ENG 222 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Red Hot Riding Hood, Bruno Bettelheim, Alan Dundes
Document Summary
A type of folktale featuring specific supernatural characters (fairies, elves, dragons, dwarves etc) typically associated with european folklore. Are different from legends, myths, and moral or instructional tales (e. g fables). Legends have some truth, while fairytales are completely fictional. Fairytales are not made to enforce morals, like fables do. A fairytale is first and foremost oral. Once written down, a fairytale loses something fundamental. Once written down, fairytales become very fixed; new ideas cannot be included. Things like sounds, actions, and tone are lost. Dundes" aim is folkloristic - he examines the tales as they appear in their natural environment - told and retold by informants. An oral genre, for most of its history. Storytellers would borrow and add from other tales and traditions. Thus, each tale existed in a great number of versions. ), indo-european collections (e. g the panchatantra, 3rd century bc, india), and some we don"t know where they come from.
