Fairy Tales 2010

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Vladimir Propp

It seems to me that Robert Darnton’s take on the fairy tale would resonate more closely with Vladimir Propp, as he is concerned with what the message of the tale tells about its creator, rather than the moral of the story necessarily being life-changing, as Bettleheim views it. He argues that all folklore (not to be confused with literature) is structured in the same way; every fairy tales has certain standard and unchanging functions carried out by various characters. It is thus not the specific character descriptions and the symbolic elements that are part of the course of the story that are essential to note and analyze, (nor do these specific elements resonate with the listener/reader (a child, for Bettleheim’s argument) or convey messages to them on a subconscious level) but rather the commonalities between similar tales that serve as the very basis of the story and likewise render it meaningful

Thus, I would venture further to guess that Propp would agree with Maria Tatar in that Cinderella and Donkeyskin stories may certainly be read as related; both stories fulfill the function of getting the daughter to run away from home seeking personal morality, although one uses the presence of an evil step-mother and the other, an erotic father figure. Still, it is interesting to question where Propp draws the line between a single function portrayed in various ways versus separate factors that thus render certain stories incomparable (or at least not to be read side-by-side). Further, it seems hard to follow his conviction that whatever is not found in multiple renditions of a single story is to be disregarded entirely, as it seems difficult to determine when “it becomes apparent that the new tales considered present no new functions” (Tatar, 389). If it is true that folklore is unique in its minimal agents (performer and listener), isn’t there something to be said for the creative ways in which individual rendering may vary (and further, accounting for those which resonate with audiences and are perpetuated, such as Cinderella)?

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