Well, I think the use of story-telling for these particular tales had two important effects. The first one was, of course, that these stories were excruciatingly long and full of somewhat inane and impertinent information. The second effect was that of creating a level of imagery that we have not encountered with the previous fairy tales. There was so much detail that little had to be left to the imagination, whereas the other stories we read were fairly to the point and just threw in the important stuff with no time for logical flow, detailed imagery or in-depth story-telling. But what makes these stories classifiable as fairy tales is that they feature some of the time-tested fairy tale methods, including fantastical events and the transformation of humans into animals.
For instance, the first few pages of The Philosopher's Stone seems like a plausible story that is even set in England and all of the characters have name and realistic back stories. Then all of a sudden the king becomes a donkey and later receives the King Midas of lilies. It almost seems like a non-sequitur. However, without those fantastical elements the story is just a nice anecdote or a fun read (despite the length).
These stories go in an entirely different direction than previous stories and the only factor that seems to draw them back into the realm of fairy tales is that magical, fantastical turn of events.
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I think these stories (well, at least the Philosopher's Stone) were filled with much more intricate social commentary. Consider when it was published: 1789. What happened in 1789? The French Revolution!
ReplyDeleteWith that in mind, you can read the Philosopher's Stone as a story that lampoons those in power. I think that the more intricate storytelling always for more social commentary and deeper levels of literary analysis. I hate to say it but I kind of liked its long, rambling nature. It was a nice change of the pace from the oral-tales-that-were-collected-and-written-down we'd been reading all year.