, forest) versus urban (city)
-maid versus singer
-raven-haired protagonist versus blonde protagonist
Characters
The characters of both fairy tales include two female characters (or three, if Snow
White’s mother is to be included before she dies) and several secondary male characters. The female characters are represented by Snow White, who is the protagonist in both stories. Snow
White is the protagonist because of her great beauty, kindness and sympathy towards others.
These traits are viewed as virtuous and are highly regarded in fairy tale literature. The antagonist
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in both stories is the Queen, or Step-mother, as she is the person who wants to destroy Snow
White because of her vanity and jealousy. These character traits make these two characters not only rivals but the other’s foil as represented in each fairy tale story.
Table 2: A comparison of the protagonist, the good character, and the antagonist, the evil character, in Snow White and Snow White in New York.
Snow White (the protagonist):
-beautiful
-young
-kind-hearted
-naïve
-gentle
-docile
-nurturing
-innocent
The Queen, or Step-mother (the antagonist):
-attractive
-old
-evil
-clever
-strong
-vain
-demanding
-envious
The male characters (which consist of ten men) in both stories take a backseat to the female ones, serving as secondary characters. Their roles are important but prove to be minimal compared to Snow White and the Queen, or Step-mother.
Table 3 : Features of the secondary characters in Snow White and Snow White in New York.
The King, or Snow
White’s Father
-absent
-no voice
-ruled by his wife
-weak
Plot
The Prince, or
Reporter
-handsome
-strong
-gallant
-saviour
-rescuer
-true love
Dwarves, or Jazzmen
-merciful
-kind
-saviours
-rescuers
-caregivers
-compassionate
The Huntsman, or
Bodyguard
-goal is to kill Snow
White
-disobeys master (the
Queen, or Step-mother)
-disloyal to master
-merciful
-saviour
-rescuer
The plot in both stories is basically the same as both have innocent and whimsical
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qualities. The tone of Snow White is very innocent but cautionary because of all the obstacles
Snow White must face (escaping death from the huntsman and the Queen) and can also be seen as quite violent. Examples of this include Snow White being poisoned three times (Brothers
Grimm, 1883, p. 222, 223, 224), the Huntsman killing an animal and ripping out its heart
(Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 219), the Queen asking for and eating what she thinks is a human heart (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 219), Snow White ‘dying’ three times (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 222, 223, 224), the Queen making potions and poisonous artefacts (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p.
224) and the Queen causing her own death by wearing and dancing in iron red-hot shoes
(Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 226). As a story for children, these elements must be considered but the overall innocent and hopeful plot eventually reach the ending, where Snow White lives happily ever after with her Prince. Snow White is kind, pure and beautiful which, in the fairy tale universe, allows her to have the happily ever after she is entitled to because of these innocent characteristics.
Snow White in New York is very modern and more mature, with its New York City jazzthemed tone. Yet compared to the traditional Snow White , it seems more innocent because the violence is kept to a minimum. Of course, this story could be considered more ‘adult’ (the jazz clubs and music, reporters and newspapers, bodyguards, martinis and cocktail parties). But overall, it is a hopeful story that provides the reader with a happily ever after for its protagonist.
Snow White is kind, pure and beautiful throughout the story and, therefore (just as in Snow
White ), gets all that she deserves at the end.
Time & Setting
The time and setting that Snow White takes place in is not known except for what the
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beginning line states: “It was the middle of winter, and the snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky...” (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 218) which is, perhaps, more vague than the typical
‘once upon a time’ fairy tale beginning. Most of the Grimm’s fairy tales occur in a fantastical, faraway world, which is referred to as ‘timeless past’. No one knows exactly where or when, but it is a magical place that one can only dream of. It is assumed that Snow White lives in a castle, since her father is a King and her mother was a Queen. After her mother’s death, Snow White’s
Step-mother becomes the new Queen. When Snow White is left in the forest, it is assumed that the dwarves live near the country as she wanders the dark forest until she finds their cottage. The
Queen also searches and climbs the mountains to look for Snow White, which indicates that even if the kingdom is not in the country, it is nearby (the Queen walks there) and somewhere remote.
The time and setting that Snow White in New York takes place in is very specific as it is in the title, taking place in New York, U.S.A. It is a modern version that takes place in an urban setting and in the 1930s era. The actual date of when the story takes place is around May 11,
1930 (French, 1986, p.3) in which a picture from the book displays a newspaper with details, including this specific date and year. Snow White and her father live in a mansion, or very expensive house, in the city. It is located in a part of New York City where the elite and rich live.
It is also assumed that they live in Manhattan as bars, clubs, newspapers and taxis are either mentioned or present in the illustrations. Snow White is taken into the city, where she comes across a jazz club and meets the jazz-men, who give her a job as a jazz singer. This is a very typical place to be in New York as it is filled with bars and jazz clubs.
Language & Style
The language and style of both stories are generally of the same nature, with the same
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plot and tone of the story. Snow White is the traditional, original story that is classic and innocent while Snow White in New York is the modern, urban take on the original that contains a more adult setting, such as the jazz club, city life, etc. Both stories are entertaining but Snow White is more of a fantasy. Snow White in New York provides some of the same fantastical elements but it portrays a more realistic tone than that of the traditional story.
Themes & Morals
A theme is a main idea, moral or message that usually takes place in a story. This message is usually about life, society or human nature. These themes are usually implied rather than stated (Obstfeld, 2002). Themes in fairy tales tend to represent morals or recurring motifs within the story. Morals usually teach a lesson within the story as a common theme or state it at the end of a story. Fairy tales and folk tales are notorious for promoting morals to their readers.
Both of these fairy tales contain morals or major themes, which are a large part of fairy tale stories. Snow White is a good, innocent and beautiful character and, therefore, is rewarded for that at the end of the story. The Queen, however, is bad, evil and jealous which leads to her attempting murder several times (the underlying theme of both stories) and eventually meets her demise at the end of the story. This is the case in the story Snow White while Snow White in New
York does not mention anything about what happens to the Step-mother as its focus is on Snow
White and her happily ever after. In Snow White , she gets her happily ever after while the Queen finally burns and dies for all of her evil ways. Both stories end differently, with the traditional focusing on the Queen’s demise and the alternative focusing on Snow White’s happy ending.
Even though Snow White gets the guy in both stories, the traditional story emphasizes that evil does not pay and eventually, you will suffer the consequences. Whereas the alternative story
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focuses on happily ever after and that if you are a pretty, good and pure person, you will get what you deserve, which is the happiness you have always wanted.
The traditional story of Snow White
’s morals can be viewed as kind and gracious. They promote that you should never envy others, do good and all that is good will come to you but if you are evil, eventually evil will come to you. Snow White in New York promotes no specific moral as nothing happens to the Step-mother in the end and Snow White does nothing extraordinary to create her good fortune except be her meek, beautiful self. The general overtone of the morals is the same, except that Snow White in New York does not clarify them as prominently the way that the traditional story of Snow White does. Overall, both stories showcase similar themes of jealousy, murder, hospitality, kindness, vanity, death, dreams and true love.
Gender Roles in Fairy Tales
Fairy tales play a large role in the way gender is represented to children, as well as adults.
Literature, especially fairy tales, tends to gender children (Kuykendal & Sturm, 2007). They tend to tell the child how to behave with regard to their gender through how the characters are portrayed in fairy tale stories (Kuykendal & Sturm, 2007). Women are seen in a certain way and are expected to behave in that way within fairy tales and in reality, just as men are expected to behave a certain way as well. If these characteristics are not seen in males and females, then they are either seen as out of the norm or perhaps, even evil or as the antagonists of fantasy (within fairy tales) or of reality. Examples of this include traditional fairy tales portraying the female protagonist as kind and beautiful while the female antagonist is evil and ugly because the thought of “good equals beauty is very much alive and is continuously conveyed through the media to remind women that, if they want to be loved, they must also be beautiful” (Davis, 2006, p. 232
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as cited in Coville, 2010, p. 42). “The whole of the story to date describes a state of the immature feminine physique. For instance, there are three women in this story, and the first, the caring mother, soon dies leaving our heroine, Snow White, with no psychological mother. Thus, all images in the story can be seen or can become aspects of a feminine or the ‘Anima’ irrespective of gender” (Jung, 1960, p. 345).
Female Characters
The way that females and males are portrayed in both stories can be looked at as outdated in some ways but also ahead of its time as well. The only two females in both stories (Snow
White and the Queen, or Step-mother) are portrayed as good and evil characters and serve as each other’s foils. Fairy tales tend to portray the young and innocent females as “weak, submissive, dependent and self-sacrificing...” (Kuykendal & Sturm, 2007, p. 39) as well as “fairy tales define women as beautiful objects, powerless to alter the events in their lives...” (Evans,
1996 as cited in Kuykendal & Sturm, 2007, p. 39). In both fairy tale stories, the character of
Snow White represents the above description, making her the favoured of the two female characters because she embodies the natural description of a woman represented in fairy tales.
Meanwhile, there must be characters that defy these attributes to serve as foil characters who “defy these (above) descriptions; however their defiance comes with a price. Powerful women in fairy tales are generally ugly if not also evil” (Kuykendal & Sturm, 2007, p. 39). The
Queen is a strong woman, who represents evil because she is jealous of the protagonist and wishes to destroy her at all costs (Davis, 2006). The Queen, or Step-mother, is the character that embodies these qualities and is, therefore, the female character in the story that has the role of
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the character loathed by all as she does not represent the norm for female characters in fairy tales. These descriptions are what give child readers the ideas that women must be represented this way, not only in fairy tales, but in reality. When you are this female character (as opposed to
Snow White’s virtuous character), you will not get your happily ever after in the end.
Snow White’s real mother is the original Queen but after her death, her goodness is replaced by evil in the new Queen to keep the memory of a good mother alive. From what is written in Snow White , Snow White’s mother appears to be as good and as beautiful as her daughter. “The fantasy of the wicked step-mother not only preserves the good mother intact”
(Bettelheim, 1976, p. 69) but creates even greater contrast against Snow White and the stepmother as foils because she (the step-mother) has replaced the virtuous daughter’s real mother and “preserves the image of the good mother, which the fairy tale also helps the child not to be devastated by experiencing his mother as evil” (Bettelheim, 1976, p. 69). Fairy tales show children how people in society should be viewed: “either as entirely blissful or as an unmitigated hell” (Bettelheim, 1976, p. 69).
Snow White in New York is very similar to Snow White because Snow White is being portrayed as quiet, pure, talented (her singing skills), beautiful, and innocent while the Stepmother is portrayed as evil, jealous, strong, manipulative (planning a party for Snow White under false pretences), clever and vain. The character of Snow White can be looked at as a setback in history because of how weak the young woman she portrays is. Compared to Snow White, the
Queen can be seen as a further step towards equality or female dominance because of her strong female presence in both stories. But according to the original definition of what a female fairy tale character must embody (either good or evil); both of these characters fit the norm.
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The two women serve as good versus evil while all the males in the story are the heroes or rescuers to Snow White but never to the Queen (as she is evil and strong on her own and, therefore, does not need rescuing from anyone). Snow White is the sweet protagonist that the reader identifies with and adores while the Queen, or Step-mother, is the wicked antagonist that the reader loathes. These roles that women portray in fairy tale literature can be considered as an unfortunate source of negative female stereotypes and one of the many socializing forces that discouraged females from realizing their full human potential (Stone, 1986 as cited in Kuykendal
& Sturm, 2007).
In Snow White , one of the most stereotypical views of Snow White is her as a maid for the seven dwarves. They feel sympathy for her but only agree to allow her to stay at their cottage if she cooks and cleans for them. This is, perhaps, one of the most anti-feminist actions seen in a fairy tale and is emphasized by every other male in this story because of the way Snow White is treated, always as an innocent, child-like female. Men continue to be stereotypically blinded by
Snow White’s innocence and beauty, which always seems to work in her favour. Some examples of the men (with the exception of Snow White’s absent father) who are always protecting and rescuing Snow White throughout the story are evident in these situations:
-The huntsman that the Queen sends to kill Snow White does not go through with it because he feels sympathy for her and her innocence and beauty persuade him to do so, even though he will suffer the consequences from his master (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 219).
-The dwarves rescue her from the forest and provide her with a safe home (Brothers Grimm,
1883, p.221).
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-the Prince rescues her after she is ‘dead’ in the coffin to take her away and be his wife. He saves her (from a life of being a maid) to go with him (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 226).
Snow White, as has already been observed, is beautiful, innocent and weak, and always needs rescuing. Another trait that Snow White possesses is gullibility. She repeatedly opens the door to strange old women when she knows she could be in danger, as her step-mother obviously wants her killed and will do anything to do so. After the first attempt on Snow White’s life with the scarf, she still does not seem to learn her lesson. It shows that “the feminine is equally as stupid (compared to the dwarves, who fail to protect her here) where she obeys the instructions
‘not to open the door’ but opens the window instead, because they (the dwarves) never told her not to do that” (Flynn, 2005). Is perhaps the only reason that Snow White gets her happy ending because of dumb luck? After all, she escapes ‘death’ three times after her many foolish decisions and because of one servant’s clumsiness, she awakes to find true love and a life of happiness. Or is Snow White so innocent that she allows decisions such as those to affect her better judgement?
Her innocence and purity bleed into naivety, which could ruin her chances of ever surviving the evil Queen’s plot to kill her but fate stills allows her to have her happy ending. After all, this is a fairy tale and the story must end in favour of the protagonist, which almost always includes wedded bliss within the happily ever after ending.
Snow White in New York , as an alternative (and more modern) version of this story, presents slightly more feminist behaviour. Snow White is not as clueless but the Step-mother is clearly the dominant female figure in both versions as she is someone who resents Snow White’s beauty and does everything in her power to eliminate Snow White. If Snow White is the antifeminist female character in the story, then the Step-mother is definitely the most feminist female
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character, as she represents power and control in both stories. Snow White and the Step-mother prove throughout the story what each female represents; one is good and the other evil, each who are destined to torment the other, whether intentionally or not.
The Queen, or Step-mother, serves as a very feminist character because of her cleverness, strong will, determination and overall power represented in both stories. She is the strongest character in both fairy tales, more so than any of the males. She commands all the servants, no matter what sex (especially male characters such as the huntsman, or body guard, who obeys her commands at first) and manages to overcome every character by killing Snow White. The seven males and the hero are all helpless to prevent Snow White’s death, as the Step-mother has succeeded in destroying Snow White so no one can rescue her. The Step-mother takes it upon herself to kill Snow White, as she knows she can only depend on herself (seeing as the huntsman, or bodyguard, failed to do so) to make sure Snow White is dead, giving her (the Stepmother) the utmost power over any other character in the story, male or female. The Queen, or
Step-mother, is the most dominant figure while Snow White is the weaker figure in both stories.
Male Characters
The male characters in both stories are the secondary characters to the females. These stories centre on two female characters rather than the typical male characters who tend to dominate most stories. “There are ten men in the story of
Snow White and nine represent weak or inadequate father figures within Snow White” (Flynn, 2005). However, because there are more male characters in these stories prove that men can still exist throughout the story, just not in a dominant role. It is described that men in fairy tales “...are powerful agents of their own destiny”
(Kuykendal & Stern, 2007, p. 39). While they are not the central characters in these stories, they
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represent independence as they make their own decisions to their decide own fate, as well as have control over Snow White’s fate (the Prince rescuing her, the dwarves, or jazz-men, saving her from her Step-mother and the huntsman, or bodyguard, sparing her life).
The oldest male character is Snow White’s father but he is never seen or heard of
(something that usually occurs with parental figures in most fairy tales). “Uniformity starts to emerge when we read how the queen died at the birth of her child and after her death” (Flynn,
2005) when we read that “...the king took another wife” (Brothers Grimm, 2009, p. 218) . This is the only mention of Snow White’s father. He is “an indolent father because he utterly fails to protect his child from the murderous hands of his new wife” (Flynn, 2005). He is not present throughout the story and the Queen, or Step-mother, takes the place of the present parental figure(s) in this fairy tale. With him out of the way (who, as a father, plays the role of the most dominant male figure in Snow White’s life), any and all harm can come to Snow White, which it does in both stories.
The huntsman, or bodyguard, is a minor character who takes orders from the Queen. He sets out to do what she says and ends up to succumbing to Snow White’s beauty and innocence with sympathy and compassion by letting her escape. “Thus, enters the second male figure. He is not as violent as the first in that, he does do something and he refuses to harm her, but also fails to protect her, letting her go into unknown danger in the wood” (Flynn, 2005). He deceives the
Queen and takes back the heart of a boar “as a pretense (sic)” (Flynn, 2005).
Here is where Snow White meets the dwarves (or jazz-men), who are “the common man, the vast majority of men- all seven of them! He (the dwarfs) works all day and expects everyone else to do so” (Flynn, 2005). Despite this, they represent kindness and sympathetic male
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characters who somewhat succumb to Snow White as well when they take mercy upon her and let her stay with them. They give her a job as their maid (or jazz singer) but regardless, they show her sympathy and allow her innocence and beauty to persuade them let her to live with them. “But the dwarfs are not grown-up enough, half man size as it were, and fail to protect their female charge and leave Snow White unguarded even after repeated homicide attempts” (Flynn,
2005).
The Prince (or Reporter) “comes into her (Snow White’s) world only when she is unconscious, before she can lay claim to her birth-right as a Princess. What luck she had, lying there as one dead when the Prince happened to come along” (Flynn, 2005). He represents the gallant, handsome hero who, like every other male in the story, is captivated by Snow White’s beauty. He comes to rescue Snow White so they can live happily ever after.
“The tenth male figure represents the symbol of completion of unification (of Snow White) with the masculine”
(Flynn, 2005).
The males in this story all fall to the power of one of the two women, the most likely of the two always being Snow White. They either succumb to Snow White’s beauty by playing the part of her rescuer or succumb to power from the Queen, or Step-mother. Snow White represents women always needing a saviour in a man while the Queen, or Step-mother, prefers to stand on her own, as her husband is not even present in either story. Snow White’s goodness and beauty always save her while the Queen (or Step-mother)’s jealousy and wickedness eventually cause her ultimate demise in the end. The males are secondary in this story, which makes it a tale about two women who are in total control of the way the story unfolds.
Fantasy & Reality
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There are many Fantastical and Realistic moments in this story. Fairy tales contain a large amount of fantasy even though realistic elements co-exist as well. Fantasy is represented by non-realistic or mythical things in the fairy tale story that would not appear normal or exist in the
‘real world’. Whereas reality, or realistic elements, are things that happen in the stories that relate to ‘real life’ and could actually happen outside of the fairy tale setting.
Snow White contains more of the fantastical elements while Snow White in New York contains more of the realistic ones.
Fantasy in Snow White and Snow White in New York
Both stories contain dream-like, or fantastical, elements such as:
Table 4: Fantastical Elements found in Snow White and Snow White in New York.
Snow White:
-Snow White’s mother wishing for a daughter to have white skin, red cheeks, black hair and having her wish come true
-the King remarrying right away (no mourning period for his dead wife?)
-the Prince rescuing her as soon as Snow
White awakes
-the poisoned apple being lodged out of her throat after many days
-3 poisoned items not killing her
-allowing her to cheat death 3 times
-being a Princess who lives in a grand castle
-a world where a talking mirror exists
-eating a human’s heart (what the Queen does after the huntsman claims it is Snow White’s, when in reality, it is a boar’s heart; but it is implied that she has eaten a human heart as this is what the huntsman tells her)
Snow White in New York:
-how does Snow White’s father not know his new wife is an evil woman who hates his daughter?
-does Snow White’s father not realize the fact that his new wife is the Queen of the
Underworld?
-her father does not notice that Snow White is missing after the Step-mother had one of her bodyguards take her away to be killed
-Snow White’s father is not in attendance at her congratulatory party, which leads the reader to think he does not know about Snow
White becoming a successful jazz singer
-how did one of the jazz-men just so happen to trip and dislodge the cherry?
-how did the poison from the cherry not spread throughout Snow White’s body, permanently
‘killing’ her?

-the Queen as a sorceress (something that only exists in a world of magic or witchcraft)
-iron red-hot shoes that kill someone (the
Queen wears these and causes her own death with these shoes)
-poisoned items that are intended for death but only temporarily cause death
-the convenient absence of the King so that his wife can plot to kill his daughter (because if he was around, the Queen would never have succeeded)
-the Queen finding Snow White and Snow
White not recognizing her (three times!)
-seven dwarves conveniently living in a cottage in the woods
-the Prince asking for a dead girl’s coffin to have for his own to gaze at whenever he chooses (this is somewhat eerie as who would want a corpse, no matter how beautiful it is?)
-the huntsman disobeying Queen’s orders (as she is his master and he know he will most likely die if the Queen finds out)
-Snow White’s beauty usually saves her from death various times (huntsman, Queen’s poisoned artefacts, being buried alive)
-strangers letting someone they do not know live with them (the dwarves allowing Snow
White to live with them)
-Snow White not learning her lesson the third time after accepting various poisoned things from old women
Reality in Snow White in New York
Snow White in New York contains a few realistic elements which include Snow White’s father waiting a few years to remarry, the Reporter writing about Snow White and falling in love with her, city life is accurate, urban life is told in a relatable way and Snow White’s happily ever after ends with a man who loves her from afar, who finally gets her and then they have a wedding and honeymoon (typical of a romantic comedy movie ending).
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Illustrations
The illustrations in fairy tale literature play a very important role in telling the story at hand. They are “first and foremost, an art subject” (Sipe & Pantaleo, 2008, p.11). Most of the fairy tales are written as picture books for children, which have an emphasis on illustrations to tell the story through colours and picture. The plot will usually start with an introduction of setting and characters, a problem and the characters’ response to that problem, the consequences to these responses and a resolution (Goldstone, 2004). The picture and text are there to support one another to enhance the meaning of the story. The author and illustrator work together to control the story to guide the reader in this linear direction (Goldstone, 2004). It is this combination of image and idea that is presented to its reader that makes the picture book what it is today. “An authentic experience arises from images and ideas combined in some complete form when an audience brings it intellectual and emotional understandings” (Sipe & Pantaleo,
2008, p.11). The pictures play a very important role because they showcase the visual aspect of the story paired with words to make an enjoyable story for its reader.
Snow White: Illustrated
The picture book, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves , translated by Randall Jarrell and illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert, will be used to look at for its illustrations of the traditional fairy tale story, Snow White , by the Brothers Grimm. The illustrations, as a whole, are quite oldfashioned as they look as if they take place in the countryside, which is perfect for a ‘timeless past’ setting complete with Western European costume.
Snow White is a very visual story as her name is a visual in itself. The name ‘Snow
White’ makes one think of a beautiful white colour that is pure, shiny and perfect. Her mother
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wished that she “...had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood in the window frame!” (Jarrell, 1972, p.2). These are Snow White’s three main features that define not only her beauty but character, showing that these traits are the ultimate definition of beauty.
The Queen is often seen in her dungeon, preparing the various poisons to kill Snow
White. She is just as beautiful as Snow White but the evil is always present in her facial expressions. She carries herself haughtily and appears snobby and smug. If only she were not so jealous and evil, perhaps her beauty could surpass Snow White’s.
Listed here are both women’s physical attributes which differ to a high degree and emphasize how they differ in character, as well as in appearance.
Table 5 : Characteristics of Illustrations in Snow White.
Snow White:
-skin as white as snow
-lips as red as blood
-long, flowing hair
-walking or trailing along slowly (emphasizing her calm spirit)
-sad, lonely expressions (representing her fear of the Queen)
-kind and innocent eyes (reflecting her youth and goodness)
The Queen:
-skin is light, but nowhere as fair as Snow
White’s
-lips as red as blood (this similarity is to represent the Queen bringing death)
-hair as black as the wood in the window frame -hair is dark brown (but not as dark as Snow
White’s, this is to emphasize that Snow
White’s beauty surpasses all others)
-simple, flowing dresses -long and elaborate medieval gowns, made of the finest silk (to emphasize her love of power and prestige)
-wears soft or bright colours to represent youth and happiness
-medium height
-always wears dark colours (such as black, red or purple which represent power and darkness)
-tall (her height indicates her power over Snow
White and all other characters in the story)
-slim build -slim build (she is a Queen of vanity who must always look her best)
-long hair that is always tied up tightly or in a bun (reflects her serious and rigid nature)
-gliding as she walks (emphasizing her confident spirit)
-smug, smirk expressions (representing her power and strength)
-evil, slit-like eyes (reflecting her snake-like features and personality)

The dwarves are drawn as funny-looking little men, who appear as they should in each picture. This means that when they first meet Snow White, they are in work clothes that are dirty and are holding their tools while in the illustration of her death, they are covered in dark robes shielding their faces because of their sorrow.
The Prince is shown in the last two illustrations. The first shows him gazing upon Snow
White in her coffin. He is heartbroken because he wishes he could be with her. This shows on his face as he hangs his head while on his white horse passing by. He is dressed in royal attire, complete with robes and sashes, with neatly combed hair and a serious, yet sombre, look on his handsome face. The white horse represents him as a ‘white knight’ (defined as “one that comes to the rescue; a saviour”, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 2009) because Snow White will eventually be rescued by him.
The last illustration has Snow White and the Prince standing in his castle, ready to start their new life together as the dwarves look on. The castle is brightened with soft, happy colours
(such as pink, yellow and light blue) that indicate a celebration of a happy ending.
Snow White in New York: Illustrated
The illustrations in Snow White in New York are reminiscent of the 1930s jazz era in New
York City, where this fairy tale takes place. It contains many of the same visual elements of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves , but in an updated, more modern setting. Every picture in the story contains a city backdrop, complete with skyscraper buildings to identify to the reader that this story takes place in the city.
Snow White is a very memorable fairy tale character and whether she is in a traditional or alternative fairy tale; her three main features usually stay the same. Her skin is as white as snow,
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her lips are as red as blood and her hair is as black as the wood in the window frame. Yet Snow
White in New York twists this description into one of its own. Snow White’s features are not described in text but in picture for its reader to see. She has the blood-red lips and snow-white skin, but her hair is golden-blonde. This drastic change is perhaps to emphasize the fact that blonde hair is usually represented by goodness, which Snow White represents as well. Whereas, dark hair is associated with evil so perhaps this author did not want to change that meaning, even though it changes a vital characteristic of the protagonist. Snow White’s beauty defines her and in this case, it is with blonde hair, not raven-coloured hair.
The Step-mother is dressed in classic 1930s clothing of heavy eye make-up, fox fur stoles and lots of jewellery. She looks exactly like a rich, Manhattan snob living off of her husband’s wealth and prestige. Snow White and the Step-mother are shown on opposite pages (French, p.5-
6), as if to emphasize their contrasting looks. The Queen is dark and represents evil while Snow
White is light and represents goodness. Snow White’s white-as-snow skin, blood-red lips and golden-blonde hair are apparent to, perhaps, contrast against the Step-mother’s pink skin, bloodred lips and raven-black hair. This is a step further away from the traditional fairy tale of Snow
White having raven-black hair but it is most likely to be used as a heavy contrast against her
Step-mother’s dark looks.
Table 6 : How the illustrations in Snow White in New York demonstrate the character traits of the protagonist and the antagonist.
Snow White:
-skin as white as snow
-lips as red as blood
-hair as golden as the sun (to represent light and goodness)
The Step-mother:
-skin has a reddish-pink tone but nowhere as fair as Snow White’s
-lips as red as blood (this similarity is to emphasize the Step-mother’s representation of bringing death)
-hair is ebony-black (an evil contrast to Snow
White’s golden-yellow hair)

-elegant, flowing dresses with costume jewellery and fur wraps
-long and elaborate couture gowns, made of the finest silk (to emphasize her love of power and prestige) complete with furs (wears dead animals around her neck) and jewellery (wears earrings shaped like daggers) are all to represent her role as the evil of the story
-always wears dark colours (such as black, red or purple which represent power and darkness)
-wears soft or bright colours (such as powder blue and soft pink) to represent youth and happiness
-medium height
-slim build (part of the “perfect” look)
-short, wavy hair
-always standing or sitting alone (emphasizing her quiet spirit)
-sad, lonely expressions (representing her fear of the Step-mother)
-kind and innocent blue eyes (reflecting her youth and goodness)
-tall (her height indicates her power over Snow
White and all other characters in the story)
-slim build (she is a woman of vanity who must always look her best)
-long hair that is always tied up tightly or in a bun (reflects her serious and rigid nature)
-gliding as she walks (emphasizing her confident spirit)
-smug, smirk expressions (representing her power and strength)
-evil, slit-like eyes (reflecting her snake-like features and personality)
The jazz-men who hire her are always seen in shadow, playing their various instruments in the background. This is to; perhaps, represent their lack of importance in the story as it is all about Snow White and her Step-mother.
The Reporter, in the role of the Prince, is partially shown in shadow when he first sees
Snow White. But he eventually steps out of that shadow and is seen fully when he and Snow
White get married. This choice is, perhaps, to represent that he has a major role in the story now, as Snow White’s husband, or the leading male figure in the story (as he represents the male half to the female protagonist). He is replacing the Step-mother’s dominant role (as the second-most important character in the story), as she is not mentioned after they get married.
The story of Snow White is timeless and is one that can be told in many ways. Comparing and contrasting Snow White and Snow White in New York is fairly easy as both stories are quite
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similar. The traditional Snow White and the alternative Snow White in New York are both stories of hope, love and triumph over evil. “After all, Snow White is essentially a story for girls, for the female, and it is about the development of the feminine psyche, but the whole story is as relevant to men as it is to women” (Flynn, 2005).The underlying theme in both stories is evident, as it is the same. Snow White in New York appears to be an alternative version of the original but is actually the same story told in a more modern setting with a few more realistic, or updated, changes made. The differences are quite minimal as the traditional story has a more oldfashioned and, perhaps, outdated view on women and how they are portrayed. The alternative version also explores the similar idea of the portrayal of women but in a slightly more modern sense. All in all, both stories are exactly the same in plot, theme, and characters. The main difference is that the stories take place in different time periods, have alternate settings and costumes but they are indeed the same traditional story that is told a few years apart.
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY vs. SLEEPING UGLY
Postmodern picture books have certain characteristics, some of which are described as
“more encompassing (e.g. metafiction, blurring) and could subsume some of the specific postmodern attributes (e.g. parody)” (Sipe & Pantaleo, 2008, p. 4). These types of picture books present fairy tale stories such as the alternative fairy tale stories, Sleeping Ugly or The Paper Bag
Princess , that are clear parodies of The Sleeping Beauty as they poke fun at the traditional fairy tale character of the ideal female protagonist. According to Sipe and Pantaleo (2008), these stories that parody traditional fairy tales reflect only a few postmodern characteristics and would not be considered the ideal postmodern, or alternative, picture book as opposed to other alternative stories, such as The Stinky Cheese Man.
First, I will consider the meaning of these stories through deconstruction, which will
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include a consideration of intertextual elements and the qualities of closure.
To deconstruct The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly, one must look at basic literary elements in fairy tale stories, such as the characters, plot, time, setting, language, style, themes, morals and gender roles between both fairy tale stories.
When looking at The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly , intertextual elements such as similarities and differences will be looked as well as recurring themes that refer back to earlier stories. This will include looking at literary elements that include similarities and differences between stories, characters, plot, time and setting, language and style, themes and morals, gender roles, fantasy and reality and illustrations.
The qualities of closure when looking at The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly will include answering any questions about these stories that include their similarities, differences, themes and questions that readers have when they have finished reading both stories. It will also be a final conclusion to what these stories have in common with each other and what they represent in fairy tale literature.
There are many similarities and differences between The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping
Ugly . Here are a few of the most prominent ones listed in the table below.
Table 7 : A comparison of the similarities and differences between The Sleeping Beauty and
Sleeping Ugly .
Similarities:
-beautiful princess
Differences:
-protagonist’s parents are present in The
Sleeping Beauty but not in Sleeping Ugly
-wise female fairy -thirteen wise women versus one fairy
-a Prince who searches the forest to rescue her -one female protagonist versus two female
-a fairy casting a one hundred year sleep protagonists
-rich Prince versus poor Prince
-a deep sleep that can only be broken by a
Prince’s kiss
-the spell can only be broken after the one
-attractive female protagonist versus unattractive female protagonist
-old man storyteller is absent in Sleeping Ugly

hundred years has passed
-female protagonist gets her happy ending with the prince
-one beautiful, kind female versus one beautiful but mean female and one ugly but kind female
-no significant evil character in Sleeping Ugly
-castle setting versus forest setting
-palace versus cottage
-plot change: Rosamond’s birth and feast vs.
Miserella’s forest journey and Jane’s simple life
-no specific moral in The Sleeping Beauty but
Sleeping Ugly clearly states one at the end
And of course, one main difference lies in both titles where in The Sleeping Beauty ;
Rosamond is beautiful, giving her the name ‘Sleeping Beauty’, while in
Sleeping Ugly ; Jane is not attractive and therefore named ‘Sleeping Ugly’.
Characters
The characters in both versions of this story are very different. Though the basic plotline is similar, the characters are not. The Sleeping Beauty is the traditional and more romantic story while Sleeping Ugly is clearly a parody and contains more comical elements and characters.
Characters in The Sleeping Beauty
Rosamond is the protagonist (the sleeping beauty herself) and the thirteenth wise woman serves as the antagonist of the story because she seeks revenge on the King and Queen by trying to kill Rosamond. They represent each other’s foils as Rosamond must escape the wise woman’s intended prophecy but only partially does because of the twelfth wise woman’s altered prophecy.
Also present in this story are Rosamond’s mother and father, the King and Queen; the twelve wise women; the servants of the kingdom; the old man and the Prince.
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Table 8: A comparison of the protagonist, the good character, and the antagonist, the evil character, in The Sleeping Beauty.
Rosamond:
-beautiful
-sweet
-innocent
-well-liked by everyone
-young
-good intentions for all
-sleeps instead of dies
The 13 th Wise Woman:
-ugly
-evil
-mean
-disliked by everyone
-old
-bestows harm upon others
-prophecy is altered from death to a onehundred-year sleep
Table 9 : Features of the secondary characters in The Sleeping Beauty.
King:
-head of the kingdom
-wishes for a child and eventually gets one
-protector of his family (destroys all spindles in palace)
-celebrates his successes (throwing a feast for his daughter’s birth)
-causes kingdom’s demise (curse of the one hundred year sleep by not inviting 13 th wise woman)
-eventually lets harm befall his only daughter
(failed to get the one spindle that pricked her)
-strong father figure
12 Wise Women: Servants:
-fairy-like characters -serve at the feast
-kind -palace attendants
-present Rosamond with gifts
-female Wise Men
-destroy all spindles in palace
Queen:
-wife of the King
-wishes for a child and eventually gets one
-quiet, meek
-follows her husband
-has no significant voice (except her longing for a child) within the story
-typical kind, caring mother figure
Old Man:
-storyteller
-gives advice to
Prince
-link between past and present (one hundred years ago to now)
Prince:
-hero of the story
-represents the ‘white knight’
-rescuer
-handsome
-gallant
-true love (his kiss breaks the spell)
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Characters in Sleeping Ugly
The characters of Sleeping Ugly are all different in their own ways. Princess Miserella is an adaptation of Rosamond as well as the evil character in this story. Being a beautiful princess gives her the same qualities as Rosamond but her evil-spirited ways make room for her to be the villain. Jane represents Rosamond as well because she is the female protagonist that emphasizes goodness and lives happily ever after. However, she is not a Princess nor is she beautiful.
Moreover, she is also referred to as “a poor orphan” (Yolen, 1981, p. 10) indicating that she is indeed the female protagonist as her parent(s) must be dead in order for her to have an adventure, overcome obstacles and then live happily ever after (as orphans usually do in traditional fairy tales). The title of the book also suggests Jane is the protagonist since she falls asleep and is unattractive, whereas Miserella falls asleep too but is attractive (hence it being called Sleeping
Ugly after Jane’s character).
In Sleeping Ugly , the fairy has the same role as the twelve wise women do in The
Sleeping Beauty . She provides entertainment and power with her magic wand that can grant wishes. The Prince reprises his role as the female protagonist’s hero and true love in the story.
Table 10: A comparison of the protagonist, the good character, and the antagonist, the evil character, in Sleeping Ugly.
Plain Jane:
-unattractive
-kind
-friendly
-short, brown, straight hair
-hard worker
-always thinks of others
-commoner
Princess Miserella:
-beautiful
-mean
-rude
-long, blonde, wavy hair
-spoiled
-selfish
-of royalty (holds the title of Princess)
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Table 11 : Features of the secondary characters in Sleeping Ugly.
Old Fairy:
-wise
-old
-powerful
-in control
-represents magic (with her wand)
-comic relief (funny comments)
Plot
Prince Jojo:
-not that handsome
-not too bright
-kisses fairy and Jane
-controlled by magic wand
-poor
-rescuer
-somewhat of a hero
The plot in The Sleeping Beauty is very linear and passes by quite quickly for over one hundred and fifteen years (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 209-210). It tells the story as it goes along and even though there are two major chunks of time missed (the first being fifteen years from when Rosamond was born to when she turned fifteen years old and the second being the one hundred years in which everyone in the palace fell asleep), the reader still understands the storyline. The tone of this story is very soft and kind but turns bitter when the curse is put upon the child (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 209). Hope is wished for the sweet princess and her family as the twelfth wise woman provides this in her own way by altering the curse into a one hundred year sleep (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 210-211). After this dark tone is set within the story, hope begins to arise again when the Prince sets out to find her and when he does (Brothers Grimm,
1883, p. 211), all is well. There is a very sweet and innocent tone that illustrates love, hope and happiness throughout this beloved story.
Sleeping Ugly has a very light and humourous tone. This makes it an appealing love story because the reader can laugh but also be satisfied with the traditional fairy tale happy ending.
Both The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly are beautiful stories but the plot of Sleeping Ugly provides its reader with the comic relief and delightful twists (such as two female protagonists
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for the price of one!). The old fairy represents the magic of the story because she has the control of every decision made since she appears in the story including cursing Miserella (Yolen, 1981, p. 32, 36), granting Jane three wishes (Yolen, 1981, p. 30) and performing the one hundred year sleeping curse (Yolen, 1981, p. 40). Since both girls share attributes with the traditional Sleeping
Beauty (one is beautiful and the other is kind, and they all fall asleep), the reader wonders who will end up with the happily ever after. The reader knows the Princess is the bad character but because of her beauty, the Prince will choose her (as proven in most traditional fairy tales). But because Jane uses her last wish, she achieves getting the Prince to choose her (Yolen, 1981, p.
56). One does wonder that if the old fairy was not there to grant wishes with her magic wand, would the Prince have chosen Jane or Princess Miserella (as he would not have known about her mean spirit once he awoke her with his kiss)? After all, he could have chosen either Jane, for her kindness, or Miserella, for her beauty since both are valid requirements of the traditional fairy tale’s Prince. But as an alternative fairy tale, this story has the power to change traditional fairy tale expectations (such as the Prince choosing the beautiful girl) and use them to create a unique ending that can still have a happily ever after.
Time & Setting
As with most Grimm fairy tale stories, time and setting are not revealed to the reader. The
Sleeping Beauty starts off with “in times past” (Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 209). A King and his
Queen are mentioned, noting that there is a palace in a kingdom in this time that is not known.
Like ‘once upon a time’, the reader is given a vague clue that the location of the story takes place a long time ago, most likely in a secluded palace far away in the countryside. The King and
Queen do ride abroad one day, which gives no indication to where they are but that they are
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travelling to a place that is far away (suggesting that they are somewhere remote). When
Rosamond and the Prince live happily ever after; it is assumed that he takes her back to his palace to live, but that location is never mentioned either. This is, of course, with all Grimm’s fairy tale stories, referred to as ‘timeless past’ where the time and setting are never made known to the reader.
Time and setting are not mentioned in Sleeping Ugly either. The time is assumed to be any time as the story begins with Princess Miserella, who lives in a castle. She gets lost in a forest where she stumbles upon Jane and her little house. The only mention of time is when the three women fall asleep and the one hundred years is passing by (Yolen, 1981, p. 46). This mentions new kings, the sewing machine being invented and a new continent, which can be assumed to be around the mid-1800s, as this is when most of these things took place. This gives indication that this alternative fairy tale takes place at the same time that most traditional fairy tales take place, in the ‘timeless past’. The setting takes place mostly in the forest, in Jane’s house (Yolen, 1981, p. 22-23). Though it is shabby on the outside, she makes it quaint and warm for all who enter it (Yolen, 1981, p.23-25). She continues to live there with the Prince and her children (Yolen, 1981, 61-62) after she is woken up from the one hundred year sleep.
Language & Style
The language and style of both stories differ from each other as The Sleeping Beauty contains a very classic tone that uses sophisticated words and grammar. It is a tale of love and enchantment, which takes its reader to an (literally) unknown world. The language is very soft and formal, with proper addresses and titles for everything. Everyone is polite and gracious (with the exception of the thirteenth wise woman, for obvious reasons) which sets a very soft tone to
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the story.
The language in Sleeping Ugly is very light as it contains a humourous tone, as mentioned before. It is more of a romantic comedy whereas The Sleeping Beauty is a romantic drama. The words and grammar are very modern, as slang is used and jokes are being made throughout the story. There is no real drama within the story and even if there is, a joke is being made or the words provoke laughter from its reader. Even Jane’s ugliness is made fun of but she triumphs over that obstacle to get the happy ending she deserves at the end. The good characters represent kindness by being polite while bad characters reflect their evil through rudeness.
Themes & Morals
There are no specific morals in the story of The Sleeping Beauty , even though they are a major part of most fairy tales. Rosamond did nothing wrong but was cursed anyway (Brothers
Grimm, 1883, p. 209). Perhaps because she herself did nothing wrong, the curse was allowed to be altered to avoid death. Of course, the King and Queen should have invited the thirteenth wise woman and then, perhaps, none of this would have happened.
One strong virtue emphasized in this story is patience. Though they were not awake, everyone in the kingdom had to wait one hundred years before they could wake again (Brothers
Grimm, 1883, p. 210). It is sad that they all had to suffer Rosamond’s fate with her but without such obstacles to guide the Prince to her; Rosamond would not have had her happily ever after.
The fate of the old wise woman is not known but one assumes that she died well before the
Princess awoke because one hundred years is a long time to live for any wise woman, whether good or evil. “Another pattern common in the fairy story is the notion of hiding or comatose state of the heroine which amounts to a special kind of sleep, and even results (in our case) in the evil
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antagonist stopping scheming too. The Ego (represented by the evil female character) has now a chance to become redeemable, that is, returns to life, and at the same time claim unity with the masculine (the arrival of the Prince). United in marriage, they return to put the usurper in her proper place” (Flynn, 2005).
Other themes included in this story are the meaning of particular numbers, such as twelve and thirteen. Twelve is represented positively as it refers to the twelve disciples in the Bible as well as twelve months in the calendar year. This number represents goodness as well as stability because it is an even number. The number thirteen, however, represents unevenness as it is an odd number. The number thirteen also represents evil because Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed
Jesus) was the thirteenth man to sit at the table for The Last Supper (Mark 14:18). Thirteen is considered to be bad luck because it is always a leftover number within counting and considered an extra number, as there are twelve months and twelve moons every calendar year. “Robert
Graves suggests ‘there are few references to ritual murder of women in European myth. He cites the German folk-stories The Sleeping Beauty and Snow White as exceptions. He states their significance also includes the importance of the number 13’ (Graves, 1999, p. 411 as cited in
Flynn, 2005), in the case of Sleeping Beauty representing the thirteenth month as the death month whereby the uninvited thirteenth guest curses the Princess” (Flynn, 2005).
Sleeping Ugly definitely focuses more on a main moral of the story, rather than on any particular theme. It even clearly states one at the end of the story: “Moral: Let sleeping princesses lie or lying princesses sleep, whichever seems wisest” (Yolen, 1981, p. 64).
Throughout the story, it compares Princess Miserella and Plain Jane to each other to show that beauty is not always skin-deep. Princess Miserella is beautiful but has a wicked heart, which is
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not something to be proud of. Plain Jane is unattractive yet she has a heart of gold and will help anyone that she can. Underlying themes include: what matters is what is on the inside and how a person treats others, rather than outer beauty, as well as looks will fade but kindness and love last forever. The moral at the end of the story is that people get what they deserve. If you are bad, it will come back to get you, as it did with Princess Miserella. She was so wicked that no one woke her up from the sleep and instead of being woken after one hundred years, she continued to sleep forever. Even though Jane was unattractive, she was kind and gracious to others which granted her a happily ever after. The message that outside appearances do not matter is clearly being made more explicit within alternative fairy tale literature as opposed to traditional fairy tale literature, which glorifies beauty and virtue as the only traits acceptable for finding true love.
The Paper Bag Princess
’s alternate look on how a female should be rescued can definitely be looked at as one of the most feminist plot lines in fairy tale (whether traditional or alternative) literature. A female can stand on her own within a fairy tale by making the right choices herself, and can do it all without waiting for a male to show up, something that traditional fairy tale literature has previously taught its audiences. This shows girls, and women, that you do not need a man to rescue you because you can rescue yourself. And even if the
Prince is too shallow to accept you for who you are, you can still have your happily ever after without him. The moral of this story is that you do not need a man, especially one as selfish and shallow as this one, to make you happy. It would be better to be alone than with someone who does not accept you the way you are.
Gender Roles in Fairy Tales
The story of the Sleeping Beauty can be looked at as a story filled with stereotypical
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views of women, many which are considered old-fashioned and somewhat out-of-date. The alternative versions tend to contrast with these views because of the new feminist take on them which give the female a stronger presence and portray her as a stronger female character. Of course, in The Sleeping Beauty , she is considered a demure, innocent female which contrasts with today’s feminist view of the ideal woman.
Sleeping Ugly also presents a similar character as well but in a different light, one that is perhaps more modern and realistic.
This traditional story of The Sleeping Beauty is the more old-fashioned one as its views on women and their roles in society can be considered outdated. Looking at Rosamond, she is a sweet, innocent girl who is known for her beauty. Fairy tales tend to portray women as “weak, submissive, dependent and self-sacrificing...” (Kuykendal & Stern, 2007, p. 39) as well as “fairy tales define women as beautiful objects, powerless to alter the events in their lives...” (Evans,
1996 as cited in Kuykendal & Stern, 2007, p. 39). Nothing else is known about Rosamond except that she is well-loved by others and spends most of the story asleep. Her beauty cannot help her make decisions or change things that happen to her but it eventually gets her the Prince in the end (who is her rescuer, the one to save her as she is powerless to save herself).
The Sleeping Beauty provokes a lot more old-fashioned views than updated ones. The representation of the twelve wise women in the story is one exception to this. They can be compared to another famous set of twelve wise people, Jesus’ disciples in the New Testament of the Bible. The thirteenth woman could be represented by the devil because of her evil and negative presence in the story. If that is the case, then this story can be considered ahead of its time by claiming that all wise (whether good or evil) people who bear gifts cannot only be male
(as expected long ago), but of both sexes as well. Males are usually associated with brute
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strength and wisdom, while females are weak and beautiful but never associated with being wise.
This story emphasizes that females can be wise as well as beautiful since beauty almost always equals goodness in the traditional fairy tale.
Sleeping Ugly represents a lot of current societal views in its story. It proves that not all pretty females get a happy ending (which includes marrying the man of their dreams) nor do unattractive females always get an unhappy ending (where the evil female antagonist ends up alone without a man or marriage). The fact that a Princess did not get the Prince and live happily ever after is a twist on the traditional fairy tale ending. The Prince is also not that handsome and they do not ride off together in the sunset to his palace but live together in Jane’s small house.
Jane can be considered the dominant spouse because it is her house, giving her spousal control in the relationship, which represents another feminist aspect of this story.
Another popular alternative story is The Paper Bag Princess , written by Robert Munsch.
This story has been around for decades, showing that fairy tales can still end happily even though they do not follow the typical traditional fairy tale ending. This story starts off with a Princess in a castle who dreams of marrying the Prince but a dragon destroys everything in sight. The
Princess, Elizabeth, is left alone to rescue herself after the dragon burns up all of her clothes and kidnaps the Prince. She wears a paper bag for the rest of the story and uses her own wit and cleverness to outsmart the dragon so she can rescue the Prince. But after he sees her wearing the paper bag, he does not want to marry her because of her dishevelled appearance, even though she rescues them both from the dragon. This story has all of the typical elements of a fairy tale such as the Princess, the Prince, a fire-breathing dragon, a castle, adventure and fantasy. But it fails to deliver the storybook ending of a happily ever after between the female protagonist and her
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Prince. The humour and feminist view of the girl saving herself and defeating the dragon contrasts with the traditional fairy tale definition of the girl who must always wait for the Prince to come along and rescue her.
Female Characters
In The Sleeping Beauty , the way that females are represented is typical of how female traditional fairy tale characters usually are. The main protagonist is Rosamond, who (like Snow
White) is the sweet and innocent beauty that the reader loves and roots for throughout the story.
She can do no wrong and waits for her true love to rescue her. Rosamond is liked by everyone she meets and represents the purity and goodness of the story. In traditional fairy tales, “There is the good woman. She is a victim...the good woman must be possessed...(the ending of these tales) tells us that happiness for a woman is to be passive, victimized, destroyed, or asleep”
(Dworkin, 1974 as cited in Kuykendal & Sturm, 2007, p. 39).
Rosamond’s evil foil would be the thirteenth wise woman whose only appearance in the story is at the feast when Rosamond is still a baby. She may also be the old woman that
Rosamond meets in the old tower when she pricks her finger, but this is never confirmed in this story. In other adaptations, the old woman is indeed the thirteenth wise woman who is really a sorceress, or bad witch. This wise woman uses this curse as punishment for her revenge on the
King and Queen for not receiving her invitation. Her evil intentions represent bad features such as unattractiveness and darkness since “powerful women in fairy tales are generally ugly if not also evil” (Kuykendal & Stern, 2007, p. 39). By the thirteenth (as thirteen represents unluckiness or evil from superstition) wise woman having so much power, it gives her female character a stronger role in the story. Also, seeing as the curse came from an old woman, this can be
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compared to Eve, who was the first woman to curse females, according to Bettelheim (1976, p.
212). The thirteenth wise woman’s role is minimal as she is never heard from again after the curse but her short presence affects the lives of the entire palace forever.
The Queen is mentioned very little in the story but is assumed to have the same attributes as her daughter. She is beautiful, kind and well-liked. Mother and daughter represent the wholesome goodness of the story and are the innocent beings that go along with what is expected of their roles within the kingdom.
The twelve wise women are female characters that are in between the good (Rosamond and her mother) and evil (the thirteenth wise woman) characters. They represent wisdom and power. These traits give the twelve wise women something in common with the thirteenth wise woman, who are also witches or fairies of some kind (like her) but ones that represent good rather than evil. The twelve wise women bestow their gifts upon Rosamond after she is born.
This can be compared to the Three Wise Men who brought gifts to Jesus when He was born in a manger (Luke 2:6-7). He was worshipped in a similar way that Rosamond was because of her noble birth and celebration of it.
The females in Sleeping Ugly are the central characters of the story. They tell what is happening and what is going to happen. They would have probably kept sleeping if Prince Jojo had not kissed them, which gives him total power at the end of the story. The main protagonist is most likely Plain Jane, yet the story begins with Princess Miserella. Traditional fairy tales usually have a Princess who is the one that gets the happy ending. Each of the three females represents something in the story. The Princess represents the bad character and serves as Jane’s foil as Jane is the good character. The old fairy represents the older wise woman who will decide
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their fate based on their actions throughout the story. All three women have great amounts of power as Princess Miserella is a princess who lives in a palace, Jane gets the wishes and decides what to do with them (which affect everyone) and the old fairy controls what will happen with her wand and how the wishes will be distributed. This story represents young and old females, beautiful and ugly females as well as females who control the plot with their decisions, whether good, bad or stupid, throughout the course of the story. Therefore, “the simple reversal of gender roles does not result in a feminist fairy tale, but a fractured (or alternative) one” (Kuykendal &
Sturm, 2007, p. 40).
The Paper Bag Princess reverses the typical traditional male and female roles, where the female must rescue herself and rescue the male as well. Upon seeing this, he rejects the Princess and she is left alone. This is one example of how fractured fairy tales challenge gender stereotypes (Kuykendal & Sturm, 2007) and “these changes rely on a straightforward reversal of gender roles and the substitution of strong female characters for more passive female characters”
(Kuykendal & Sturm, 2007, p. 40). This story “is an example of a feminist tale that complies with the traditional form of a fairy tale but possesses obvious reversals of traditional gender roles” (Kuykendal & Sturm, 2007, p. 39). Studies found that most children who read this story enjoyed it but did not agree with the Princess’s method of approaching the Prince. They felt she should have cleaned herself up a bit and then the Prince would have married her (Kuykendal &
Sturm, 2007). Even though they identified with and “admired strong female protagonists, these were not characters they wished to emulate” (Kuykendal & Sturm, 2007, p. 40). Perhaps, the traditional fairy tale characteristics have been forever burned into the brains of young girls everywhere as the ideal female heroine continues to be weak, innocent and beautiful.
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Male Characters
The male characters in fairy tales are described as “men are who are powerful, dependent and self-sacrificing” (Kuykendal & Sturm, 2007, p. 39). There are two dominant male characters and both are protectors of the Sleeping Beauty. They represent the brave, royal saviour to the weak young female and who must save her from whatever harm is about to come, or has come, upon her.
The first is her father, the King, and the second, the Prince, who will become her husband. These two characters represent the two most important males in a woman’s life and their roles in this story are to either to protect or rescue her from all harm. They are alpha males who are typically strong, gallant and, most likely, handsome. The King longs for a daughter, just as his wife does, and when he finally gets one, he is ecstatic. He does all he can to protect her by destroying the spindles and feels that he has done his job as a father. Of course, he is not there for the moment when she falls under the spell, the one moment where which he fails to protect her.
The Prince is the rescuer and the stereotypical male hero of the story. His sole purpose is to rescue the fair maiden, take her away and marry her. He saves the day because he saves an entire kingdom and takes away his prize, the Sleeping Beauty, to live happily ever after.
The old man serves his purpose as someone who is wise and has carried on the legend of
The Sleeping Beauty and leads the hero to his lady love. Perhaps without him, the spell would not have been broken, which makes him a vital character in this story. He is a part of the fate that is represented in this story, making it a true fairy tale filled with love and a happy ending.
Males in Sleeping Ugly are almost non-existent, except of course, for Prince Jojo. His
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father, a King, is mentioned but Jojo is the only male who makes an appearance in this story. The fact that he is the only male character and has such a minor role in the story proves that this is indeed a modern story for it focuses on three women for the duration of the story. Of course, Jojo does save the day as his gallant hero role proves, but his appearance in the story changes the fate of the three women and provides a happy ending for the two of the women who actually deserve one. He is the rescuer of the main female characters though he does not dominate the story in any way. The female protagonist must still rely on the male hero to rescue her (as well as all of the other females) so her role remains the same in alternative fairy tales as it does in traditional ones.
Fantasy & Reality
There are a lot of things that make a fairy tale interesting, including the fantastical elements it provides. These things may never happen in real life but they are amazing and, sometimes comical, to read about. Fairy tales also contain realistic elements (things that happen in the stories that relate to ‘real life’ and could actually happen outside of the fairy tale setting) as well, but not nearly as many as there are fantastical ones. Both fairy tales are filled with just as much fantasy and very little reality. The Sleeping Beauty contains more fantasy while Sleeping
Ugly has a touch (but not much) more reality within in it.
Fantasy in The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly
Both stories contain dream-like, or fantastical, elements such as:
Table 12: Fantastical Elements found in The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly.
The Sleeping Beauty:
-a talking frog that appears to the Queen while she is bathing
-twelve wise women providing various gifts for Rosamond
-the thirteenth wise woman predicting such a horrible prophecy
-the twelfth wise woman being able to alter the curse
Sleeping Ugly:
-Princess Miserella just so happens to stumble upon a magic fairy
-old fairy who has a magic wand
-curses being delivered (fairy cursing Miserella various times)
-curses being reversed (Jane wishing for
Miserella not to be cursed)

-both parents are alive yet harm still comes to their daughter (as one or more parents must be dead to allow harm onto a child)
-a one hundred year sleeping curse
-an entire kingdom falling asleep for one hundred years because of a (Rosamond’s) curse
-no one physically changing during the one hundred years
-Rosamond falling asleep in perfect position for the Prince to kiss her
-the King and Queen being able to make it to their thrones without falling asleep
-hedge of thorns being up for one hundred years and then automatically replaced with flowers
-the Prince arriving on the exact day the curse is broken
-the Prince’s kiss awakening Rosamond, as well as the rest of the kingdom
-Jane getting three wishes
-a one hundred year sleeping curse
-Prince Jojo choosing the unattractive girl (as this is not the norm in fairy tales)
-Miserella never waking up again (unless she is kissed)
Reality in The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly
The Sleeping Beauty contains very few realistic elements (making it a mostly fantasy traditional fairy tale story) as opposed to Sleeping Ugly , which contains many realistic elements that include:
Table 13: Realistic Elements found in The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly.
The Sleeping Beauty:
-mother and father are present (as orphans are usually the norm for fairy tale protagonists)
-the wish for a child comes true
Sleeping Ugly:
-Plain Jane lives in a broken-down house
-no visual magic is seen by any of the wise women
-the curse was not completely broken (but altered)
-Princess Miserella is a spoiled brat (most likely due to her privileged upbringing)
-Jane is kind and generous (most likely due to her humble upbringing)
-time passes as it should (the world goes on with new inventions, titles, etc.)
-there is an unattractive girl in the story
-beauty is not always paired with goodness
-ugliness is not always paired with evil
-the female protagonist is not a Princess and does not live in a castle

-the female protagonist is not beautiful
-kindness is rewarded (by Jane getting three wishes)
-the unattractive girl gets the guy
-Prince Jojo moves in with Jane after they marry (as opposed to her moving in with him)
-the fairy gets the home she deserves (for helping Jane)
Illustrations
The Sleeping Beauty: Illustrated
The picture book, Sleeping Beauty , which is illustrated by K.Y. Craft and adapted by
Mahlon F. Craft, will be used to look at for its illustrations of the traditional fairy tale story, The
Sleeping Beauty , by the Brothers Grimm.. This story is one that contains magnificent pictures that are done in oil over watercolour and are beautifully crafted. These pictures take place in a medieval ‘timeless past’ setting, with flowing gowns and hair to match.
The Sleeping Beauty is known for her long sleep and beauty but her appearance is not as evident in the fairy tales as Snow White’s looks are. Rosamond is just as great a beauty as Snow
White but more emphasis is put on her (Snow White’s) looks in description of illustrations (such as the snow-white skin, blood-red lips, etc.) rather than Rosamond’s. Rosamond is beautiful with typical attractive attributes that are compared to the other women in the story (her mother the
Queen and the thirteenth wise woman).
Table 14 : How the illustrations in The Sleeping Beauty demonstrate the character traits of the protagonist, the protagonist’s mother and the antagonist.
Rosamond:
-long, flowing blonde hair (represents goodness)
-flowing, pastel coloured gowns
The Queen: 13 th
Wise Woman:
-long, flowing brown hair -long, flowing black hair
(represents evil)
-medieval, brightly-coloured gowns
-floating in mid-air

-brown eyes
-red lips
-innocent looks
-shy expressions
-always in elaborate settings (gardens, palace rooms)
-gold crown upon her head -resembles a demon witch
-expressions always reflect -eyes are white and filled with evil her feelings for her daughter
(joy when she was born, fear for the curse)
-loving, caring expressions -dressed in black, flowing robes
-ravens surround her
The King is dressed in traditional royal robes, complete with a crown and sash. He represents power and loves his beautiful daughter. He is dressed in rich-coloured robes that complement his wife’s dresses, for example, he wears a blue and gold outfit while the Queen wears a red and gold outfit (Craft, 2002, p. 5). When he falls into the deep sleep, alongside his wife on their thrones, their facial expressions reflect their sadness and pain. The King and Queen seem to age as they sleep. They have gray hair and appear as older versions of themselves (Craft,
2002, p. 20). As their daughter sleeps, she does not seem to age at all, but remains the same unchanged, innocent girl.
The Prince appears in the latter part of the illustrations, as expected. He is dressed in his royal robes, complete with crown and sash. He rides in on his brown horse (there is no white horse indicating the white knight reference in this story) to save the day. His curiosity is shown as he approaches the castle because he does not know what he will find. As he awakes the
Sleeping Beauty, they are both standing in his castle, hand-in-hand and dressed in their finest attire. The castle glows with gold in the background, channelling their new life together as they begin their happily ever after (Craft, 2002, p. 27).
Sleeping Ugly: Illustrated
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The illustrations in Sleeping Ugly are quite a contrast from Sleeping Beauty . These drawings are more cartoon-like and humourously drawn. Everything is exaggerated, especially characters’ facial features and expressions. Since this is an alternative fairy tale, it can escape no boundaries. The colours are bland and quite plain to showcase the protagonist’s appearance.
Browns, grays and blacks with bits of soft pink and red are the dominant colours used in these pictures. The scenery and background are usually with minimal colour and occasionally have forest land or animals running around in the background. One theme used in these illustrations is every other picture is in black and white while rest of the pictures are in bland colours (Stanley,
1981, p.1 & 2, 3 & 4, etc.).
Table 15 : How the illustrations in Sleeping Ugly demonstrate the character traits of the protagonists.
Princess Miserella:
-long, wavy blonde hair
-big, blue eyes
-sour expressions
-wears a red (represents anger), medieval gown
-has a gold crown upon her head (in the first picture, then loses it)
-beautiful
-small nose
-young
Plain Jane:
-short, straight brown hair
-big, brown eyes
-happy expressions
-wears a tattered yellow
(represents happiness) dress
-surrounded by forest animals
-unattractive
-large, turned-up nose
-young
The Fairy:
-greasy, black hair tied behind a bandanna
-tired, wrinkled eyes
-unpleasant expressions
-wears old robes and apron
-holds a magic wand all the time
-unattractive
-large, long nose
-old
Prince Jojo is the last main character to enter the story and is a plain man as he too has a slightly large nose and tattered hair. His clothes match his appearance even though he is a Prince.
He and Jane eventually living happily ever after seems to improve both his and Jane’s attire as they are dressed in clean shirts, nice skirts and have neatly groomed hair at the end of the story.
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This may be because they are finally happy (or the fairy could have cleaned them up a bit in exchange for her new home). Their happiness is represented in the clothes they wear and their facial expressions are just as kind, but with a bit more laughter and contentment as they have now received their happily ever after.
The story of Sleeping Beauty is one of the most beloved fairy tales of our time. It has been changed, altered and spoofed various times, with the two focused versions being Sleeping
Ugly and The Paper Bag Princess . These stories reflect the general themes and plot lines of the traditional story by the Brothers Grimm, The Sleeping Beauty . The protagonist, or Princess, must always be rescued and even if she is asleep, always awakes to her Prince. All three of these stories end differently but follow a linear path towards the beginning of equality between men and women. As the stories become more modern, their values and plot line change. They head towards stronger female characters as each book comes along. The first is The Sleeping Beauty
(which is the stereotypical love story of the male rescuing the female), then Sleeping Ugly
(which promotes inner beauty, rather than outer beauty and by possessing this, one can still get her Prince) and finally, The Paper Bag Princess (where the female must rescue herself without relying on the male to do so and in turn, eventually living her happily ever after without him).
Rosamond, in The Sleeping Beauty, falls asleep and awakes to her Prince, making the traditional story the most romantic, yet the most fantastical. Rosamond does nothing throughout the story but fall asleep, allowing her sleeping beauty to enchant the Prince. The character of the
Sleeping Beauty, whether waiting in a castle or fast asleep in a tower, always lives happily ever after, usually with her Prince and a marriage in tow.
Jane, in Sleeping Ugly, falls asleep as well but must use her last wish to persuade the
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Prince to choose her for his bride, so that they can live happily ever after together. Jane must work a little harder than Rosamond, but she eventually gets her happy ending because of her goodness and kind nature, not because of her beauty or the good fortune that that is usually bestowed upon beautiful princesses or female protagonists in most traditional fairy tales.
The Paper Bag Princess promotes the theme of the female protagonist doing things for herself because the Prince is the weak one, waiting for her to rescue him. When she actually does rescue him, he is not grateful but appalled at her appearance. The moral of this story is that you do not need a man, especially one as selfish and shallow as this one, to find your happily ever after. It would be better to be alone than with someone who does not accept you the way you are.
Sleeping Ugly also promotes a similar message that the outside appearance does not matter (but what is on the inside does matter) and is clearly being made more explicit within alternative fairy tale literature as opposed to traditional fairy tale literature which glorifies beauty and virtue as the only traits acceptable for finding true love.
Snow White and Snow White in New York are two stories that are very similar and are, in fact, the same story despite being traditional and alternative fairy tale versions. They tend to be more outdated and stereotypical compared to what the traditional fairy tale represents. The
Sleeping Beauty , Sleeping Ugly and The Paper Bag Princess are three stories that have basic similarities but are completely different stories. The second and third of these stories represent the updated views of what the alternative fairy tale represents. As alternative fairy tale stories progress throughout time, they become more gender role reversed and the traditional fairy tale characteristics are becoming obsolete. Perhaps this is both good and bad because most child readers love the traditional stories as much as the alternative ones. It is good because stereotypes
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are being broken through the new alternative fairy tale story but bad because maybe the traditional fairy tale is changing too much for readers who grew up with these stories. While these updated views on gender roles and realistic elements are shown in alternative fairy tales as the years progress, the traditional fairy tale is what makes a fairy tale what it is today and provides the base for alternative fairy tales. Both continue to prove that they are exceptional genres within fairy tale literature and will, hopefully, continue to provide enchanting traditional fairy tales as well as humourous alternative fairy tales for readers young and old, depending on which story suits their mood at the moment.
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DISCUSSION
Traditional and alternative fairy tales are beloved stories that, while are different in plot, theme and setting at times, actually have many of the same concepts and archetypes. The traditional fairy tales have a more structured pattern that follows certain rules with which most
Western readers are familiar; while the alternative versions create new and creative twists on the fairy tale stories we know and love.
In this project, I have focused on two of the most popular fairy tales by the Brothers
Grimm: Snow White and The Sleeping Beauty . These two stories have delighted children for centuries with their ideal hopes and dreams about magical romance. Most girls believe that they will find their prince someday and most boys believe that they can slay the dragon and save the girl so they will both live happily ever after. The two alternative fairy tales that I compared these traditional ones with are titled Snow White in New York and Sleeping Ugly . The Paper Bag
Princess is also discussed as an alternative version of The Sleeping Beauty .
Snow White and Snow White in New York compare quite nicely with each other. They are, for the most part, very similar in characters, plot and ending. Snow White is set in the fairy tale
‘timeless past’ while Snow White in New York takes place in modern-day New York City. Both fairy tales’ plots centre on Snow White and her step-mother, Snow White being rescued by seven men and her falling in love with a man of prestige and living happily ever after with him. They are basically the same story but each take place in a different setting and era.
In Snow White in New York , it is curious to see Snow White in a different setting, other than with dwarves or wandering around in a forest, with a more adult tone, such as in a 1930s jazz club in New York City. In Snow White , Snow White is famed for her dark hair and subtle innocence but is blonde and more mature in the alternative version. The lighter hair brings out
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the demure nature in Snow White that the raven hair did not do as well since raven hair is usually associated with evil or darkness and blonde hair is associated with light and goodness. This is, perhaps, why the Step-mother was the raven-haired female in Snow White in New York ; to contrast her evil with Snow White’s blonde goodness. Being a jazz singer is a bit risqué in a fairy tale story for children but Snow White makes it classy because of her sweet nature and natural talent. It is a nice change to see Snow White out of her comfort zone of the ‘timeless past’ and into a more modern era that the reader can identify with or just appreciate by seeing something different.
The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly are both stories of a sleeping girl who waits for her Prince to awake her. The overall themes and characters are quite similar but the morals and plot tend to contrast. The Sleeping Beauty is a story of magic, enchantment and romance, and while Sleeping Ugly contains some of these elements; it is clearly a parody of the traditional.
This is evident in the title itself which pokes fun at its female protagonist suggesting that she is not the attractive princess who awaits her happy ending. The characters, while many are the same (or are some sort of altered version), tend to be more exaggerated in Sleeping Ugly because there are two lead females. The original character of Sleeping Beauty is split into these two characters and the reader is left to wonder who the Prince will choose and which girl will get the happy ending. The twist in Sleeping Ugly is that the beautiful Princess Miserella is a spoiled rotten brat and the ugly Plain Jane is a sweet and demure girl. This story shows that no one is perfect, poking fun at the traditional version, as that story suggests otherwise. Sleeping Ugly provides a lighter take on the classic fairy tale with comical pictures, exaggerated expressions and funny characters. It teaches the moral that no matter what you look like; it is what is on the
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inside that counts. This makes The Sleeping Beauty look very superficial as the beautiful (as well as kind) girl who does get the Prince in the end.
Traditional fairy tales tend to be quite fluffy and, at times, over-the-top. But they are fantasy tales of enchantment and romance that take their reader on a journey of magic, where anything can happen. Alternative fairy tales are more realistic because they are straying further away from what is expected in the traditional fairy tale. They are sending a message that women do not need men and can do things for themselves. These are examples of what alternative fairy tales are teaching readers, instead of indicating that beauty and virtue are all you need to get a happy ending. Alternative fairy tales are fun because they allow their reader to still escape to a magical world but include realistic elements for a more relatable experience with its reader.
In both versions of the Snow White stories, she eats a poisoned fruit and ‘dies’, leaving her in a glass coffin for all to mourn. In many fairy tales, the apple represents love and sex
(Bettelheim, 1986, p. 212) as seen when Adam was seduced by the fruit to gain knowledge
(Genesis 3:6). Snow White “eats the red, poisonous half, which represents the ‘erotic’ part of the apple that ends Snow White’s ‘innocence’ from childhood into adulthood” (Bettelheim, 1986, p.
213); this represents Snow White being ready to sexually mature and awaiting the Prince to come and rescue her. The Prince, or Reporter, eventually does appear to gaze upon the ‘dead’ girl, who he instantly falls in love with. One of the Prince’s servants, or jazz-men, trips and the coffin falls, causing the poisoned fruit to be dislodged from Snow White’s throat, which allows her to awake to the sight of her true love. She needed to be rescued by someone else
(specifically, a man, her hero) before she could ever wake up again. She could not rescue herself,
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which allowed her to be completely helpless, had she not been rescued by a male figure. Snow
White needs rescuing throughout the story and it is always in the form of a male. Bettelheim
(1986) points out that this male is “usually a hunter or hard labourer” (p. 205), such as the huntsman or one of the dwarves. It is a typically masculine occupation and one associated with an exalted figure, such as a father (ironically, who is absent in both stories).
The Sleeping Beauty, represented as Rosamond and Jane (as well as Princess Miserella and the fairy) also fall asleep in both stories, helpless to wake up on their own. Rosamond falls asleep because of a curse and must wait for true love’s kiss to awaken her. The Prince must come and rescue her or she will never wake up. She cannot do anything for herself and only rely on a man to save her, as the curse requires a male to rescue her. Jane and Miserella suffer this fate as well. The fairy, who is neither a young or beautiful woman, must also rely on a man to wake her up. The fairy tries to cast the sleeping spell on only Miserella but it ends up getting all three women. Again, they are all helpless to change their situation and must wait for a man to rescue them (since their slumber can only be broken by a man’s kiss). If Prince Jojo had never come along, then they too would have been sleeping forever, unable to do anything to change their fate. This reflects how important the male hero is to the happily ever after conclusion of the fairy tale, whether traditional or alternative. Jane was woken by the Prince because she wished for it
(which mirrors traditional fairy tale characteristics of a female protagonist longing for a man to rescue her and love her) and the fairy was woken up because of pure luck (Jojo wanted to practice his kissing skills; one example of the humour shown in this story). Of course, Princess
Miserella never woke up again but the moral of the story informs us that this was because she was a bad person and did not deserve it.
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One common theme between the two traditional fairy tales includes Snow White’s mother (“Oh, that I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood...”
Brothers Grimm, 1883, p. 218) and Rosamond’s parents (“Would that we had a child!” Brothers
Grimm, 1883, p. 209) wishing for a child at the beginning of the story. The King and Queen in both stories (more so the Queen in Snow White, as she specifically wishes for a daughter) dream of having a child and each set of parents end up having a beautiful daughter who is to be later cursed in her life by a deep sleep. Both sets of parents are absent when harm befalls their only daughter, just as traditional fairy tales usually require.
All four of these fairy tale stories, whether traditional or alternative, are stories with common themes of princesses, princes, happy endings and true love. There has also been the recurring theme of a sleeping princess in each of these stories. “Many fairy-tale heroes, at a crucial point in their development, fall into deep sleep...each reawakening symbolizes the reaching of a higher stage of maturity and understanding” (Bettelheim, 1986, p. 214). This
‘sleeping’ period is usually the transition of the female protagonist leaving childhood and entering womanhood. Also, by allowing the female to sleep, it is suggested that the she is vulnerable (as she is in a comatose state, unable to defend herself) and has no choice but to wait for a man (the Prince) to come and rescue her. In all four stories, the female protagonist must be first awakened by a man before she can continue on with the next stage of her life. She is in this sleep to prepare for what is to come, a mature life with the opposite sex, who the Prince represents.
This leads to another recurring theme which all four stories promote. All female protagonists who are good and pure in the stories end up with a happy ending. The happy ending,
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(or happily ever after, as it is more popularly referred to in fairy tales) “assures the child that he will not remain permanently stuck in seemingly doing nothing, even if at the moment it seems as if this period of quietude will last for a hundred years” (Bettelheim, 1986, p. 225). This theme of a sleeping beauty is a very important one that is still promoted in fairy tale literature today, whether it is in a traditional or alternative version. The child reader sympathizes with the sleeping protagonist but is reassured that the happily ever after is coming because she waited so patiently. The happy ending requires that the evil antagonist be punished and eliminated, which leaves the good protagonist to triumph with happiness (Bettelheim, 1986), therefore getting her happily ever after (because the Prince has arrived, she has woken up from her childhood slumber and the evil antagonist is gone).
Snow White (both of them); Rosamond and Jane were all good women who had pure hearts and always did the right thing. This is why they got their Prince and lived happily ever after. Miserella was a Princess but a bad person, who was mean and selfish, which led her to a fate of never waking up to a happy ending because she did not deserve it. Being a Princess and being beautiful can help your chances of getting the Prince (Jojo initially wanted to kiss
Miserella, because of her beauty) but it is having a pure heart that seems to get the female protagonist her happily ever after, as shown in both traditional and alternative fairy tales.
Looking at all four stories, the two core traditional stories of Snow White and The
Sleeping Beauty are quite similar to each other, as opposed to their alternative counterparts, Snow
White in New York and Sleeping Ugly . Bettelheim (1986) points out that the message in both stories is similar: “what may seem like a period of deathlike passivity at the end of childhood is nothing but a time of quiet growth and preparation, from which the person will awaken mature,
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ready for sexual union” (p. 232). This deep sleep represents being “in such self-involvement which excludes the rest of the world there is no suffering, but also no knowledge to be gained, no feelings to be experienced” (Bettelheim, 1986, p. 234). This also reflects the women’s naivety and innocence (as seen throughout the stories) and they will continue to stay this way (as their childhood represents the deep sleep and adulthood represents the awakening) if they are not woken up (which is the transition from child to woman). All of the female protagonists fall into this deep sleep to await their rescuer, the Prince, which will symbolize that they are ready to begin a new, mature life (as a woman) with a man. “Whether it is Snow White in her glass coffin or Sleeping Beauty on her bed, the adolescent dream of everlasting youth and perfection is just that: a dream. The alteration of the original curse, which threatened death, to one of prolonged sleep suggests that the two are not all that different. If we do not want to change and develop, then we might as well remain in a deathlike sleep” (Bettelheim, 1986, p. 234).
I think these four particular stories (Snow White, Snow White in New York, The Sleeping
Beauty and Sleeping Ugly; or five, if The Paper Bag Princess is included) have many important plots and themes yet to be explored by students. By examining different ideas, themes and how gender roles have changed (or stayed the same) within the traditional and alternative versions of fairy tale literature will, hopefully, magnify students’ love of reading these stories.
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CHAPTER FOUR
CURRICULUM UNIT
As part of this project, I decided to use my knowledge of fairy tales to design a curriculum unit about fairy tale literature. Students in elementary school are beginning to learn about different genres of literature, whether through reading or writing, and it is important for them to discover new ways of learning through reading about fairy tales.
I have always loved fairy tales and even though I have been reading them since I was a child, I still find them fascinating. When reading both traditional and alternative fairy tales, the depth, meanings and themes that take place within these stories are so interesting that students will be learning without even realizing it. I feel that this genre has expanded my love of literature as well as introduced me to another genre (alternative) of fairy tales that I am still continuing to discover as I read more fairy tales. By including fairy tale instruction into the Grade Five
Language Arts curriculum, I feel that students will learn more about literature and have fun while doing so.
I will be designing my fairy tale unit for the Ontario Curriculum’s Grade Five Language
Reading Component. I will be focusing on five requirements which are stated by the Ministry
Guideline Expectations for Grade Five Reading as: Variety of Text 1.1
: read a variety of texts from diverse cultures, including literary texts (which include the genre of myths and folk or fairy tale stories) , graphic texts and informational texts (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 97);
Demonstrating Understanding 1.4
: demonstrate understanding of a variety of texts by summarizing important ideas and citing supporting details (which include myths and fairy tales)
(Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 97); Analyzing Texts 1.7
: analyze texts and explain how various
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elements in them contribute to meaning, plot development, mood and theme (Ontario
Curriculum, 2006, p. 98); Point of View 1.9
: Identify the point of view presented in texts, ask questions to identify missing or possible alternate points of view, and suggest some possible alternative perspectives (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 98) and Metacognition 4.1
: identify the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 99).
I will focus on these five requirements within my curriculum unit as they reference literary texts, which include the genre of myths, folk and fairy tale stories. Students in grade five know most of the traditional fairy tales and by re-introducing this type of literature using familiar traditional fairy tale stories (as well as introducing them to alternative fairy tales) will increase their knowledge and depth of this overlooked genre. Reading and Writing are two of the most important requirements within the elementary school curriculum, which this unit will, hopefully, make more enjoyable for students.
This curriculum unit consisting of traditional and alternative fairy tales is divided into six lessons that include learning about character analysis, themes, morals and gender roles. It is designed for teachers to use as part of the instruction of fairy tales within the Language component of the expected Reading requirements. Each lesson of the fairy tale unit contains teaching of the various fairy tales, both traditional and alternative, so that students can compare, contrast and expand their knowledge of both of these types of literature. Students will read the stories first and then write and answer questions about these stories. They will get to write about their thoughts and opinions based on what they have read and learned as well as what they have enjoyed about this curriculum unit.
GRADE FIVE LANGUAGE ARTS CURRICULUM UNIT:
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Traditional & Alternative Fairy Tale Literature
LESSON 1: Introduction to Traditional Fairy Tales
Lesson One is the introduction to traditional fairy tale stories. It will begin with the traditional fairy tale story by the Brothers Grimm titled The Sleeping Beauty . It will include the
Grade 5 Reading requirement: Variety of Text 1.1
: read a variety of texts from diverse cultures, including literary texts (which include the genre of myths and folk or fairy tale stories) , graphic texts and informational texts (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 97). The learning objective will include introducing and explaining to students what a traditional fairy tale is; to have students be able to identify traditional fairy tale stories and have students learn how to interpret fairy tale characters by acting out characters from the stories that they have read.
The teacher will read the story, The Sleeping Beauty , by the Brothers Grimm out loud to the students in a group setting. After the story is read, the teacher and students will take part in a discussion about fairy tales. These questions will be asked to students:
-What is a fairy tale?
-What is a traditional fairy tale?
-What do you think is meant by ‘traditional’?
-Do you like fairy tales? Why or why not?
-What does magic or fantasy have to do with a fairy tale?
-What are characteristics of a traditional fairy tale?
The teacher will have the students brainstorm ideas of what a fairy tales is, what traditional fairy tales are, what the word ‘traditional’ means (as a word and how it refers to fairy tales), whether they enjoy fairy tales or not, what magic and fantasy are and what they think characteristics of a traditional fairy tale are. Students can discuss their answers among
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themselves in a classroom discussion.
Students will then make a folder titled Fairy Tales that they will decorate accordingly, creating a title page, table of contents and drawings for the cover art. This is where they will store all of their written and drawn work for this unit.
Students will then read the story again on their own during reading hour or at home. This will refresh their minds of the story so they can begin the next step of the lesson. This can be done on another day, depending on how much time permits.
After reading the story, have students get into groups of four and act out characters from the traditional fairy tale story, The Sleeping Beauty . Have them practice how they think these characters would act, speak and react to situations (in the story). They can perform scenes from the story in front of the class (students can read their character parts from the book) after thirty minutes of preparation. This activity will introduce the story’s characters to the students as well as get them familiar with certain character traits in preparation for future lessons on fairy tale stories.
LESSON 2: Introduction to Alternative Fairy Tales
Lesson Two is the introduction to alternative fairy tale stories. It will begin with the alternative fairy tale story by Jane Yolen titled Sleeping Ugly . It will include the Grade 5
Reading requirement: Variety of Text 1.1
: read a variety of texts from diverse cultures, including literary texts (which includes the genre of myths and folk or fairy tale stories) , graphic texts and informational texts (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 97). The learning objective will include introducing and explaining to students what an alternative fairy tale is; to have students be able to compare and contrast traditional and alternative fairy tale stories using a Venn diagram and to write their own alternative fairy tale story (based on what they have learned about
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traditional and alternative fairy tale stories).
The teacher will read the story, Sleeping Ugly , by Jane Yolen out loud to the students in a group setting. After the story is read, the teacher and students will take part in a discussion about fairy tales. These questions will be asked to students:
-What is an alternative fairy tale?
-What do you think is meant by ‘alternative’?
-What are characteristics of an alternative fairy tale?
- Which version (traditional or alternative) do you prefer? Why?
The teacher will have the students brainstorm ideas of what alternative fairy tales are, what the word ‘alternative’ means (as a word and how it refers to fairy tales), what they think characteristics of an alternative fairy tale are and at this point, which version of the fairy tale do they prefer, traditional or alternative, and why. Students can discuss their answers among themselves in a classroom discussion.
Students will then read the story again (as well as the traditional fairy tale story, The
Sleeping Beauty, to refer to) on their own, during reading hour or at home. This will refresh their minds of the story(s) so they can begin the next step of the lesson. This can be done on another day, depending on how much time permits.
The teacher will then compare and contrast the two stories by drawing a Venn diagram on the board. Students should be familiar with this concept from previous lessons. The teacher will take a couple of key similarities and plot them into the Venn diagram, which will be drawn on the board. This may include examples such as: Traditional fairy tales always have a female protagonist who is beautiful, kind and innocent but in alternative fairy tales she does not have to always be beautiful, kind and innocent but have at least one or two out of these three traits.
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Students will then be assigned a writing task that will include writing their own alternative fairy tale. Based on what they have learned about traditional and alternative fairy tales, they will write their own version of an alternative, or parody, fairy tale. It can be as long as they wish but must be a minimum of two pages. Have the students think about what characteristics are usually present in an alternative fairy tale story and look back at the charts and tables previously discussed with the class. *Reveal the language components and the organization the students have accomplished by writing their own story. Point out that they are creating characters, a setting, a story’s problem, and its resolution.
*(adapted from: Charles, V.M. (2009). Fairy tales in the classroom: Teaching students to write stories with meaning through traditional tales . Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside. (p. 157)).
LESSON 3: Character Analysis
Lesson Three is the introduction to character analysis in fairy tale stories. It will use both traditional and alternative fairy tale stories, The Sleeping Beauty by the Brothers Grimm and
Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen ( The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch may also be included for further emphasis on character analysis in this lesson if time and teacher permit). It will contain the Grade 5 Reading requirement: Analyzing Texts 1.7
: analyze texts and explain how various elements (in this case, characters) in them contribute to meaning, plot development, mood and theme (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 98). The learning objective will include students observing the characters and their (the characters’) traits in traditional and alternative fairy tale stories through analysis of characters by answering and creating questions based on characters’ traits and emotions; and writing an essay on characters and how important he or she is to the story by discussing and analyzing his or her character traits.
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The teacher and students will get together in a group setting and discuss the stories, The
Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly , casually recalling main points from both fairy tales. The teacher will ask students these questions about characters:
-What is a character?
-What role does each character play in each story?
-What is a primary character?
-What is a secondary character?
-What is a protagonist?
-What is an antagonist?
-Who are the ‘good’ characters?
-Who are the ‘bad’ characters?
Then have the students leave the group to choose a partner and use pair/share to look at character analysis. Tell them to look at The Sleeping Beauty and make a list of characters in the story. The students will then list what each character looks like, how he or she behaves and what his or her role is in the story. Tell students to ask themselves these questions about each character:
-Who is the protagonist?
-Who is the antagonist?
-Is he or she a primary character?
-Is he or she a secondary character?
-Is this person good or bad?
Then tell students to do the same with the characters for Sleeping Ugly .
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The next step in the lesson is to show the students how to analyze each character from the stories. Explain to them that analyze means: **to take apart, and identify elements, characteristics or relationships.
Have students write their answers in point-form and put them into their Fairy Tales folder for marking.
1.
Identify useful ways to break the person or situation to be analyzed into parts.
2.
Define each part clearly.
3.
Identify and organize data related to each part.
4.
State conclusion(s) based on analysis.
Analyzing Characters:
**Have students think of a question that each of these literary characters might ask the other. Analyze the personality or characteristics of each character. Tell them that their question needs to be related in some way to the character traits of each character. Have them answer these five questions in conversation-form and then come up with two of their own questions.
1.
What kind of directions might the Prince in The Sleeping Beauty ask of a passerby on the way to the palace to rescue Rosamond?
2.
What would the King and the Prince (from The Sleeping Beauty ) have a conversation about after everyone in the kingdom had woken up?
3.
What would Princess Miserella say, if she was nice instead of mean, to the Fairy (from
Sleeping Ugly ) when they first met?
4.
What kinds of questions would Rosamond ( The Sleeping Beauty ) and Jane ( Sleeping
Ugly ) ask each other if they were friends?
5.
Describe the conversation between the Prince and the old man from The Sleeping Beauty .
After they have answered these questions and created their own questions, have students put their completed work in their Fairy Tales folder for marking.
**(adapted from: Polette, N. (2005). Teaching Thinking Skills with Fairy Tales and Fantasy .
British Library Cataloguing: Connecticut. (pp. 10, 12)).
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The teacher will then give the students their next assignment (this can be started the next day or the day of, depending on how much time permits). This includes writing a one-to-two page essay on who the students think is the most significant or important character in each of the two stories by comparing their roles in both stories. For example, if a student chooses Rosamond in The Sleeping Beauty , he would also choose Jane or Miserella in Sleeping Ugly because they have the same character role in both stories. These two characters would be described and compared as to who is the stronger character in both stories and why, as well as why they are the most important character in both stories. Have the students use examples of the character traits they wrote down previously as well as the characters’ actions in both stories to support their answers. ***The student can choose to write this story from a character’s perspective, such as the villain’s point of view or perhaps a secondary character (whether real or mythical)’s view for a more diverse paper (because it does not contain the typical protagonist’s point of view).
***(adapted from: Charles, V.M. (2009). Fairy tales in the classroom: Teaching students to write stories with meaning through traditional tales . Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside. (p. 157)).
LESSON 4: Themes and Morals
Lesson Four is the introduction to themes and morals in fairy tale stories. It will use both traditional and alternative fairy tale stories, The Sleeping Beauty by the Brothers Grimm and
Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen. It will contain the Grade 5 Reading requirement: Demonstrating
Understanding 1.4
: demonstrate understanding of a variety of texts by summarizing important ideas and citing supporting details (which include theme in myths and fairy tales) (Ontario
Curriculum, 2006, p. 97). The learning objective will include students observing what themes are present and how they are represented; as well as what morals are present and how they are represented in traditional and alternative fairy tale stories.
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Have students gather together in a group with the teacher. Ask students general questions about themes, morals and how they are used in fairy tales and have a general discussion about them. Ask questions that include:
-What do you think a theme in a story is?
-What do you think a moral is?
-How is a moral used in a fairy tale?
Students can discuss their answers among themselves in a classroom discussion.
Explain to students what themes and morals are. Explain how themes and morals are represented in fairy tales. Use the story Hansel and Gretel as an example to show how themes and morals are represented within that fairy tale story for comparison for the fairy tales ( The
Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly ) being studied later.
Have the students choose either The Sleeping Beauty or Sleeping Ugly and explain what the theme (and moral, if there is one) of that story is. Have them write this down in two to three paragraphs and then after completed, put in their Fairy Tales folder for marking.
LESSON 5: Gender Roles
Lesson Five is the introduction of how gender roles are represented in fairy tale stories. It will use both use both traditional and alternative fairy tale stories, The Sleeping Beauty by the
Brothers Grimm and Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen ( The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch may also be included for further emphasis on gender roles in this lesson if time and teacher permit). It will contain the Grade 5 Reading requirement: Point of View 1.9
: Identify the point of view presented in texts, ask questions to identify missing or possible alternate points of view, and suggest some possible alternative perspectives (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 98). The learning objective will include students observing how gender roles are represented in both traditional and
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alternative fairy tale stories and whether they are similar or different. Students will also
****create a piece of artwork that will help them visualize the story and produce a creative reflection of what they have learned.
Have students gather together in a group with the teacher. Have a general discussion about gender with students and ask them questions about gender in fairy tales, which could include:
-Describe the female characters and each of their roles in this story.
-Describe the male characters and each of their roles in this story.
Write some of their answers and definitions about gender in regards to the two above questions on the black board or smart board. Discuss with students how the female characters and male characters are treated in each fairy tale story. Explain to students how females and males are represented in fairy tales and what gender roles are in regards to their place in fairy tale literature.
****Write the names of protagonists within fairy tales on the board. Some examples might include Cinderella, Prince Charming, the Beast, Rapunzel, Hansel, Gretel, etc. Beneath each of these names, students may write an adjective that describes them. For example, under
Cinderella, students may write the words ‘beautiful’, ‘weak’ and ‘kind’ and under the Beast, students may write words such as ‘ugly’, ‘strong’ and ‘mean’.
After this activity, have students pick a partner to discuss these questions (for about ten minutes) and then share with the rest of the class.
-How are women treated in fairy tales? Do fairy tales represent women fairly?
-How are men treated in fairy tales? Do fairy tales represent men fairly?
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Explain to students how gender roles are the same or different in both stories. Ask students the following questions and discuss their answers among the class.
-Why are female protagonists usually portrayed as weak and docile until they meet their Prince?
-Why are male protagonists usually portrayed as strong and mighty rescuers that save the girl?
-How do gender roles work in other types of literature? For example, in stories from the 1500s, are they more old-fashioned? Compared to stories from the 2000s, are they more feminist?
Have the students start a new activity (this can be done after the gender roles discussion or in the following Language Arts lesson). They will be required to choose and draw a character from each of the two fairy tales, The Sleeping Beauty or Sleeping Ugly . They will design their own interpretation of this character through a drawing. Explain to them that they have to show how gender roles are represented in this character through their drawings. For example: if they choose Rosamond, draw her as small and attractive to represent the weakness and beauty she represents in the story. *****Supply the students with blank sheets of paper, pencils and pencil crayons. Ask them to add details to the scene on their own. Allow about 15 minutes for this drawing phase of the activity, but if time can allow it, give them more time and they will add more details to their pictures. Now check the time in about 45 minutes to see how much they have accomplished.
The next lesson given to students will be during the following assignment. They will be given an essay topic and be required to write a paper that is two to three pages long. The students will have to choose either The Sleeping Beauty or Sleeping Ugly to write this essay on.
****Each student will write a list of the main characters in their stories and beneath them, write a brief description of his or her role within the story. After doing this for all of the
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main characters, students will change the ending or some major aspect of the story that challenges the motives and traditional gender roles of the characters.
Students will then write their own interpretation of the fairy tale they have chosen in their own words. Of the two stories, which represents gender roles more fairly? And how and why does it? Have them use examples from the story to support their answers, as well as actions these characters have performed.
****(adapted from: Teaching Literature: Fairy Tales online (pages 2, 6-7). Retrieved from: http://www.teachingliterature.org/teachingliterature/pdf/story/fairy_tales_schultz.pdf
*****(adapted from: Charles, V.M. (2009). Fairy tales in the classroom: Teaching students to write stories with meaning through traditional tales . Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside. (p. 167)).
LESSON 6: Final Analysis
Lesson Six is the final analysis of identifying and exploring traditional and alternative fairy tale stories. It will use the traditional and alternative fairy tale stories, Snow White by the
Brothers Grimm and Snow White in New York by Fiona French. It will contain two Grade 5
Reading requirements: Demonstrating Understanding 1.4
: demonstrate understanding of a variety of texts by summarizing important ideas and citing supporting details (which include myths and fairy tales) (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 97) and Metacognition 4.1
: identify the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 99). The learning objective will include students identifying what a traditional fairy tale story is and what an alternative fairy tale story is by using literary analysis learned from previous lessons (on fairy tale literature) to apply to other genres of literature.
The teacher will read the story, Snow White , by the Brothers Grimm out loud to the students in a group setting. Then read the story, Snow White in New York , to students. After the
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stories have been read, the teacher and students will take part in a discussion. The teacher will then have the students brainstorm their ideas and thoughts about these two stories and have a general discussion about this with students in a group setting.
After looking at the fairy tale stories, Snow White and Snow White in New York , the teacher will ask students which one of the two stories is the traditional story and which one is the alternative story. Tell students to use their previous knowledge about characteristics from traditional and alternative fairy tale stories to support their answers. Have them think about both stories’ summaries, themes, morals, character traits and gender roles. Give them about ten minutes to share their answers in a pair/share with another student. Then have them share their answers with the teacher and the rest of the students in a group discussion.
For the next Language Arts class (or after the above task, if time permits), the teacher will introduce the next assignment. It is a culminating task of two to three pages that will consist of students having to read the fairy tale story, Snow White in New York, again on their own and writing a paper. The paper they write will state whether they think this story is a traditional fairy tale or an alternative fairy tale. Have them explain why by using their previous knowledge of traditional and alternative fairy tale story characteristics to support their answers. Have them look at both stories and compare their summaries, themes and morals, character traits and gender roles to prove their reasoning.
As a treat for students at the end of the fairy tale unit, the teacher can find a live-action film adaptation of Sleeping Beauty or Snow White for students to watch. This can provide more emphasis on the comparison of pictures within fairy tales and the significance gender roles have within traditional and alternative fairy tale stories and movies. The teacher can treat this as a
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wrap-up to the unit and have the students bring in treats to eat while viewing the movie.
After reading and writing about these four fairy tale stories, students should be able to identify what a traditional fairy tale story is and what an alternative fairy tale story is; know how to write their own adaptation of a fairy tale story; know how to compare and contrast traditional and alternative fairy tales; know what themes and morals are and how they are represented in traditional and alternative fairy tale stories; know how to use character analysis to explore character traits; know how traditional and alternative fairy tales represent gender roles and how to be able to use literary analysis learned from previous lessons to apply to other genres of literature.
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CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION
My creative imagination, love of children and passion for literature have all brought to me to a place that explores the enchanting genre of fairy tales. I not only wanted to learn more about them but share my experiences about what I have learned about them with others. I have delved into traditional, as well as the alternative, fairy tale stories and have discovered that both are extensions of each other that have great potential of becoming one of the most interesting genres in children’s literature. By comparing and contrasting these two types of fairy tales to discover new meanings, students can explore the world of fairy tale literature for a more positive experience with reading and writing great literature.
As someone who holds degrees in English and Education, it is only fitting for me to want to design a curriculum unit about the fairy tale literature genre as I feel it is overlooked in the
Language Arts. I feel it should be studied a bit more in-depth because of its potential in the literary world. Children, especially those who love reading and fairy tales, will benefit from this unit because it will expand their knowledge of fairy tales by exploring the meanings and heart of these classic stories.
This project contains old and new ideas that I have put together in hopes of discovering more about the fairy tale literature genre. These stories have continued to delight people around the world with their creativity, dreams and ideals of love. When looking at fairy tales, one cannot only focus on the fluff and magic at hand, but the depth that studying this genre provides.
Symbolism and the meaning of themes and gender roles in these stories can be looked at so intensely that it is hard not to find them fascinating. Traditional fairy tales provide their reader with magic, dreams and perfection while the alternative fairy tales provide comedy, reality and
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imperfection. The sweet motion of a kiss is what wakes all of our heroines in these beloved stories and to think, if they had not ever been kissed, who would young girls read about and wish they could grow up to be? One can also argue that this is not what young girls should aspire to be, which is why alternative fairy tales have made such a positive impact on literature today.
When people think of fairy tales, they think of traditional stories about princesses, princes and true love. Of course, the protagonist must overcome obstacles to get her happily ever after, but she eventually gets it through the magic of the fairy tale rules and requirements. This is where alternative fairy tales come in. They still provide the necessary elements of a traditional fairy tale but with a twist of some sort, whether comical or through role reversal. The modern take (that alternative fairy tale stories have) on the fairy tale is refreshing, yet realistic. By introducing this type of fairy tale story to children, they will not only follow the mould of what fairy tales have always taught us but have the option of seeing them in a modern light as well. Of course, nothing can replace the traditional fairy tale in all its glory, but it is refreshing to know that whether you read a traditional fairy tale or an alternative fairy tale, you will always end up with a happily ever after.
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APPENDICES
Appendix A
THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM: LANGUAGE ARTS UNIT
GRADE 5 READING: FAIRY TALE LITERATURE
The Sleeping Beauty & Sleeping Ugly Traditional and Alternative Fairy Tales
Lesson 1: The Sleeping Beauty (Traditional version)
Ministry Guideline Expectations of Grade 5 Reading requirement: Variety of Text 1.1
: read a variety of texts from diverse cultures, including literary texts (which include the genre of myths and folk or fairy tale stories) , graphic texts and informational texts (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p.
97).
Learning Objective: To introduce and explain to students what a traditional fairy tale is; to have students be able to identify traditional fairy tale stories and have students learn how to interpret fairy tale characters by acting out characters from the stories that they have read.
Materials: Book titled The Sleeping Beauty by The Brothers Grimm
Introduction: Read the story The Sleeping Beauty to students in a group. Ask students questions about fairy tales and have a general discussion about them.
-What is a fairy tale?
-What is a traditional fairy tale?
-What do you think is meant by ‘traditional’?
-Do you like fairy tales? Why or why not?
-What does magic or fantasy have to do with a fairy tale?
-What are characteristics of a traditional fairy tale?
Have the students brainstorm ideas of what a fairy tales is, what traditional fairy tales are, what the word ‘traditional’ means (as a word and how it refers to fairy tales), whether they enjoy fairy tales or not, what magic and fantasy are and what they think characteristics of a traditional fairy tale are. Students can discuss their answers among themselves in a classroom discussion.
Procedure:
1.
Have students read the traditional fairy tale story, The Sleeping Beauty , again on their
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own.
2.
Have the students make a folder titled Fairy Tales and decorate the cover accordingly.
Include a title page and table of contents. This is where all of their written and drawn work for this unit will be stored.
3.
After reading the story, have students get into groups of four and act out characters from the traditional fairy tale story, The Sleeping Beauty . Have them practice how they think these characters would act, speak and react to situations (in the story). They can perform scenes from the story in front of the class (students can read their character parts from the book) after thirty minutes of preparation. This activity will introduce the story’s characters to the students as well as get them familiar with certain character traits in preparation for future lessons on fairy tale stories.
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Appendix B
THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM: LANGUAGE ARTS UNIT
GRADE 5 READING: FAIRY TALE LITERATURE
The Sleeping Beauty & Sleeping Ugly : Traditional and Alternative Fairy Tales
Lesson 2: Sleeping Ugly (Alternative version)
Ministry Guideline Expectations of Grade 5 Reading requirement: Variety of Text 1.1
: read a variety of texts from diverse cultures, including literary texts (which include the genre of myths and folk or fairy tale stories) , graphic texts and informational texts (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p.
97).
Learning Objective: To introduce and explain what an alternative fairy tale is to students; to have students be able to identify alternative fairy tale stories; to have students be able to compare and contrast traditional and alternative fairy tale stories using a Venn diagram and to write their own alternative fairy tale story (based on what they have learned about traditional and alternative fairy tale stories).
Materials: Books titled:
Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen
The Sleeping Beauty by The Brothers Grimm
Introduction: Ask students questions about fairy tales and have a general discussion about them.
-What is an alternative fairy tale?
-What do you think is meant by ‘alternative’?
-What are the characteristics of an alternative fairy tale?
-Which version (traditional or alternative) do you prefer? Why?
The teacher will have the students brainstorm ideas of what alternative fairy tales are, what the word ‘alternative’ means (as a word and how it refers to fairy tales), what they think characteristics of an alternative fairy tale are and at this point, which version of the fairy tale do they prefer, traditional or alternative, and why. Students can discuss their answers among themselves in a classroom discussion.
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Procedure:
1.
Have students read the alternative fairy tale stories, The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping
Ugly, again on their own.
2.
Compare traditional and alternative fairy tales (using the stories The Sleeping Beauty and
Sleeping Ugly ) with a Venn diagram on the black board or smart board. List a couple of characteristics that traditional fairy tales have, characteristics that alternative fairy tales have and what both have in common. This may include examples such as: Traditional fairy tales always have a female protagonist who is beautiful, kind and innocent where in alternative fairy tales, she does not have to always be beautiful or kind or innocent.
3.
Then assign students a writing task that will include writing their own alternative fairy tale. Based on what they have learned about traditional and alternative fairy tales, they will write their own version of an alternative, or parody, fairy tale. It can be as long as they wish but must be a minimum of two pages. Have the students think about what characteristics are usually present in an alternative fairy tale story and look back at the charts and tables previously discussed with the class.
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Appendix C
THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM: LANGUAGE ARTS UNIT
GRADE 5 READING: FAIRY TALE LITERATURE
Lesson 3: Character Analysis in Traditional and Alternative Fairy Tales
FOCUS ON: The Sleeping Beauty & Sleeping Ugly
*Note: The book The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch may be used alongside this lesson for more emphasis on character analysis within alternative fairy tale stories.
Ministry Guideline Expectations of Grade 5 Reading requirement: Analyzing Texts 1.7
: analyze texts and explain how various elements in them contribute to meaning, plot development, mood and theme (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 98).
Learning Objective: To have students observe the characters and their (the characters’) traits in traditional and alternative fairy tale stories through analysis of characters by answering and creating questions based on characters’ traits and emotions; and writing an essay on characters and how important he or she is to the story by discussing and analyzing character traits.
Materials: Books titled:
The Sleeping Beauty by The Brothers Grimm
Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen
Introduction: Ask students questions about characters in fairy tales and have a general discussion about them.
-What is a character?
-What role does each character play in each story?
-What is a primary character?
-What is a secondary character?
-What is a protagonist?
-What is an antagonist?
-Who are the ‘good’ characters?
-Who are the ‘bad’ characters?
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The teacher will write down character traits and roles from a previous fairy tale (one that students are most likely familiar with, such as Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm) to show examples of answers to the above questions. Write down student answers using a table on the blackboard or smart board.
Then have the students leave the group to choose a partner and use pair/share to look at character analysis. Tell them to look at The Sleeping Beauty and make a list of characters in the story. The students will then list what each character looks like, how he or she behaves and what his or her role is in the story. Tell students to ask themselves these questions about each character:
-Who is the protagonist?
-Who is the antagonist?
-Is he or she a primary character?
-Is he or she a secondary character?
-Is this person good or bad?
Have the students do the same with the characters for Sleeping Ugly .
Have students write their answers in point-form and to be put into their Fairy Tales folder for marking.
Procedure:
**ANALYZE: To take apart, and identify elements, characteristics, or relationships.
1.
Identify useful ways to break the person or situation to be analyzed into parts.
2.
Define each part clearly.
3.
Identify and organize data related to each part.
4.
State conclusion(s) based on analysis.
Analyzing Characters:
**Think of a question that each of these literary characters might ask the other. Analyze the personality or characteristics of each character. Your question needs to be related in some way to the character traits of each character. Answer these five questions in conversation-form and then come up with two of your own questions.
1.
What kind of directions might the Prince in The Sleeping Beauty ask of a passerby on the way to the palace to rescue Rosamond?
2.
What would the King and the Prince (from The Sleeping Beauty ) have a conversation
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about after everyone in the kingdom had woken up?
3.
What would Princess Miserella say, if she was kind instead of mean, to the Fairy (from
Sleeping Ugly ) when they first meet?
4.
What kinds of questions would Rosamond ( The Sleeping Beauty ) and Jane ( Sleeping
Ugly ) ask each other if they were friends?
5.
Describe the conversation between the Prince and the old man from The Sleeping Beauty .
**(adapted from: Polette, N. (2005). Teaching Thinking Skills with Fairy Tales and Fantasy.
British Library Cataloguing: Conneticut. (pp. 10, 12).
Essay Question (One to two pages long):
Write an essay on who you think is the most significant or important character in each of the two stories by comparing their roles in each story. For example, if you choose Rosamond in
The Sleeping Beauty , you would also choose Jane or Miserella in Sleeping Ugly because they have the same character role in both stories. These two characters would be described and compared as to who is the stronger character in both stories and why, as well as why they are the most important character in both stories. Use examples of their character traits and their actions in both stories to support your answer. ***The student can choose to write this story from a character’s perspective, such as the villain’s point of view or perhaps a secondary character
(whether real or mythical)’s view for a more diverse paper (because it does not contain the typical protagonist’s point of view).
***(adapted from: Charles, V.M. (2009). Fairy tales in the classroom: Teaching students to write stories with meaning through traditional tales . Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside. (p. 157)).
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Appendix D
THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM: LANGUAGE ARTS UNIT
GRADE 5 READING: FAIRY TALE LITERATURE
Lesson 4: Looking at Themes & Morals in Traditional Fairy Tales and Alternative Fairy Tales
FOCUS ON: The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly
Ministry Guideline Expectations of Grade 5 Reading requirement: Demonstrating
Understanding 1.4
: demonstrate understanding of a variety of texts by summarizing important ideas and citing supporting details (which include theme in myths and fairy tales) (Ontario
Curriculum, 2006, p. 97).
Demonstrating Understanding 1.4
: demonstrate understanding of a variety of texts by summarizing important ideas and citing supporting details (which include myths and fairy tales)
(Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 97).
Learning Objective: To have students identify themes and morals and how they are represented in traditional and alternative fairy tale stories; as well as what morals are present and how they are represented in traditional and alternative fairy tale stories.
Materials: Books titled:
The Sleeping Beauty by The Brothers Grimm
Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen
Introduction: Ask students questions about themes, morals and how they are used in fairy tales and have a general discussion about them.
-What do you think a theme in a story is?
-What do you think a moral is?
-How is a moral used in a fairy tale?
Students can discuss their answers among themselves in a classroom discussion.
Procedure: Explain to students what themes and morals are. Explain how themes and morals are represented in fairy tales. Use the story Hansel and Gretel as an example to show how themes and morals are represented. Choose either The Sleeping Beauty or Sleeping Ugly and explain what the theme (and moral, if there is one) of that story is. Write this down in two to three paragraphs to be put in their Fairy Tales folder for marking.
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Appendix E
THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM: LANGUAGE ARTS UNIT
GRADE 5 READING: FAIRY TALE LITERATURE
Lesson 5: Looking at Gender Roles in Traditional Fairy Tales and Alternative Fairy Tales
FOCUS ON: The Sleeping Beauty and Sleeping Ugly
*Note: The book The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch may be used alongside this lesson for more emphasis on gender roles in alternative fairy tale stories.
Ministry Guideline Expectations of Grade 5 Reading requirement: Point of View 1.9
: Identify the point of view presented in texts, ask questions to identify missing or possible alternate points of view, and suggest some possible alternative perspectives (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 98).
Learning Objective: To have students observe how gender roles are represented in both traditional and alternative fairy tale stories and whether they are similar or different; and to have students ****create a piece of artwork that will help them visualize the story and produce a creative reflection of what they have learned.
Materials: Books titled:
The Sleeping Beauty by The Brothers Grimm
Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen
Introduction: Ask students about gender in fairy tales.
-Describe the female characters and each of their roles in this story.
-Describe the male characters and each of their roles in this story.
Have a general discussion about this before giving them concrete meanings and explanations.
Procedure: Explain to students how females and males are represented in fairy tales and what gender roles are in regards to their place in fairy tale literature. Do the following activity by writing student answers on the on the black board or smart board.
****Write the names of protagonists within fairy tales on the board. Some examples might include Cinderella, Prince Charming, the Beast, Rapunzel, Hansel, Gretel, etc. Beneath each of these names, students may write an adjective that describes them. For example, under Cinderella, students may write the words “beautiful”, “weak” and “kind” and under the Beast, students may write words such as “ugly”, “strong” and “mean”.
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After this activity, sit down with students in a group again and ask them these questions during a casual discussion with the whole class (they do not have to be written down).
-How are women treated in fairy tales? Do fairy tales represent women fairly?
-How are men treated in fairy tales? Do fairy tales represent men fairly?
Explain how gender roles are the same or different in both stories. Then ask students the following questions and discuss their answers among the class.
-Why are female protagonists usually portrayed as weak and docile until they meet their Prince?
-Why are male protagonists usually portrayed as strong and mighty rescuers that save the girl?
-How do gender roles work in other types of literature? For example, in stories from the 1500s, are they more old-fashioned? Compared to stories from the 2000s, are they more feminist?
Visual Arts Activity (One page for each drawing):
Choose a character from each of the two fairy tales, The Sleeping Beauty or Sleeping
Ugly , and design your own interpretation of this character through a drawing. Show how gender roles are represented in this character through your drawing. For example: if you choose
Rosamond, draw her as small and attractive to represent the weakness and beauty she represents in the story. *****Supply the students with blank sheets of paper, pencils and pencil crayons.
Ask them to add details to the scene on their own. Allow about 15 minutes for this drawing phase of the activity, but if time can allow it, give them more time and they will add more details to their pictures. Now check the time in about 45 minutes to see how much they have accomplished.
Essay Assessment Assignment (Two to three pages long):
Choose either The Sleeping Beauty or Sleeping Ugly to write this essay on.
****Each student will write a list of the main characters in their stories and beneath them, write a brief description of his or her role within the story. After doing this for all of the main characters, students will change the ending or some major aspect of the story that challenges the motives and traditional gender roles of the characters.
Students will then write their own interpretation of the fairy tale they have chosen in their own words. Of the two stories, which represents gender roles more fairly? And how and why does it? Use examples from the story to support your answer as well as actions these characters have performed to do so.
****(adapted from: Teaching Literature: Fairy Tales online (pages 2, 6-7). Weblink:
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http://www.teachingliterature.org/teachingliterature/pdf/story/fairy_tales_schultz.pdf
*****(adapted from: Charles, V.M. (2009). Fairy tales in the classroom: Teaching students to write stories with meaning through traditional tales . Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside. (p. 167)).
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Appendix F
THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM: LANGUAGE ARTS UNIT
GRADE 5 READING: FAIRY TALE LITERATURE
Lesson 6: Final Analysis of Traditional Fairy Tales and Alternative Fairy Tales
FOCUS ON: Snow White and Snow White in New York
Ministry Guideline Expectations of Grade 5 Reading requirements: Demonstrating
Understanding 1.4
: demonstrate understanding of a variety of texts by summarizing important ideas and citing supporting details (which include myths and fairy tales) (Ontario Curriculum,
2006, p. 97) and Metacognition 4.1
: identify the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading (Ontario Curriculum, 2006, p. 99).
Learning Objective: To have students identify what a traditional fairy tale story is and what an alternative fairy tale story is by using literary analysis learned from previous lessons to apply to other genres of literature (including traditional and alternative fairy tales).
Materials: Books titled:
Snow White by The Brothers Grimm
Snow White in New York by Fiona French
Introduction: Read the traditional fairy tale story, Snow White , to students. Then read the fairy tale story, Snow White in New York , to them.
Ask them what their ideas and thoughts are about these two stories. Brainstorm students’ ideas and thoughts. Have a general discussion about this with students in a group setting.
Procedure: After looking at the fairy tale stories, Snow White and Snow White in New York , ask them which one is the traditional story and which one is the alternative story. Have them use previous knowledge about characteristics from traditional and alternative fairy tale stories to support their answers. Think about both stories’ summaries, themes, morals, character traits and gender roles. Tell students to take about ten minutes and share their answers in a pair/share group with another student. Then have them share their answers with the teacher and the rest of the students in a group discussion.
Culminating Task (Two to three pages long):
Tell students to read the fairy tale story Snow White in New York . They should write a paper explaining whether this story is a traditional fairy tale or an alternative fairy tale. Explain why.
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Have them use their previous knowledge of traditional and alternative fairy tale story characteristics to support their answer. Look at both stories and compare their summaries, themes and morals, character traits and gender roles to prove their answers.
Reflection: After reading and writing about these two stories, students should be able to identify what a traditional fairy tale story is and what an alternative fairy tale story is; know how to write an adaptation of a fairy tale story; know how to compare and contrast traditional and alternative fairy tales; know what themes and morals are and how they are represented in traditional and alternative fairy tale stories; know how traditional and alternative fairy tales represent gender roles and how to be able to use literary analysis learned from previous lessons to apply to other genres of literature.
Conclusion: For added emphasis, watch a live-action film adaptation of Sleeping Beauty or
Snow White for a more detailed comparison of pictures within the fairy tale and the significance gender roles have within traditional and alternative fairy tale stories and movies.
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