by Steve Gregory

Created on: October 27, 2009

Structure and Style in Fairy Tales

Kenny Werner, a music educator, said something to the effect of, you can tell that something is heading for death when it's studied in the university. However, like Sleeping Beauty, fairy tales just don't die. Thank goodness for that!

The term fairy tale has taken on a generic definition in many places. There are scholars and books that will break down the actual technical terms and attach a literal definition to each type of story. They will break down the difference between a tall tale (John Henry), a legend (Johnny Appleseed), a folk tale (Brer Rabbit), and a fairy tale (Cinderella). However, for the sake of simplicity, we can safely limit fairy tales to the stories of magic and talking animals such as you might find in a collection of Hans Christian Andersen tales like "The Little Mermaid" and "The Ugly Duckling."

Fairy tales were never meant to be analyzed under a literary microscope. There are those, such as Stith Thompson, who wrote entire books on how to properly dissect a fairy tale, but that goes far beyond the tale itself. The structure of a fairy tale is very basic. Remember, these are stories by and large meant to be understood by everybody, including children, so complex plots and themes are by-products and not necessarily intentional. Psychological character dispositions and motives don't even enter the conversation (except for those folks with advanced degrees who have a strong desire to take the fun out of everyday existence). The basic structure breaks down into four aspects: introduction of the hero/heroine as a virtuous individual; introduction of the villain who is not always a bad or evil person, but who does something or causes something bad to be done to the hero/heroine unjustly; the conflict of the bad thing happening; and then the resolution. In a true fairy tale, conflict resolution is always with the aid of a supernatural being (fairy godmother, fairy, enchanted being, etc.). This cycle is always the same, though sometimes the conflict is protracted and repeated (Snow White).

There is an amusing story out of A Thousand and One Arabian Nights that illustrates this structure very well. In the story, a poor fisherman goes out in the morning to catch fish with his net (the virtuous hero). After several unsuccessful attempts, he finally manages to pull up not a fish, but a stoppered bottle. When he uncorks the bottle, out comes a genie (the villain). In most cases, this is a great find, but this particular

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