Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Parents Know Best?
To be frank I feel that parents being present in fairy tales jump start the plot. I believe that if it were up to the children they wouldn't know where to go or what to get into if parents were not a part of their decision making. I would go as far as even putting the children as innocent until the parents are actually noted for saying something. This could even stem from the ideal that children were not children but ignorant adults until taught further. I believe that the parents are in fact essential to any story because they seem to be a driving force in the children's lives of helping the reader to identify the child's character whether it be virtuous, selfish etc. Nonetheless it does not go without saying that the reason why these stories came into fruition was due to the parents always seeming to fall into fault of some kind.
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I defiantly agree that the parents play a role in driving the story but I would not say they the parents play a huge active role. I think the importance of the parents lies with their decisions which force the children into certain situations. Beyond that, all that matters is their implied presence. While their role is essential, it is a only a small part of the story.
ReplyDeleteExactly. This is kind of what I touched on in my post saying that there wouldn't really be any action (and therefore, no fairy tale) if the parents didn't fall into mischief of some kind. The presence of at least one parent spurring the action is almost as vital of an element in Beauty and the Beast stories as the absence of the father to prevent action in Cinderella stories. After the action has been put into motion, the parental figures in either story essentially disappear.
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