Gender Stereotypes In Fairy Tales

1. Introduction

One of the first literatures which children come across is fairy tales. Parents, elder siblings, baby sitters or nursery teachers tell or read fairy tale stories to children or children watch fairy tales on television. Certain nursery and primary schools provide children with the opportunity to even engage in fairy tale plays themselves.

As children come across fairy tales frequently they are formed by fairy tales and by the way fairy tales outline the behaviour of its characters usually portrayed stereotypically.

‘Fairy tales have been used over centuries as a way to teach children and also adults how to see the world, their place within the world and what is seen as ‘’wrong’’ and ‘’right’’.’ (Ellermann, 1998)

This thesis

This research is based on the analysis of the well-known fairy tale "Snow White" and its variations by brothers Grimm, Jacobs, Disney and Dahl written from the beginning of the 19th century to the late 20th century and its contemporary film adaptation “Mirror, Mirror”.

Moreover, this study will look at the negative aspects of gender stereotypes presented in fairy tales and its influence on children’s perception of reality. The aim is to identify the progress and change within the portrayal of the main female and male characters throughout the course of time.

In the first part of this study, the theoretical part, the history and development of fairy tales will be discussed, the term gender stereo types in general explained and gender stereotypes in typical fairy tales generally

In folk tales were traditionally orally disclosed therefore a certain author cannot be established. Due to the oral narrative tradition folktales occur in many and sometimes very different variants which are more numerous the older and the more widespread a folk tale is. First written entrance of fairy tales in literature is found in Middle Ages. With the possibility of printing increasing since the late 15th century, the written distribution naturally gained a greater importance. Fairy tales experienced a boost by Brüder Grimm’s publication of their folk tales’ collection in the 19th century. Brüder Grimm changed the fairy tale in such a way that they could be read to children. From then on folk tales were recorded and published all over Europe following the example of the