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Jack Zipes

Jack Zipes Biography

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“Groups of children gathered around them and gave them flowers and placed colored ribbons at their feet. After they were blessed at the wedding, they had a merry celebration, but the false mother and false bride had to leave. And the lips are still warm on the last person who told this tale. -The Children Of The Two Kings”

Fairy TalesBrothers Grimm
Book:The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm
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“Ultimately, the definition of both the wonder tale and the fairy tale, which derives from it, depends on the manner in which a narrator/author arranges known functions of a tale aesthetically and ideologically to induce wonder and then transmits the tale as a whole according to customary usage of a society in a given historical period. The first stage for the literary fairy tale involved a kind of class and perhaps even gender appropriation. The voices of the nonliterate tellers were submerged, and since women in most cases were not allowed to be scribes, the tales were scripted according to male dictates or fantasies, even though they may have been told by women. Put crudely, it could be said that the literary appropriation of the oral wonder tales served the hegemonic interests of males within the upper classes of particular communities and societies, and to a great extent this is true. However, such a statement must be qualified, for the writing down of the tales also preserved a great deal of the value system of those deprived of power. And the more the literary fairy tale was cultivated and developed, the more it became individualized and varied by intellectuals and artists, who often sympathized with those society marginalized or were marginalized themselves. The literary fairy tale allowed for new possibilities of subversion in the written word and in print, and therefore it was always looked upon with misgivings by the governing authorities in the civilization process.”

Fairy TaleFairy TalesAppropriation
Book:Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture
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“Though Snow White might triumph in the tale, she will undoubtedly acquire a mirror after she marries, matures, and has children, and as the mirror reflects her aging and loss of beauty, she will be confronted by a young girl whose innocence and youth will spark her envy and hatred and perhaps drive her to eliminate her “competition.” It appears as though there is a vicious cycle that entraps women up through today. Everything is played out under the male gaze.”

ChildrenMightTodayYoungGirlLossWhiteYouthHatredMirrorsCompetitionAgingMalesEnvyTalesSnowInnocenceTriumphAcquireCyclesSparksViciousSnow WhiteVicious Cycles
Book:The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films
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“What is most disturbing today is that we use rational methods to cultivate the tastes and values of the young in all kinds of educational, religious, and cultural institutions that are predicated on corporate practices and goals. Everything we do to, with, and for our children is influenced by capitalist market conditions and the hegemonic interests of ruling corporate elites. In simple terms, we calculate what is best for our children by regarding them as investments and turning them into commodities.”

KindChildrenUseTodayYoungValuesGoalTermInterestReligiousSimplePracticeConditionsTasteOur ChildrenMethodInstitutionsInvestmentEducationalRationalAll KindsCorporateCapitalistElitesCommodityRulingDisturbing
Author:Jack Zipes
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“The fairy tale emanates from specific struggles to humanize bestial and barbaric forces, which have terrorized our minds and communities in concrete ways, threatening to destroy free will and human compassion. The fairy tale sets out to conquer this concrete terror through metaphors.”

WayMindHumansForceCommunityCompassionStruggleMetaphorTerrorTalesConquerFairyFree WillFairy TaleConcreteThreateningBarbaricEmanateHuman Compassion
Book:When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition
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“Fairy tales begin with conflict because we all begin our lives with conflict. We are all misfit for the world, and somehow we must fit in, fit in with other people, and thus we must invent or find the means through communication to satisfy as well as resolve conflicting desires and instincts.”

PeopleWorldWellsMeanDesireOur LivesCommunicationFitConflictInstinctTalesFairyResolveFairy TaleMisfits
Book:The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre
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