Essay #1 Guidelines

Please choose one fairy tale and critically compare two of its cultural manifestations.You should choose two versions that have meaningful differences between them, as it is their differences -- and how these differences reflect cultural change -- that will be the main focus of your paper.

One of these manifestations needs to be an older version of the tale--it can be a Greek myth, an indigenous story, a folk version, a Grimms story, a Hans Christian Anderson story, a Perrault story, etc. Your second version should be a contemporary version. It can be Disney, Angela Carter's rewrites, something from a TV show like Once Upon a Time or Grimms, a newer film like Freeway that rewrites the Little Red Riding Hood story, etc. You should feel free to compare fairy tales from any culture(s) around the globe that you are interested in. Please keep in mind, however, that if you do not know much about a given culture that you are writing about, you will have to do a lot of research, and may make things harder for yourself given this is your first paper.

You can also choose a contemporary film that offers a less obvious version of the fairy tale, as long as you explain in your paper why it's an updated telling of the fairy tale (an art film like The Sleeping Beauties is one example). 

During next week's first class session, I will ask you which fairy tale you plan to write about, and which two versions you plan to compare.  Please have both versions written down on a sheet of paper, with summaries of both including the year and culture they are from. Include a sentence or two explaining why you are comparing these two particular stories.

Your thesis should:

1) Look at how the differences between the story tell us something about how culture has shifted or changed with the times. What elements of the story show us the ways in which culture has changed, and what are those specific changes? Make sure to provide clear examples from the story and your research to back up your observations. You will want to research the time period and social context in which the story was written.

2) Additionally, you may choose to examine some of the ways in which the story has remained the same, and to discuss how that reveals certain elements of our culture (or another culture) that have remained present throughout much time. That said, please do not overly focus on this aspect of the paper. I primarily want you to focus on differences between the two versions, in order to look at some of the ways in which culture has in fact shifted with the times. It is too easy to write something about "people's eternal search for hope and belonging" in a vague manner, and I want you to dig deep.

While you may choose one of the stories we read in class, the other version you select should be entirely of your own finding. You can also choose two versions we did not cover in class.

The paper should be 3 or more full pages in length, double-spaced, MLA style. It should have a strong title and a Works Cited page. We will go over all of these criteria in class and we will work on your paper step-by-step, together.

Your paper needs to have at least two critical, scholarly resources in addition to the stories/films you are analyzing (so, two sources total), which should also be cited carefully. Please find these through the library's database. You will likely want to research the fairy tale itself, and in some cases the specific version may also have critical sources on it (such as Disney). You can check the essays in the back of your Norton book to get an idea of some fairy tale critics you might want to look up.