Tale Violence in Fairy Tales: Research Paper

Media presentations of justified violencemay also change the belief that violent behavior is wrong, encouraging the development of pro-violence attitudes. […] Violence is acceptable because it is not real, therefore "victims" do not really suffer (Funk et al. 26).

Given this serious -- and well-documented -- consequence of even imaginary violence, writers and readers of fairy tales should exercise care that their depictions of violence are truly relevant to the moralistic issues at stake. The "blood in the shoe" must be justified; otherwise, it simply desensitizes the (often juvenile) reader to no real advantage.

Works Cited

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Bascom, William. "Cinderella in Africa." Cinderella: A Casebook. Ed. Alan Dundes. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. Print.

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Alfred a. Knopf, 1977. Print.Funk, Jeanne B., Heidi Bechtoldt Baldacci, Tracie Pasold, and Jennifer Baumgardner. "Violence Exposure in Real Life, Videogames, Television, Movies, and the Internet: Is There Desensitization?" Journal of Adolescence 27 (2004): 23-39. Print.

Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. Complete Fairy Tales. Trans. Jack Zipes. New York: Bantam Books, 1987. Print.

Jameson, R.D. "Cinderella in China." Cinderella: A Casebook. Ed. Alan Dundes. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. Print.

Perrault, Charles. Complete Fairy Tales. Trans. Neil Philip and Nicoletta Simborowski. New York: Clarion books, 1993. Print.

Shavit, Zohar. "The Concept of Childhood and Children's Folktales: Test Case -- 'Little Red Riding Hood.'" Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook. Ed. Alan Dundes. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. Print.

Tatar, Maria. The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. Print.

Thompson, Kimberly M. And Kevin Haninger. "Violence in E-Rated Video Games." Journal of the American Medical Association 286.5 (2001): 591-598. Print.

Twitchell, James B. Preposterous Violence: Fables of Aggression in.....