Are Fairy Tales Made for Adults or for Children?

Fairy tales are well known all around the world, and many people have come to the encounter these stories. These stories are liked by many people across the world. In modern society, fairy tales are viewed as children’s stories because they contain magical components. Magical worlds and imagination are sometimes connected to children and can be entertaining stories with morals. The structure of fairy tales is very simple for a child to follow and understand. However, the lessons in many different fairy tales are more relevant towards adults.

Over the years, fairy tales have been rewritten and changed to fit modern society’s beliefs. Many of these stories have been twisted and nobody knows the exact origin of the stories or where they exactly came from. These stories are passed down from one generation to the next and each time the stories change slightly. Different cultures have different versions of the stories. In the fairy tale “Snow White,” written by the Grimm Brothers, the queen, Snow Whites actual mother, and not stepmother, orders a huntsman to bring her Snow Whites liver and lungs so that she could eat it. This story was not written for children along with many others. Many other stories contain similar traits such as sex, murder, incest or violence. Original stories were more sinister then they are today. The disgusting parts of these stories were deleted so that both adult and children can enjoy them.

Many people believe that the original fairy tales were written for the child. The fairy tales contain lessons and people believed that it was important for children to learn those lessons. Many of those lessons may include being kind or that love is very powerful and can overcome anything. However, these are the rewritten versions of the fairy tales that are supposed to appeal more to the child and not to adults. These stories have been sugarcoated so that more child can read them and learn something other than reading about someone killing someone else.

All fairy tales have a good and a evil. In some fairy tales, the good flourishes and evil are punished, this pleases adult’s morals compass and gives them comfort to live their lives as they like. Other stories give a more odd satisfaction. If the character struggles and tries to fix it or turn it around and fail in the end it pleases the reader and prepares them to deal with disasters if it were to ever happen to them. Fairy tales contain feeling like fear, joy and many other feelings. In the story “Hansel and Gretel,” they are left in a forest by themselves. This is not the best example of parenting showed in fairy tales. Leaving a child in the forest is not something a young child should read about. It gives off a bad example to the child.

Most fairy tales usually have an evil parent that want to kill them. A child reading or watching that fairy tale could easily believe that all parents are evil, however, that might not be the case with some fairy tales. If a child sees or reads about another child parents trying to kill them the child could eventually come to believe that their parents or guardians may try and kill. The queen tried to kill Snow White may time with a comb and apple. After a child reads or watches or reads this it could cause a child not to use or eat specific things because they believe it could harm them like it did the character in the story or movie. A lot of children scare very easily and these fairy tales can cause fear in some children that could do permanent damage to them.

However, many people disagree. Some people find that reading their child stories like “Hansel and Gretel,” or “Snow White” or letting them watch the movies that they are entertaining their child. Although they are, there are downfalls to letting watch or read these stories. Snow White teaches a child about envy and greed can do to people but it can also tell the child that it is okay to live with seven random strangers to cook, clean and keep the house in order. Snow White also teaches it okay to lie to keep someone safe but also it teaches that people want to hurt others because they feel bad about themselves by eating other people organs. A child does not need to read about someone eating someone else’s organs because they were mad at them or jealous.

These stories are not meant for children. It teaches them about a lot of stuff they may be too young for. Young children should continue to read story books about modern fairy tales and not the original fairy tales. The original fairy tales have adult values. Fairy tales written by Angela Carter and the Grimm Brothers should not be read to children because of the sex, murder, incest, and violence among other things. 

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