Hero vs. Villain:
An analysis of good and
evil in traditional fairy tales
by Shannon Henderson
SLIS 5440, Fall 2003
Thematic Description &
Rationale
 This is a brief analysis of ten common fairy tales
and the roles the hero/heroine and the villain play.
 The purpose of this presentation and analysis is to
determine the hero/heroine was such prior to the
encounters with evil/villain and to understand the
villain’s motive(s).
 I selected the ten traditional fairy tales to analyze
from my local library.
Bibliographic Citation and Story Synopsis
Aylesworth, Jim. The Gingerbread Man. New York: Scholastic Press, 1998.
The little old man and woman make a gingerbread man. Once he comes out of the oven, he
runs away. The little old man and woman try to catch him, as well as the butcher and several
animals. He manages to out run them all, except for the fox, who has him for a delicious
snack.
Lesser, Rika. Hansel and Gretel. New York: Dutton Children’s Books, 1984.
Hansel and Gretel’s poor family has run out of food except for one loaf of bread. Their
father takes them deep into the woods to leave them. Though they leave a trail, they are so
deep into the woods they cannot find their way home. The come upon a house made of
food. While eating the house, they are caught by the old woman who lives there. She locks
up Hansel and tries to fatten him up in order to eat him, but Gretel manages to cook the old
woman instead. Eventually, Hansel and Gretel find their way home to their father.
Gay, Marie-Louise. Rumpelstiltskin. Emeryville, CA: Groundwood Books, 1997.
A poor miller offers up his daughter to the King stating that she can spin straw into gold.
The King takes her in, and on three different occasions demands that she spin a large room
of straw into gold. Each time, left alone, she is visited by a small man. He spins the straw
into gold for her. She offers to repay him, and he wants her first born child. She agrees, but
when she finally marries the King and has a child, she does not wish to make good on her
promise. So, he tells her that if she can guess his name that he will release her from her
promise. After much thinking and researching, her messenger discovers his name. Thus she
becomes free from her promise, and Rumpelstiltskin is gone.
Bibliographic Citation and Story Synopsis
(con’t)
Kellogg, Steven. Jack and the Beanstalk New York: Morrow Junior, 1991.
Jack and his poor mother must sell their cow who has stopped making milk. Jack trades his
cow for five magical beans. His mother is very distraught and throws them out the window.
They grow into an enormous beanstalk. Jack climbs it and meets an ogre’s wife. During
each of his three visits, the ogre’s wife invites Jack in, and Jack ends of taking something of
value from them. Finally the ogre tries to catch Jack, but Jack climbs down the beanstalk
and chops it down. Jack then marries, and he, his mother, and his wife live happily ever
after.
Marshall, James. The Three Little Pigs. New York: Dial Books, 1989.
Three little pigs leave home to set out on their own. They each build a house, and each pig
uses different material to build his house. One builds a house of straw, one a house of sticks,
and the third a house of bricks. One by one, the wolf comes by and gobbles up the pigs.
However, the final pig outsmarts the wolf and ends up having the wolf for dinner instead of
being dinner.
--. Illu. Stephen Carpenter. The Three Billy Goats Gruff. --: HarperCollins, 1998.
Three billy goats, all by the name of Gruff, lived in a valley where grass was sparse. They
want to go up to the hillside and enjoy lush, green grass and daisies. However, to get there
they must cross a bridge which a troll lives under. They decide to try and cross one at a
time; each billy goat tells the troll to eat the next goat because he is bigger. The third billy
goat pushes the billy goat into the river, makes it across, and they all enjoy the hillside’s
grass.
Bibliographic Citation and Story Synopsis
(con’t)
Levert, Mireille. Little Red Riding Hood. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 1995.
Little Red Riding Hood is going to visit her sick grandmother and take her some cake and
wine to make her feel better. On her way, Little Red Riding Hood meets a wolf who entices
her into the forest to pick flowers. In the meantime, he dashes to Grandmother’s house and
gobbles her up. When Little Red Riding Hood arrives, she questions the “Grandmother”
about her big ears and eyes. The wolf finally gobbles her up, too. A hunter passing by stops
and checks on “Grandmother” only to realize it is the wolf. He cuts him open and rescues
Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.
Brown, Marcia. Cinderella. New York: Atheneum Books, 1954.
Cinderella is not treated as equally as her step-sisters. She is more like a housekeeper.
When the prince announces a ball, Cinderella thinks she will be unable to attend until her
Fairy Godmother appears and transforms Cinderella’s clothes into a beautiful gown and
gives her a horse and carriage. Cinderella attends the ball and meets the prince. He is
enamored with her, but she has to leave at the stroke of midnight. She leaves behind a glass
slipper which he later finds out is her. He marries her.
Marshall, James. Goldilocks and the Three Bears. New York: Dial Books, 1988.
While on her way to the store for muffins, Goldilocks detours and takes a trip through the
forest where she finds and enters the bears’ home. She tries their porridge; she tries out their
chairs, even breaks one. She then tries out their beds and falls fast asleep in the baby bear’s
bed. When the bears come home from their bike ride and find that someone has been in
their home, they are not happy. They find Goldilocks and make her leave.
Bibliographic Citation and Story Synopsis
(con’t)
Grimm, Jacob & William Grimm. Illu. Monika Laimgruber. The Sleeping Beauty.
New York: North-South Books, 1995.
The daughter of the King has a curse put on her as a baby that when she is 15 years old
she will fall into a deep sleep. She does just that, and she and all that are within the
castle walls sleep for 100 years. A prince finally comes and kisses her after those 100
years, and, beautiful as ever, she awakens, and they are married.
Archetype Analysis: Greed
 Characters, especially villains, are
motivated by greed, irregardless of their
social status in the stories.
 Heroes are similar to the villains in this very
quality of greed.
 All characters in this collection of books, be
it hero, villain, or other, are after something
for themselves, and some will stop at
nothing to get what s/he wants.
Archetype Analysis (Greed)
Examples
 Jack (Jack and the Beanstalk) climbs the stalk
several times, greedily, although he knows the
risks he takes with the ogre. The greed motivates
him.
 The wolf (The Three Little Pigs) never once stops
to think of any harm that might come his way
since he is so self-centered and set on having a
plate of pork for dinner. Thus we see the same
danger faced in The Gingerbread Man in that he
wanted freedom so badly (greed) that he did not
think of the possible price he would pay (and did
pay when he met the wolf).
Archetype Analysis (Greed) Examples
 Cinderella is probably the one book in this
collection in which the main character or hero/ine
is not greedy, rather her sisters are. They are so
greedy that they would do anything to attend the
ball and meet the Prince.
 We can look at Little Red Riding Hood and the
wolf in that story as both being motivated by
greedy thoughts. Little Red Riding Hood gets
herself into trouble because of her greed: she
strays from the path for flowers, and the wolf
exhibits such extreme greed in that he could have
stopped after he ate the grandmother, instead he
wanted more—Little Red Riding Hood. That
more (in this retelling) cost him his life.
Archetype Analysis Synopsis
 We can understand the motive of greed, as
we all exhibit this behavior at one point or
another. Yet in many of the books in this
collection, we can see that greed is the key
factor in the development of many of the
plots.
 In this collection, it matters not whether the
character is the hero/ine or the villain, s/he
can still be motivated and driven by greed.
Character Analysis: Hero/ines
Not all of the books in this collection have a
hero/ine. Those without such some simply have a
main character.
 Jack, though a boy living at home, is really a hero
to his mother in that he is able to get enough gold
to make them rich.
 The Prince in Cinderella is quite a hero in that he
rescues Cinderella from such a pitiful situation
and is able to give her more than her heart could
have dreamed of.
 The oldest and biggest goat in Three Billy Goats
Gruff is quite a hero in that he is able to stand up
to the troll which thus allows all of the goats to
graze on the hillside.
Character Analysis: Hero/ines (con’t)
 The Prince in The Sleeping Beauty has no
extraordinary qualities. He is a normal
man—a young Prince. However, it is his
timing that is so special and just perfect.
Thus, he appears to be the hero in that his
kiss awakens the sleeping beauty.
Character Analysis: Other major characters
 The Gingerbread Man is a very alive and
vibrant character. He is very witty and
cunning; however, the irony is that the wolf
outsmarts him at his own game.
 I like the idea of the wolf and its similarity
in this story as compared to the wolf’s role
in Little Red Riding Hood. In both books,
the wolf is gobbling up someone/something.
Character Analysis: Other major characters
(con’t)
 Hansel and Gretel are very caring characters,
especially for their young age. Their story of
survival is very creative. I like the commonality
between their attempt to “survive” and that of the
Gingerbread Man before being eaten. There is no
real hero or heroine that saves any of the three, but
they are certainly looking out for themselves.
 Hansel and Gretel’s parents (mother especially)
are very different from us in that what parent
would get rid of their children for lack of food
without seeking out another alternative first? ( . . .
of course today we have many more resources
than perhaps their parents had).
Character Analysis: Other major characters
(con’t)
 In looking at the idea of appearance
similarities among the characters of this
book collection, I would surmise that the
only really “ugly” (physically) characters
were the ogre in Jack and the Beanstalk and
the step-sisters in Cinderella. Perhaps the
old woman who wanted to cook Hansel in
Hansel and Gretel could be included in this
group.
Plot Analysis: Eating another
character
 It is very interesting to look at these various
traditional stories and analyze their plots. In at
least 5 of the 10 books, someone or something was
trying to eat someone or something else.
 The troll wanted to eat the goats in The Three Billy
Boats Gruff.
 The wolf ate the grandmother and Little Red
Riding Hood.
 The wolf ate the Gingerbread Man.
 The old woman wanted to eat Hansel.
 The ogre wanted to eat Jack in Jack and the
Beanstalk.
Plot Analysis: Eating another
character
 The wolf wanted to eat the little pigs in The
Three Little Pigs.
Plot Analysis: Characters
involved
 The authors all seemed to intertwine inanimate
characters with animals with people and so on.
 Animals were given human characteristics and
abilities (as were inanimate objects in some cases,
i.e. The Gingerbread Man).
 Rumpelstiltskin proved to be quite a character. He
really was the suspense of the story, but it was
never revealed as to where he came from and if he
was human or other. He did, however, still
possess that quality of greed which was mentioned
earlier.
Plot Analysis
 Most all of the stories in this collection are
considered suspenseful. Some are rather
predictable, but they are creative and really
hook the reader with the colorful characters
and all of their antics.
 In each story, there is a definite climax.
While the plots are rather different, they do
have the climax aspect in common as well
as the idea of opposing forces in one story.
Summary
 I suppose I have learned more than I had thought.
This project really gave me the synthesis aspect
that I needed. I enjoyed going back to the various
forms of analysis with specific books and applying
what I had learned. I had no idea I knew so much!
 The most challenging part of this project was the
format I chose to write it in. After being about 11
slides into this PowerPoint presentation, I decided
I should have written it in paragraph form in a
paper. I have too much to say and too many
connections to make to really produce a quality
slideshow. I feel that this format has been very
limiting to me, and I haven’t been able to make all
the connection I originally wanted to make. That
being said, I didn’t want to start over, either.
Summary
 If I were really going to use this in a presentation,
there is much too much text for a slideshow.
 I liked using the traditional stories as my
collection. I had chosen Rapunzel as one of my
selections, but I had to use something else because
the Rapunzel I had was RAPunzel: A Happenin’
Rap, and it just didn’t fit the traditional mold I
needed it to.
 I found it very difficult to analyze ten books and
compare one to the other. I think an easier format
perhaps might be that of a table. It is difficult to
compare and contrast things that are so completely
unique one from the other.
Continuing the Work
 Perhaps to continue such a project, I would
find a new format for my analysis, and I
would add a variety of other traditional
stories. I think one interesting study would
also be the various forms and books of
Cinderella. There are so many different
versions and retellings depending on the
cultures. I bet this would be very
interesting to study.