Wake Up Sleeping Beauty: Strong Heroines for Today's World

Abstract

Fairy tales have been described as the remains of ideas and social practices of the past (Yearsley, 1924). As thumbprints of history, fairy tales teach about the cultures of people while entertaining and explaining the world to the next generation (Yolen, 1992; Zeece, 1996). While the tales are valued as a kind of historical archive and a great source of entertainment, researchers have found that fairy tales have an impact in shaping the ways children view the world. Bettelheim (1976) stated that fairy tales are instrumental in stimulating the imagination of children. He and others maintain that fairy tales answer important questions about the world and how it works. These perceptions of how the world works are influential and long-lasting because the impressionable child will make judgments concerning what is admirable in terms of acceptable behaviors and character traits of people based on what they learn in fairy tales (Hurley, 2005; Storr, 1986; Yolen, 1992).