ANTHROPOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING OF FAIRY TALES AS AN OPTIMISTIC GENRE

Abstract

This paper gives the anthropological perspective for understanding the importance and the meaning of the optimism of fairy tales. The optimism of fairy tales stems from the story frame and its structure that is based on rites of passage, especially the wedding ritual, the moral and educational significance of a happy ending and the triumph of the good and the fair, which are required elements of a folk tale. It was considered how significant the fairy tale is in the psychological development of children as well as its therapeutic importance due to their optimism which gives hope, comfort and encouragement to the listeners. Furthermore, there is a brief discussion on the ideological background of the intellectual tides in Europe that affected the use and the interpretation of fairy tales and the understanding of their educational and pedagogical, as well as the entertaining and aesthetic functions, drawing attention to the cultural contexts and areas where the folk tale was present, which essentially connotes and conditions the interpretation of the messages. Attention is drawn to the ethnographic specificities that contribute to the local coloring of the fairy tale although they do not change or influence its structure and semantics. In the end, the optimism of the fairy tale is seen through the gender dimension of storytelling, recognizing the fairy tale as a typically female narrative subculture and an opposition in the narrative practice within the patriarchal society. Female storytelling and fairy tale reading is credited for the empathy towards the weak and humiliated hero of the fairy tale as well as for the ways the hero solves his problems and that is a tactic where the skillful weak overcomes the strong one an triumphs in the end.