Jackie's Blog

                The original "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," was written by the Brothers Grimm, which held strong symbolic and psychological meaning. In the years later, Walt Disney, a famous filmmaker in America, recreated this story with his own twist. Disney made several changes to the story but with a purpose. Differences between the Brothers Grimm and Disney Versions                 The Brothers Grimm version of the fairy tale starts out with Snow White's beloved mother dying and her father remarrying in a years time. In the Disney version, Snow White is depicted as an orphan and has neither a mother nor a father. She is taken care of by the Evil Queen in the castle. In the Disney version she is also seen as the castle maid, always cleaning and doing work for the Evil Queen. Whereas, in the Brothers Grimm version she does not do any work for the castle. In addition, the Brothers Grimm version gi...

In the very popular fairytale,  Cinderella , there is a common theme of rags to riches that occurs. Cinderella, the main character, is known to be a dirty housemaid that is abused by her stepmother and stepsisters. But something magical occurs that seems miracle like and Cinderella is transformed into a beautiful young woman so that she can go to the prince’s ball. At the prince’s ball, the prince falls in love with the princess due to her beautiful look and gracious behavior and personality. And therefore, is given true riches and happiness for the rest of her life and lives happily ever after. But how much of this is truly realistic in the real world. Can someone really go from rags to riches? It is a common wish in today’s society to want to marry someone that is rich. It almost seems like a true fairytale to fall in love with someone with riches and marry them to therefore inherit some of their wealthiness. In some cases, people do marry rich and are h...

According to Stith Thompson a fairy tale is a “tale of some length involving a succession of motifs or episodes. It moves in an unreal world without definite creatures and is filled  with the marvelous. In this never-never ending land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdom and marry princesses,” (The Folktale, 1977, 8). This is an accurate definition of a fairy tale but there are many characteristics that contribute to a fairy tale than just heroes killing villains and marrying princesses. Fairy tales always have formulaic expressions, such as “once upon a time” and “they lived happily ever after”. Fairy tales usually have the same opening at the beginning of the story and the same ending at the end. A fairy tale will usually end with “they lived happily ever after” to make the reader feel content and happy with the ending because they know all is well. They also usually have no detailed descriptions, they won’t let you know what the princess looks like, the hero o...

The Brothers Grimm were very influential and important people in their time. They wrote many novels that transformed German culture and literature. This led Terry Gilliam to direct a movie about their lives in 2005, titled "The Brothers Grimm". However, there were many aspects of the movie that were not factual and did not happen in real life. So, what is fact and fiction about the Brothers lives? Fact The Grimm's were true blood related brothers. They came from a poor family and had to go out and get money for the family. They had people tell them folktales and stories. Which they would later use to write a novel called, The Complete Children's and Household Tales. Many of the fictional events that happened in the movie, were stories taken from their novel.  In the movie they portrayed the Brother's hating the French, which was true in their real lives. They were very involved in politics and weren't afraid to show their opinion. Fiction In th...