The Evolution of Classic Fairy Tales

The Question of Belonging

“It has generally been assumed that fairy tales were first created for children and are largely the domain of children. Nothing could be further from the truth.” (Zipes 1) 

Fairy tales come with dense symbolism that reflects the culture from which the story originated. And yet, it is almost impossible to decode their cultural meanings because of the question of belonging. What makes fairy tales so equivocal and multiple-layered? Scholars have addressed largely three factors that interfere with taking fairy tales at their face value. 

• Unclear Origin and Translation Process 

Most of the fairy tales we know now - including those of Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen - are found throughout the globe, with differences in minor details. In other words, fairy tales do not have an "origin." Cinderella story is strikingly everywhere; with the motif of the lost and found shoe and unfair labor put on the protagonist by stepmother and stepsisters. 

The Grimms' tales, which Sondheim rewrites in Into the Woods, had a historical agenda in mind as they set out to remind Germans of their cultural strength. The Grimms recorded the tales to stress the Germans the richness and power of their natural culture during wartime (Zipes 76). Many of them were also known as French tales since they were put down by Charles Perrault, a French author, who preceded the Grimms in recording the folktales. 

A process of selection and omission is necessary for archiving the wide variety of folktales. To serve their purpose, the Grimms "imbued the tales with a heavy dose of Christian morality, the Protestant work ethic, and patriarchalism" (Zipes 83).  

Each time a tale travels across different cultures and speakers, they go through a filtering process similar to what Grimms did. Countless translations rendered reinterpretation, adaptation, change, and flexibility to be the innate qualities of fairytales. 

• Shift from Folklore to Fairytale

The idea of fairytales emerged quite recently; what is known as fairytales now have mostly been folklores enjoyed by all members of the community. It came with all kinds of ambiguities in morality, value, and justice. For instance, in the Korean Cinderella story, the shoe is found by a kind old governor passing by, and Cinderella is content to be his second wife. A more grotesque yet critical storyline follows, which I will not elaborate on here, but there is no "happy ever after."

Many factors have contributed to the stories' shift from folklore to fairytale, among which the Grimms took no small part. Their folklore archive thrived through the popularity of the short edition made for children. The conciseness and simplicity of the children's edition enabled international accessibility and secured broader readership. As the name change implies, the regional and cultural boundaries were now taken down. 

The children's version embodies several noteworthy changes: 

• Removal of "dark" contents - meaning "unhappy ever-afters" and gloomy, grotesque, and cruel elements 

• Removal of sexual connotations and representations 

• Removal of political depth 

• Addition of figurative language, illustration, and moral lessons - befitting the Christian and patriarchal ideologies that dominated the period

These renderings imply how "children" are conceptualized in the culture that produced children's tales: who are they and what do they need? 

It is not surprising, then, that American Dream underlies fairy tales, providing a certain view of the world, encouraging the children to dream for their Prince Charming or a Deus ex Machina. Here, fairytales become morality plays - the good gets a reward and the bad gets punishment if the good were to maintain their "niceness." Ambiguities of the folktales transition to having a clear right and wrong. The “happily ever after” iconic of fairy tales is a promise of the American Dream where success, wealth, and happiness are going to be achieved as the end goal after a series of ordeals. These themes were furthered by Walt Disney’s fairytale series. 

• Shift from Oral to Written Literature 

A set of archiving practices including the Grimms' work transformed folklore into a reading genre instead of a listening one told by storytellers. As a result, the narrator disappeared from view, making the intention and message become even more ambiguous. Without a hint of the narrator’s intention, it is often difficult to reconstruct or deconstruct the ideological features of a tale. As the name "fairy" implies, celebrating wonder was left as the sole appeal of these tales. 

Oral tradition enabled constant subtle changes to the story as the story reflected the social and political climate of the time. In contrast, the written form intervenes with natural change and places importance on the idea of the original. Things become traceable and obtain an "origin." At the same time, it enables studying the narrator (author, historical background, target audience, etc.) necessary to grasp the cultural meanings and symbols so that one can delve deeper into the complexity of the story. 

So, what do all these have to do with Into the Woods? 

Into the Woods resists the simplified fairy tales and restores the value of folktales. It rethinks what kind of story children really need - perhaps children need more folktales, not fairytales. Ambiguities may provide more imagination and creativity, allowing the children to prepare for the world full of unclarities and find their place in it. 

In the modern world where failures of the American Dream mark life's paths, a different approach to the child in each person may be what we need now. 

Bibliography 

Zipes, Jack. When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition. New York: Routledge, 2007. 

Teverson, Andrew. The Fairy Tale World. New York: Routledge, 2019.