Red Riding Hood Essay Example

made in response to a change of societal views on gender roles – woman could now provide for themselves and did not necessarily need a bread-winner man in their life.

In Bettelheim’s analysis of the importance of fairy tales, “The Struggle For Meaning” (Tatars 269-273), he targets one’s unconscious and how we subdue it. Children’s conscious minds allows them to live in a fairytale-like world, where nearly everything is possible. This is also true in children’s unconscious minds; however, in adults, the conscious mind is much more realistic and we are forced to suppress our unconscious for a normal sense of everyday life. Fables, by Bill Willingham, achieves a similar mindset to a child’s by applying fairy tale characters to modern day life. The fable characters in Fables find themselves in situations that adults can relate to – such as Snow White’s talk about her ex husband, etc. Willingham, in a sense has opened the door to the suppressed child unconscious adults have addressed by Bettelheim’s “The Struggle For Life.”

 A traditional wedding contains many fairy tale motifs from the people present, to the location, to the objects involved. The most obvious is the true love motif; at the conclusion of the wedding ceremony, the man – or hero in this sense – has completed his battle to win his true love, his bride. The presence of the bride’s father is also a key motif that translates over. The father is considered an elder, and thus is seen as wise, etc.

The main object motif in a wedding is the wedding band – the ring. In fairy tales, motifs that involve objects

are typically objects that hold a specific strength or magic power. The wedding band that is exchanged from groom to bride and bride to groom is symbolic of many things, but has the power and strength of holding the marriage together – which is why many adulterers remove their ring before committing an act against the ring, against the marriage.

Taylor Swift’s song “Love Story,” along with many others she has written, references the fairy motif of true love. The conclusion of the song ends with the happy ending of the protagonist’s true love arriving and saving her from her loneliness - “Romeo save me I've been feeling so alone…He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring” (Swift). This is a common motif that repeats throughout many of Swift’s lyrics.