Folk and Fairies in Action

Zipes, Jack
Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002

“Again!” Is what I proclaimed as my weary eyed mother attempted to close Cinderella after she read it to me for the umpteenth time. It was clearly my favorite fairy tale. Since the beginning of time, young people all over the world have uttered these words whether to a story teller, to a reader, or to a remote control. In Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales, Jack Zipes presents newly updated versions of seven essays originally written in 1979. His scholarly essays emphasize the significance of religion, class, politics, historic events, and social happenings on the meanings derived from these seemingly innocent tales.

Zipes puts into context the terms “folk” and “fairy” tale. This is one of several topics that launch the exploration of historical context surrounding these stories. In “Once There Was a Time,” he discussed the oral nature of early folk tales. They were told by non-literate story tellers (often agrarian workers), and the stories gave vent to the frustrations and challenges of common people. This chapter gave me a better understanding of the use in these tales of words such as king, queen, prince, and princess as they relate to the people of a particular time, place, culture, or lifestyle.

The nature of stories shifted in the late 17^th- and early 18^th-centuries. In “Might Makes Right,” Zipes describes an evolution during that era from oral, agrarian folk tales to “fairy tales” created by women writers at a time when fairies were regarded as synonymous with female power in opposition to King Louis XIV and the church. The fairies in these stories had power, and the term was used so often that it eventually overpowered the use of “folk” in relationship to tales.

Zipes takes on Bruno Bettelheim in a chapter titled “On the Use and Abuse of Folk and Fairy Tales with Children: Bruno Bettelheim’s Moralistic Magic Wand.” Although Zipes embraces some of Bettelheim’s theories, his major contention is that Bettelheim placed too much importance on the literary aspect of fairy tales without consideration for the somewhat different relationship that children have toward language. Further, Zipes considers Bettelheim’s interpretations deceptively ahistorical, contending that the literary “codes” often found in fairy tales can be interpreted in different ways depending on time, place, and culture.

For educators working with diverse populations, it is particularly important to consider how differences in personal experience can affect meaning. A king who functions as an ultimate ruler may resonate in different ways, depending on a child’s experience of power and leadership relationships. The situation of a maiden waiting to be rescued by a prince may resonate in a particular way for a child who has lived in a refugee camp and has seen his or her elders murdered by orders of a “prince.” The same situation may read quite differently for a child who has grown up in the suburbs in a secure democracy. Zipes exposes the ways class and literature are related in several chapters of this book.

Breaking the Magic Spell can inform investigations of the nature of stories and their role(s) in our lives. Teachers and teaching artists who wish to engage students in discussion of these classics could allow some of Zipes’s ideas to inform a vocabulary for classroom exploration.

Throughout the book Zipes also puts into perspective the contemporary pop culture re-interpretation of these stories, and breaks down the formulas that he sees as active in these new versions of classic fairy tales for commercial ends. Questions are raised about the “teller” of the tale (i.e., the producers of the films, books, etc. in question) and what was happening in the world as these iterations evolved. These ideas, taken individually or together, could enrich the planning conversations among classroom teachers and teaching artists that inspire activities. It might be particularly interesting to explore new ways of approaching material that students (and possibly teachers themselves) may have initially encountered through contemporary pop-culture presentations.

Folklorists, educators and historians will particularly find this resource to be valuable. But educators and parents will also find Zipes’s ideas intriguing. I was excited to learn about specific histories through the lens of stories I remember from my childhood. In this sense, it was a very personal read.

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