Literary Theory: Intro to Fairy Tales

I can honestly say that I have never enjoyed an introduction of any book as much as I enjoyed the introduction to The Classic Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tatar. I am sitting in my bedroom at my lakehouse, doing homework aside three of my best friends after an afternoon on our seadoos. I was guffawing so loudly they insisted on having me read aloud. I mean really, how is spinning straw into gold the same story as downing seven plates of lasagna??

Joking aside (really only the first page is laugh-out-loud funny), I am pleased to learn that fairy tales are 'indispensable," even in times of war. I'm a bit surprised that fairy tales are second only to the Bible but maybe that's for the same reason - most people know Bible stories just like most people know fairy tales. The familiarity is what makes both comforting.

In another class, Lit & Civ 2, we were asked to define Literature and had to identify whether Shakespeare, a car manual, comic books, and a picture book about the state fair were all considered Literature. I was thinking about this discussion while reading about "the merit" of fairy tales.

The mention of "happily ever after" struck me as odd, because not all fairy tales end happily! American fairy tales do because Americans like happy ending. Many fairy tales are based on the Grimm brothers stories and in the original German of these stories, most all of them end with "und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute" which roughly translates to "and if they're not dead, then they're still alive today." That's not only not "and then they lived happily ever after," but it ends that way to remind the reader/listener that the stories are FAKE because if they weren't, the characters would still be alive. (I should note I took a course on German fairy tales. I'm a German major.)

Okay, off my soapbox for today.

P.S. Ladies, comment if you definitely do NOT dream of being Sleepy Beauty, as page xiii claims, but rather dream of being Mulan and saving yourself and your country. (I realize Mulan is not technically a fairy tale but hey, it's Disney, so I'm going with it.)