Forever Young: Childhoods, Fairy Tales and Philosophy (original) (raw)
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This article suggest about the influence of fairy tales on Child Development, their age-related features, the influence of fairy tales on preschool children in different ways, the role of fairy tales in their upbringing. Various characteristics of fairy tales are analyzed.
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o much has been written about the fairy tales of George MacDonald, their meaning, their possible meaning, how they differ from the moral tale prevalent in the nineteenth century, but, as often happens with stories whose implied audience is the child, no-one asks the children. My aim in this article is to take one aspect of MacDonald’s tales, that of the values they convey and investigate how these values are perceived by the child reader. The general question of the use of fairy tales as a tool for moral education has been addressed in depth elsewhere. Therefore, following the introduction and central to the article are discussions with two particular children subsequent to their reading a selection of MacDonald’s fairy tales. The article concludes with a brief analysis of the children’s responses.
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The concept of childhood is one of the many facets of modernity that entered Western consciousness in the seventeenth century. It emanated from the historical mutations of the post-Renaissance era that set in motion what Norbert Elias calls the civilizing process, one that spawned a repressive mode of socialization in tandem with the cultural and ideological hegemony of the new power elite. Accordingly, childhood became a metaphor for oppression targeting not only children, but also women, the underclass, the social outcast, and the colonized as they all were deemed “incompletely human”. From mid-nineteenth century on, however, childhood began to evince a liberating potential in tandem with the changing direction of modern Western civilization. This ushered in an alternative concept of childhood inspired by the shared characteristics between the medieval and modern child that finds expression in the works of distinguished literary figures of the Victorian era. What followed was an e...
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The scientific literature analyses in detail the problems of a family at social risk, threats to the child’s social and personality development, etc., however, all insights are provided from an adult perspective – research that would allow the voice of a child growing up in a family at social risk to be heard has not been detected. Children have a limited ability to talk about their experiences. This is facilitated by the creation of a fairy tale, where the child, through the images of the characters created, can safely convey his/her individual life experiences. The aim of the article is to identify the expression of the needs of the characters of fairy tales created by children growing up in families at social risk and their satisfaction. Fairy tales created by 9‒12 year old children were selected as the object of analysis. Of the 69 texts written by children, 47 were selected for analysis. The content analysis of fairy tales was based on the principles of phenomenological hermene...
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Fairy tales are a means to introduce the Polish language and social education exercises in Polish kindergartens and schools (early childhood literature education). In their methodological proposals, authors of school handbooks use fairy tales as a medium for teaching moral values. The Goldfish is an example of such an approach (Fałdzińska and Rączyńska, 2017). This article presents the thoughts of children aged six to nine (Polish kindergarten and primary school years one to three) constructed around the fairy tale in question, which, on the one hand, can be understood as a cautionary lesson about the importance of remaining satisfied with one's station (Tatar 2014), and on the other serves as a meta-tale, exposing a rule of the genre's poetics (Somoff, 2019). Assuming the role of observer-as-participant, intent on providing interpretations, the author of this study aims to identify children's categories of wonder occurring in Aleksandr Afanasyev's The Goldfish (Afanasyev, 1984). It was observed that children reflect on the rules of wonder in fairy tales (as culturespecific texts) and derive social meanings significant from the viewpoint of fairy tale categories. As such, they were not only limited to the lesson of condemning greed, which is often assigned to The Goldfish.
Exploring Adolescent Reality: How Fairy Tales Explain Uncomfortable Truths
Classic fairy tales, such as the ones told by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, were stories that shed light on the uncomfortable truths of the world. Their horrific origins often involved scenes of rape, incest, torture, cannibalism, and other revolting occurrences that are teeming with brutal moralities. These tales were meant to emulate truth, and as children would grow older the idea was that they could subconsciously recall the messages from these tales as they cope with the injustices and contradictions of life... That is the opening lines of this essay which seeks to explore how modern young adult literature utilizes fairy tales to reclaim a genre that has long since been "disnyfied." That is to say, fairy tales have become censored in such as way that many of the original morals have been all but stripped away. However, by exploring modern literature that sheds light on how horrible the world can be, we may actually be preparing our students with a better understanding of how the world works. In this world, there may not always be a happily ever after. It is our job to prepare students for hardships so that they can, not only endure, but feel free in the classroom to come to us and be open out their problems. This paper demonstrates just that as it looks at Patrick Ness's A Monster Calls, Ransom Riggs Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children, and Christine Heppermann's Poisoned Apples.