Honors Theses

Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

English

First Advisor

Natalie Schroeder

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

This thesis investigates the influence fairytales have on society, how they dichotomously reflect cultural worldviews yet set standards for appropriate behavior and prescribe hegemonic ideologies. It specifically explores the fairytales told in America over the last couple of centuries, examining how those stories have evolved in correlation with the shifting values of the country. Each chapter lays a foundation for how certain characters are normally portrayed in fairytale tradition - the hero, the beauty, and the villain - and then evaluates how our culture has Americanized those figures, consequently making each of them less idealistic or archetypal and evolution of fairytale storytelling from oral tradition to literary narrative to film, observing the influence of each medium on the tales and the shifting relationship between naiTator and audience and concluding that fairytales should not be dismissed as vapid children’s literature but understood to be the voice of society that reveals what that society is and what it wants to be.

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