Female Hero-Seekers in Folk Fairy Tales From XIX Century: Feminist Stories for Reading in Education

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to present several fairy tales from Giuseppe Pitrè’s collection as a potentially interesting reading material for children. Since classical fairy tales in some cases depict traditional gender roles, they can present an obstacle to children’s gender construction. Therefore, it is also important to read those stories which do not have a stereotypical gender discourse. We found such stories in Pitrè’s collection of folk fairy tales from the 19th century. In the paper we present the analysis of the structure of several folk fairy tales from Pitrè’s collection. The analysis has been performed according to Propp’s structuralist method, while the task was to determine the morphology of those fairy tales dealing with female hero-seekers. Such heroines correspond to the feminist perspective and they are convenient for reading in education for the purpose of children’s constructions of gender not exclusively provided by normative canons. The model of critical reading, which we suggest for reading the analyzed fairy tales, has been founded on reader-response criticism.

Introduction

Cinderella is a story with hundreds of versions. Regardless of the differences in details, we recognize the story by its basic structure no matter what the title is. The best known version of this fairy tale in Northern America and Western Europe contains the motifs of a glass slipper and pumpkin coach (Zipes, 2006a). The version was made world-famous by the edition of Disney’s Princess (Adriany, 2019; Kostas, 2018; Wohlwend, 2012; Zipes, 2000, 2006a). That story is traditional, devoted to patriarchal values and depicts an anachronistic heroine experiencing happily ever after without her special merits by getting married.

Patriarchy “means the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in society in general” (Sultana, 2012, p. 3). Patriarchal society maintains the dominance of man over woman by means of socializing the tandem of “ideal” male and female characteristics explained by Connell (1987). Connell (1987) pointed out that this model relates to the groups of gender features united under the terms hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity. Hegemonic masculinity refers to normative male features—physical strength, grit, aggressiveness, determination, and the like (Connell, 1987). Emphasized femininity entails helplessness, obedience, loyalty to a male partner, emphasized physical beauty, lack of determination, devotion to the household and motherhood and the like in females (Connell, 1987). Such groups of features are normative in patriarchal environments.

Disney’s Cinderella fits into the patriarchal format of a society, because the story presents a heroine who is an example of emphasized femininity. Familiar with Disney’s and similar Cinderella versions, we are liable to be surprised by the story Date, Oh Beautiful Date from the collection of Giuseppe Pitrè (Zipes & Russo, 2009), the Italian folklorist from the 19th century. Pitrè’s story has a recognizable structure of Cinderella, but the heroine is completely different from many analogous characters—she is brave and determined, she makes her own way. Ninetta, Pitrè’s Cinderella, is not a typical fairy tale princess, but she is a heroine who fits into the feminist gender construction. Thus she became the inspiration and motivation for this paper.

Children come into contact with fairy tales very early, which is explained by the fact that this literary genre has been introduced into all cultural patterns of modern society (Vučković, 2018; Zipes, 2000). Parents and preschool teachers include fairy tales as a necessary part of reading material for the youngest. Therefore, it is important to make a good selection of stories, and then interpret them critically.

The aim of this paper is to present several fairy tales from the collection of the Italian folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè as a potentially good reading material for children. These stories include non-normative characterization of female characters and represent heroines whose primary determinant is not emphasized femininity. Therefore they provide readers an opportunity to perceive gender characterizations which exist beyond the normative discourse.

The roadmap of this paper is as follows: Firstly, in the theoretical part, a fairy tale is described as a genre of fantasy literature. Then we discuss the relationship between a child-reader and a fairy tale from the angle of reader-response criticism which indicates that the reader is an active constructor of meanings. In the section which deals with the methods, Propp’s structuralist method of the fairy tale analysis which sheds light upon the dichotomy between a hero-seeker (usually male) and a hero-victim (usually female) is described. This method has been applied to the collection of fairy tales from the 19th century, so that several fairy tales which may be described as feminist ones are presented. Therefore, the paper has been founded on the structural analysis of the corpus. This part is followed by implications for education given as a model of critical reading, as well as conclusions. The field we start from is methodology of teaching literature (literary pedagogy), which relies on literary theory. The theoretical perspective is supported by the optics of feminism. There are two basic research questions which we answer: Why do Pitrè’s selected stories deserve to be read in education? How to read and interpret these stories?

Fairy Tale in Literary Theory

Fairy tales are stories belonging to the genre of fantasy and their primary categorical determinant is the marvelous (Todorov, 1973). The marvelous represents such type of fantasy in which the reader, both a real and an implicit one, does not question the nature of the marvelous event. The reader considers the marvel to be possible in the world of a fairy tale (Todorov, 1973).

Fairy tales have had a conspicuous educational role, especially from the beginning of the 19th century, when “educators and upper- and middle-class parents gradually began to realize /…/ that fantasy literature and amusement would not necessarily destroy or pervert children’s minds” (Zipes, 2006a, p. 86).

This literary genre displays a high degree of diversification, which is a consequence of its age and prevalence, so that the contemporary reader is offered both stories with repressive and retrograde patterns and versions with emancipatory and liberating roles (Bacchilega, 1997; Zipes, 2006a, 2006b). Therefore, “we fortunately do not need to reject fairy tales as inherently sexist narratives” (Bacchilega, 1997, p. 9), but we certainly have to know how to critically read those fairy tales which replicate sexist discourse.

Researchers think that some (not all!) popular classical fairy tales representing the canon in the Western world (Perrault, the Grimms, Andersen, Disney) create a powerful medium of socialization in traditional patriarchal societies (Kostas, 2018; Vučković, 2018; Zipes, 2000). The Disney Princess edition is probably the most famous collection of these and such fairy tales (Wohlwend, 2012). In these stories male and female characters bear predetermined formulas of behavior, the fulfillment of which makes them heroes-princes and heroines-princesses.

A heroine-princess is one of the characters of heroic stories, which are investigated in a significant study entitled Deconstructing the Hero, written by Hourihan (1997). Taking an eco-feminist stance, Hourihan (1997) explained heroic stories as typical traditional stories which aimed at revealing the superiority of European patriarchy, the white man and his domination over everybody else and everything that exists—over women, indigenous peoples, and nature. Such stories are to a great extent present in children’s literature. Heroic stories, according to Hourihan’s (1997) analysis, entail the never-changing pattern of an action—a young white man from the West leaves the civilization and sets off to exotic and often wild areas where he encounters various dangers that he successfully overcomes, conquers and then returns to the civilization. A young female often serves as the hero’s reward, with her being much more of a trophy than a literary character. Such structure of the story precisely corresponds with the morphology of the folk fairy tale. Heroic tales associate males with civilization and common sense, connecting females at the same time to nature (wilderness) and emotions (Hourihan, 1997). Trophy-brides or heroines-princesses display features characteristic of emphasized femininity. They are passive, submissive, and often not even firmly constructed literary characters, but are presented as symbols assigned to a male hero (Hourihan, 1997). The only strong and independent female figures in fairy tales are witches (Yeoman, 1999). In many fairy tales great antagonism is expressed among female characters (Vučković, 2018).

Certain fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm especially those which are most popular such as Little Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, depict typical heroines-princesses. Little Snow White, for example, shows an innocent and a very beautiful young girl, who is a victim of her stepmother’s jealousy (Bacchilega, 1997), and whose helpers are all male characters—from the hunter to dwarfs to the prince. In the context of this paper, the Brothers Grimm’s story could be interpreted as a highly patriarchal one, because it conveys the boundless antagonism between female characters, whereas the relationship among male characters is beyond civilized—they protect and guard her in every possible way.

As for Andersen’s fairy tales—even though there are traditional stories in that corpus—some famous heroines who are not completely helpless and are capable of making their own decisions are recognized in them. Such is Gerda (from The Snow Queen), who searches through the wilderness of ice for her friend Key, wanting to rescue him from the evil queen (Vučković, 2018).

Given the copious amounts of the Brothers Grimm’s and Andresen’s tales, it goes without saying that it is not possible to provide a precise and complete description of all their heroines here. Some of their tales have become inspiration for Disney’s production which have made them quite famous and have presented them in a patriarchal key, even in a more traditional one than the original (Wohlwend, 2012). The Disney Princess edition contains a total of 10 stories: Snow White (1937), Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959), The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), Pocahontas (1995), Mulan (1998), The Princess and the Frog (2009), and Tangled (2010). The heroines-princesses are “kind and helpful to others as they overcome obstacles in their quests for good families and happily ever afters, but through storylines with consistently problematic representations of gender, class, and race” (Wohlwend, 2012, p. 594). Therefore, for instance, Disney’s version of Andersen’s story The Little Seamaid changed the conceptual layer of the story almost completely, simplifying moral principles in particular (Hastings, 1993). The heroine from Andersen’s story has two great wishes: a romantic one—to earn the prince’s love, and a spiritual one—to earn an immortal human soul (Hastings, 1993). In Andersen’s story, the heroine’s first wish was not fulfilled, but she was given an opportunity to fulfill the second one, which was attained by means of her decisions. She was not driven exclusively by emotions, but also by reason, which indicates agency and deviates from the patriarchal stance on women. In Disney’s version of the story, however, the mermaid is exclusively driven by romantic emotions.

Traditional, and Feminist Fairy Tales

A great number of classic fairy tales contain traditional features: a normative division of roles, a patriarchal model of society, an unquestionable value of a heterosexual marital union. Such stories—with no critical reading—lead to the construction of analogous patterns of behavior in children and they serve to restore a heterosexual matrix (Butler, 1990). Butler (1990) points to the fact that gender plays a performative role, which means that an individual creates and performs gender in front of society which encourages certain forms of normative behavior in particular, while it suspends some other forms. As social entities, human beings imitate others, so in their behavior typically male and typically female characteristics (gender is binary) which fit into heteronormative patterns are becoming stable. Acquiring such roles leads to the development of a fixed mind-set, which means that some fairy tales maintains a traditional, patriarchal, heterosexual society as a canon. It is important to remember that not all “old” fairy tales were directed toward the preservation of a patriarchal society or toward the encouragement of female helplessness and subservience, so that Giambattista Basile’s “Cat Cinderella” (1634), for example, kills her stepmother who maltreats her, thus showing that she is quite capable of surviving. However, this version of Cinderella is not remotely famous in comparison with those versions where the maltreated girl is saved by the marriage to a prince (Zipes, 2006a).

Having realized that the fairy tale has a powerful impact, feminists have been writing fairy tales since the 1960s (Kostas, 2018; Zipes, 1986). New, clearly feminist roles have been constructed in these stories. What we mean by the term feminism in this paper is “the system of ideas and political practices based on the principle that women are human beings equal to men” (Lengermann & Niebrugge, 2011, p. 223). It is a complex phenomenon which developed during a long period of time and which recognized “the fact of intersectionality” by the end of the 20th century, at the same time including “besides gender, inequalities of race, class, geosocial location, age, and sexuality” (Lengermann & Niebrugge, 2011, p. 223) into this concept. It is precisely that kind of the extended concept of feminism that provides a more complete response to the injustice of patriarchy, because it relates to all who do not belong to the group of white men. Owing to the intersectional relation to identity features, feminism does not focus only on women’s issues; however, this paper stresses their portraits in particular. Since the socialization of gender is of a particular interest for feminism, Connell’s (1987) concept on the forms of masculinity and femininity is used for the purpose of explaining many relations (Lengermann & Niebrugge, 2011).

Feminist stories are dominated by strong female characters devoid of patriarchal beliefs and female agency is evident. These stories serve to deconstruct a traditional concept and to offer a completely different image of gender, race, age, sexual orientation and social-economic positions, attributes and roles.

The Paper Bag Princess, feminist fairy tale by Munsch (1980), for example, was written for young readers. The fairy tale contains a typical beginning—Elizabeth was a beautiful princess who lived in a castle and was supposed to marry Prince Ronald. The idyll was shattered by the dragon which burned the castle and the princess’s clothing, and abducted Ronald. The princess ventured on a quest for them, but did not have anything to dress herself, but a paper bag. It was easy for her to trace them, because the dragon burned everything before him. Elizabeth came to the cave, knocked on the door, but the dragon sent her away unkindly and slammed the door in her face. She was quite persistent until she lured the dragon into the conversation, through which she deceptively exhausted him, so that he fell asleep. Elizabeth entered the cave to take the prince, but the prince told her some nasty things about her looks and her clothing. They had a fight and did not marry. Thus the story deconstructs the stereotype of a beautiful and helpless princess, as well as of a brave prince, and it also leads to the break-up of their engagement.

The results of this research show that in the collection of folk tales, which is dominated by traditional texts, it is possible to find those stories that correspond with the feminist perspective.

Reading as a Construction of Meaning

Gender is a social and historical construct, and children actively participate in the construction of the meaning of gender through discourse (Adriany, 2019; Kostas, 2018). They do not receive information from the text as ready-made and given patterns of behavior, but treat the text creatively and like researchers—children create meanings (Änggård, 2005; Davies, 2003; Kostas, 2018).

Jauss’s (1982) theory of literary reception, as well as Iser’s (1978) and Rosenblatt’s (2013) reader-response criticism, represent the literary theories capable of explaining how children react to stories and why they react in a particular manner. In spite of the two designations, it is actually a unique literary theory which promotes an active role of the reader. We can use reader-response theory to explain both why children accept certain fairy tales and why they display resistance to some of them.

A crucial term in this theory is the horizon of expectations which has been developed on the basis of the previous reader’s experience and knowledge. The horizon of expectations is a dynamic category—it changes and expands throughout life. Since the meaning is being constructed precisely within the horizon of expectations, modifications of the horizon cause modifications of the meaning (Jauss, 1982). The previous knowledge and reading experience influence the understanding of the text (Yeoman, 1999).

The text we read potentially attains the esthetic distance in the reader’s horizon of expectations (Jauss, 1982). Such distance may be immense (in which case the reader does not accept and/or does not understand the text), or negligible or absent (where the text does not inspire the reader to construct the meaning), or somewhat beyond the reader’s previous experiences (the text brings something new, while the reader critically perceives it). It is only in this case that the text and the reader have encountered each other in such a manner that the text broadens the reader’s horizon of expectations and encourages the construction of meanings. Rosenblatt (2013) states: “The ‘meaning’ does not reside readily in ‘text or ‘in the reader, but happens or comes into being during the transaction between the reader and the text” (p. 929). Therefore, a transaction occurs between the reader and the text, which entails that the reader constructs the meaning (Iser, 1978).

Interaction Between a Child-Reader and a Fairy Tale

Research has shown that children do not accept feminist or other alternative fairy tales as willingly as they accept classical fairy tales (Kostas, 2018; Wason-Ellam, 1997), which can be explained by the relation between the esthetic distance and the horizon of expectations (Jauss, 1982). Namely, readers are already familiar with a traditional fairy tale, so a feminist fairy tale deviates too much from their horizon of expectations. It is not easy to explain

why the canonical tales stick with us and why they are so catchy when there are so many other fascinating and artistic tales that are just as good if not better than the canonical tales we tend to repeat and are predisposed to know (Zipes, 2006a, p. 2).

It is not our aim in this paper to deal with that particular issue. On the contrary, our starting point is the fact that the classical canon of the fairy tale is familiar to children and that the possible questioning of that canon means a good selection of new texts, and their critical reading after that.

Wason-Ellam (1997) points out that feminist fairy tales are not “powerful enough to disrupt” (p. 436) the traditional gender discourse already developed in children. In other words, children-readers comprehend the narrative in their own horizon of expectations (Jauss, 1982), where gender and other roles have already been constructed (Änggård, 2005; Davies, 2003; Wason-Ellam, 1997; Yeoman, 1999). A more recent research by Kostas (2018) has referred to a feminist version of Snow White. The author has found out that children accepted the feminist version slowly and with difficulty, which was particularly true for boys (Kostas, 2018). A greater degree of boys’ resistance to feminist fairy tales have also been obtained in other researches (Davies, 2003; Westland, 1993).

Zipes (1986) also points to another problem regarding a feminist fairy tale. Such stories have been written with an obvious intention to deconstruct the sexist world, so “the aesthetics of these tales are ideological” (p. 13). This of course also refers to a classic fairy tale—it contains the ideology of a traditional society as well. However, a folk story has the literary advantage of being constructed over centuries in relation to authorial feminist one—it was communicated from one person to another, from one epoch to another and was gradually developing into an esthetically mature form (Zipes, 2000). As for Pitrè’s stories, Zipes (2009) states: “Since these tales of survival have been passed on for centuries, they have a unique quality” (p. 19).

Method

Our aim in this research is to identify female hero-seekers in the collection of folk fairy tales of Giuseppe Pitrè. Such heroines may label fairy tales as feminist, on the basis of which these stories can be recommended for critical reading for educational purposes.

For the purpose of this study we have used the Proppian structuralist method (Propp, 2009). Vladimir Propp described this method in his Morphology of the Folktale. Propp established the structure of a meta-fairy tale by induction, analyzing the material of a rich collection of Russian folk fairy tales assembled by Afanasyev in the middle of the 19th century.

The new application of this methodology in interpreting a folk fairy tale and a story in general has been noticed in some new annotations (Finlayson, 2012), as well as in some more recent papers which apply the morphological approach to very diverse narratives, such as: Harry Potter series (Lacoss, 2002), Great Expectations (Lahlou, 2017), Serbian Folk Fairy Tales (Vučković & Bratić, 2020). Propp’s morphology has gained a particular value in education studies (Hammond, 2011; Vučković, 2018). This method is not prevalent in the contemporary analysis of the fairy tale, but its use is possible only in combination with other approaches focused on the meaning of fairy tales.

Propp described the structure or morphology of a (meta-)folk fairy tale by the functions of the participants in the action, these functions being a stable category and always appearing in the same order. The actions taken by the heroes of the action are always the same; they are recognized by the consequences and it is possible to single them out in any fairy tale. The characters (so-called dramatis personae) who take certain actions can be different, while the actions they perform are important: “The question of what a tale’s dramatis personae is an important one for the study of the tale, but the questions of who does it and how it is done already fall within the province of accessory study” (Propp, 2009, p. 20).

According to Propp (2009)“Function is understood as an act of a character, defined from the point of view of its significance for the course of the action” (p. 21). Propp provided a brief description, as well as a short designation and a mark for each function. The structure of a meta-fairy tale consists of 31 functions, such as: absentation (β), interdiction (γ), violation (δ), reconnaissance (ε), delivery (ζ), trickery (η), complicity (θ), villainy (A) or lack (a), mediation (B), beginning counteraction (C), departure (↑), first function of the donor (D), the hero’s reaction (E), provision of a magical agent (F), guidance, (G), struggle (H), branding (I), victory (J), liquidation of lack (K), return (↓), pursuit (Pr), rescue (Rs), unrecognized arrival (o), unfounded claims (L), difficult task (M), solution (N), recognition (Q), exposure (Ex), transfiguration (T), punishment (U), wedding (W). Virtually all functions have subspecies, which was elaborated by Propp (2009, pp. 25–65).

At the very beginning of the story, the so-called initial situation (α), which is important as an introduction but has no features of a functions, develops. The assimilation of functions takes place in a great number of situations—it is an event which can be interpreted in many ways, which means that the situation points to multiple functions (Propp, 2009). What helps in accurate identification is the consequences of the action. Therefore, any action by any hero (or function) causes consequences, where the morphological value of the function or its role within the structure of the fairy tale, is defined on the basis of that. Some of the functions may sometimes be realized with a negative outcome. For instance, if a hero does not react appropriately to the temptation or request posed by the donor, then the function F (provision of a magical agent) is marked with F_neg and means that the hero had a chance to acquire a magical gift, but has failed to seize the opportunity.

The action of a fairy tale, its plot or a complication, begins with the function of villainy (A) or lack (a), and ends by resolving the inflicted damage or by eliminating the lack. This description provides a definition of a fairy tale “Morphologically, a tale (skázka) may be termed any development proceeding from villainy (A) or a lack (a), through intermediary functions to marriage (W*), or to other functions employed as a denouement” (Propp, 2009, p. 92).

Real fairy tales differ more or less from the meta-fairy tale, so that no fairy tale has all functions, while some deal with more than one instance of villainy. If the initial function of plot (A or a) takes place more than once in a story, then the story has several moves. A single fairy tale may have moves which occur simultaneously, successively or which start independently and then they unite at some point (Vučković & Bratić, 2020). The moves combine during the narration, so that combinatorics may contribute to the dynamics of the plot.

The so-called dramatis personae or characters of a fairy tale, participate in the plot as the bearers of functions. The entire plot is realized by means of the action of dramatis personae. Propp determines seven dramatis personae: villain, donor, helper, princess (a sought-for person) and her father, hero and false hero. The main character may be a hero-seeker or a hero-victim, while the fairy tale always follows only one of them.

Male characters in folk fairy tales in many cases have the role of hero-seekers while female characters are hero-victims in most cases (Vučković & Bratić, 2020). The morphological analysis of certain collections of fairy tales has shown that in the entire collections of tales there is no example with an even slightly different organization of heroes than the one mentioned, meaning that all hero-seekers are male, while all hero-victims are female (Vučković & Bratić, 2020).

Method Limitations

We should bear in mind some restrictions connected with this methodological approach. We are going to mention here only such remarks to Propp’s approach which are relevant for this research. Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale was based on the analysis of Russian folk fairy tales, and it was derived inductively, from empirical data which has some cultural and other specific features (Vučković & Bratić, 2020). It could mean that this morphology does not suit well for some other stories originating from elsewhere (not from Russia). However, in the Oxford Companion of Fairy Tales Jack Zipes (2000) describes huge differences among oral folk fairy tales, indicating that they are based on different modalities of telling, customs, rules and beliefs of actual communities, and he points to the fact that Propp’s approach may be useful in the identification of the structure of the oral folk fairy tale regardless of its origin. The model of a meta-fairy tale that contains 31 function “was and still is common in Russia and shares many properties with wonder tales throughout the world” (Zipes, 2000, p. xvi). Various research has shown that Propp’s approach is also valid for selected fairy tales of some other nations outside the Russian and Slavic cultural area, for instance North American indigenous peoples’ fairy tales (Dundes, 1964), Arabian folk fairy tales (Connelly & Massey, 1989) and Turkish folk fairy tales (Günay, 1994). Naturally, a morphological analysis can not be sufficient for understanding the meaning of fairy tales in their social and cultural context, so it is to be completed by means of an analysis which will eliminate such a deficiency.

Therefore, bearing in mind that Pitrè's and Afanasyev's folk fairy tales are not from the same cultural context we still believe that they have much in common, and the most important argument which enables the application of Propp's morphology is that both corpora (Russian and Sicilian) entail the same genre—the oral folk fairy tale—which was collected from various narrators during the approximate period, that is the 19th century. As for Pitrè's collection we have singled out only those tales with the features of wonder or fairy tale, which corresponds with the corpus that Propp analyzed, emphasizing that the stories that he dealt with belonged to the ATU class—the tales of magic (300–749). Besides, the goal of our morphological analysis is not to describe the deepest structure of Pitrè's tales—we will mention the main functions, not their subspecies—because we are focused on the main female protagonist functions. Namely, our intention is to explain the way in which female heroes participate in these fairy tales. In Propp’s analysis the hero-seeker is a male character, which resulted as a consequence of the analysis of the corpus with traditional gender roles domination.

One of the main objections to Propp’s approach is that it is an excessively formalistic approach, and that Propp was not interested in some more important issues, such as the meaning of fairy tales (Zipes, 2000). We consider that objection as justified, so we have overcome it in this paper by approaching the analysis of the meaning of fairy tales from the feminist position after the analysis of the structure of fairy tales.

Moreover, Propp did not describe his procedure in detail and he did not define functions as well—he described it with some Afanasyev’s examples. In some cases, examples are not quite clear for those readers who are not sufficiently familiar with Russian folk fairy tales (Hammond, 2011). The authoress of this paper is sufficiently familiar with Russian folk fairy tales, which facilitated the understanding of Propp’s explanations. What is also important is the fact that the translation of Propp’s book into English is not precise enough, which was pointed out by Propp himself in the article entitled Structural and Historical Study of the Fairy Tale, published as a supplement to the book Morphology of the Folktale in some of its editions (Propp, 2012). However, the authoress of the paper is familiar with the translation of Propp’s book into some other languages, besides English. In addition, the morphological analysis carried out in this paper was largely supported by MIT’s instructions and annotations (Finlayson, 2012), as well as by the definitions of functions provided by Hammond (2011) for his doctoral research. We also have some previous experience with applying Propp’s morphology on some other collections of folk fairy tales (Vučković & Bratić, 2020).

Material

The rich collection of Sicilian folk fairy tales by Giuseppe Pitrè, which was translated and edited by Jack Zipes and Joseph Russo under the title The Collected Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales of Giuseppe Pitrè (2009), represents the material for our morphological analysis. The editors regarded this collection as the most significant European collection of folk tales of the 19th century.

There are 300 tales in the collection, and they are grouped according to the basic genre characteristics in the following categories: popular fairy tales (1–141), tall tales and anecdotes (142–200), legends and ghost stories (201–245), proverbial tales (246–270), and brief tales, fables, and animal stories (271–300). Our analysis relates to the first group of tales.

For every tale where it was possible, Zipes and Russo also determined ATU (Aarne-Thomson-Uther) type. However, there are some tales which do not fit into ATU typology (ATU index is not determined for 40 tales), as well as those where several types intertwine (27 tales have more than one ATU designation). In ATU classification fairy tales mostly correspond with the category the tales of magic—ATU types 300 to 749, with some exceptions which are a consequence of inaccuracy and the overlapping of certain categories in ATU index (Vučković & Bratić, 2020). A total of 47 texts are categorized in the class of the tales of magic, where the most frequent category is ATU 425 (Search for a lost husband), which is singled out 12 times, while ATU 510 (Cinderella) follows with five identifications.

A young hero leaving his home and achieving success is predominantly described in fairy tales, but we have also found the following “a bold heroine who is as adventurous as any male protagonist” (Zipes, 2009, p. 25). The focus of our research is precisely on such heroines.

Selection Procedure and Data Analysis

Selection procedure and data analysis were performed through the following steps:

• 1. From the group popular fairy tales (141 texts) those stories which contain the category of the marvelous (47 stories) were singled out. The category marvelous was defined by means of Tzvetan Todorov's description.

• 2. The initial review of the morphological structure of 47 fairy tales was carried out. The emphasis of our analysis lies within the range of dramatis personae a hero. Since the hero is introduced into the fairy tale after the function of villainy (A) or lack (a), we read all stories (47) until we detected these functions in all positions in all stories. The functions A and a were marked in all 47 fairy tales. Namely, every new appearance of the function of villainy or lack means a new course of the fairy tale or a new plot.

A hero may be a hero-seeker or a hero-victim and there is no single fairy tale which follows both types of a hero.

• 3. The authoress singled out those tales with female hero-seekers, which was identified according to the functions immediately after villainy (A) or lack (a), because the one who opposes the villain emerges in them, meaning that a hero appears.

• 4. The authoress singled out the texts with hero-seekers. A female hero-seeker was determined in six stories, and to this group the authoress later added another story in which a female hero-victim manages on her own transforming her position completely.

• 5. Seven fairy tales in which a female hero was identified were divided into moves.

• 6. In every move the main events that were afterward examined from the point of view of their significance for the course of action were defined, which means that the functions were identified. The results of research present the structure of these seven fairy tales.

Results

In the collection we have found six fairy tales following female hero-seekers, as well as one tale where the female hero-victim manages to cope with difficulties by herself. Several more stories contain partially atypical female characters (e.g., Catarina the Wise, The Pot of Basil, The Talking Belly), but such stories do not bear the feature of the marvelous. What follows is the structure or the morphology of the fairy tales which follow a female hero-seeker and can be defined as feminist ones.

The Parrot With Three Tales to Tell

(ATU type 1422—Parrot Reports Wife’s Adultery)

Move 1: There lived a rich merchant with his wife (α). He goes on a journey (β), but since he is jealous of the wife, he locks her up and forbids her to move or look at the street (γ). She peeks out the window (δ), and is spotted by two men who like her very much. They try to deceive her—one turned into a parrot, and the other with the help of an old woman (η). She unconsciously becomes an accomplice (θ), because she longs for company (a) very much. She takes a parrot, puts it in a cage and solves the lack of company (K).

Move 2: Two men spot a beautiful woman from the office of one of them and both fall in love with her (α). The notary goes to the field and begs his demon to help him (D), and in return promises his soul (E). The demon helps him by turning him into a parrot and giving him instructions on how to approach the woman (F). The parrot goes to the young woman (G). He tells her stories and at the same time competes with a rival who persistently sends an old woman to lure the young woman out (H). The parrot defeats the opponent, and kills the husband when he returns from his journey, which represents a victory over the other opponent (J). He eventually marries the young woman (W).

Move 3: The first parrot’s story

A princess goes with her family on a trip and brings her favorite doll (α). They have lunch and get tired, so they head back (β). After arriving at the castle, she realizes that she has forgotten the doll (a). Without informing anyone, she decides to look for the doll (B), which she immediately does (C). She leaves her home (↑), and then in wandering she arrives at another king’s castle (G). The king almost adopts her and treats her like a princess (w). ¹

Move 4: The king treats her exquisitely at the court, but jealous ladies from the court persuade her to mistreat the king (η). The girl makes a mistake (θ), so the king puts her in dungeon (A). She is wandering through the underground halls and finds a princess—the king’s daughter—imprisoned by a sorcerer (G). She grapples with the sorcerer, but it is a game of wits—she searches for and finds a way to make her opponent tell her how to set the girl free (H). Then she goes to the king and informs him on everything. They agree on how to rescue the girl and then to blow up the sorcerer in an explosion (J). The princess saves the girl (K) and they return home (↓). The king offers the crown (w) to the princess-savior.

In another parrot’s story, the girl from the first story is already a renowned hero-seeker and gets involved in the plot at the invitation of a king who has suffered some villainy.

Move 5: A young princess is ready to be married. Suitors emerge, with the Turkish king (α) among them. The girl rejects him, so his subjects bewitch her and she falls ill (A). The father king summons his counselors and they recommend that the girl hero-seeker from the first parrot’s story be called. She is called by the messenger with the threat of declaring war if she does not agree (B). She agrees (C), comes to the king (↑) and embarks on a mission to help the princess. She settles in her room and investigates the case. She has forgotten the light; while looking for the light at night, she encounters the Turk who has been casting spells over the princess (G). There is a game of wits between them (H) and she manages to kill him (J), thus eliminating the reason of the princess’s illness (K). She is offered a crown (w), but she returns home (↓).

In the third parrot’s story, the girl is called under the threat of declaring war, in the role of a hero-seeker.

Move 6: The prince goes hunting (β), finds the doll that disappeared at the beginning and begins to long for its owner (a). The father king organizes his counselors (B), they call the girl unaware that she is the owner of the doll (C), she leaves her home (↑) and comes to the king, the prince’s father. She closes in with the prince who suffers from love and she investigates the problem, which is solved by conversation—he explains how he found the doll. This represents the liquidation of lack (K). The girl marries the prince (W).

The King of Spain’s Daughters

(ATU type is not determined)

Move I: A princess has a sister kidnaped by fairies, and she also has a doll which she adores (α). A prince passes by and spots the doll on the window, and then he steals it for he is enchanted by its beauty (A). The princess gets upset about the missing doll (B), so that she decides to look for the doll (C) because no one else wants to do that and she leaves (↑). She arrives at the prince’s castle (G), takes the doll (K) and returns home (↓).

Move 2: Her father does not recognize her (o) and appoints her to a gatekeeper position. He forbids her to let the poor inside (γ), but she keeps doing it (δ). He notices that and throws her in dungeon (A). She is wandering around and finds secret chambers (G). There she finds her sister, finds out how to set her free (H), provides everything needed and defeats the fairies who imprisoned the girl (J). Thus she liberates her sister (K) and they get back home (↓). Her father finally recognizes her (Q), and then the prince comes, tells her everything and they get married (W).

My Three Beautiful Crowns

(ATU 612—Three Snake-Leaves)

Move 1: The mother laundress and her daughter live in poverty (α). The mother dies (β), and the priest forgets to look after her daughter even though he has promised. When he finally takes the girl to his home, she mourns her mother (a), so she runs away and gets lost in the field (↑). She comes across the castle (G) where she gets everything clean and tidy. The owner of the castle is a queen looking for her three missing sons (B). The girl is wandering through the castle searching (C) and she finds them, but they are almost dead—they are the three bewitched princes, the queen’s sons. The girl notices a snake reviving its killed hatchlings with some grass (D). She takes a close look and picks the grass (EF). She rubs the young men with the grass and they are brought to life, which represents the liquidation of lack (K). She marries the eldest prince (W).

Marvizia

(ATU 425—The animal as bridegroom, 425B—Son of the Witch, 313—The magic flight)

Move 1: A princess has a plant which she adores. The plant produces one edible seed (α) each year. One day a green bird comes and eats this seed (A). The princess informs the king who asks who will look for the green bird (B), but when no one agrees, the princess decides to look for it herself (C) and leaves her home in search (↑). Along the way, he comes across some hermits, with whom he talks nicely (she tells them that she was baptized) and they gift her—one of them gives her wax, the other one gives her wire (DEF). She travels further and comes across a castle where there is a queen mourning her son captured by a witch. The queen gives her a diamond ring (DEF). The girl travels further and finds the castle of the witch who captured the prince (the prince is turned into a green bird). She stays with the witch, who assigns difficult tasks (M) to her under threat of death. The girl solves three tasks with the help of those magic items (tokens) that she received (N) and thus saves her life (Rs).

Move 2: The witch, however, leaves her in a wasteland and decides to marry the prince—the green bird to another girl (A). However, with the help of the ring, they manage to defeat the witch (H, J). They escape from her castle, and the witch chases them (Pr), but they are saved by means of the ring (Rs). They come to the prince’s castle, tell everything to the queen and get married (W).

The Story of a Queen

(ATU 327B—The Brothers and the Ogre; ATU 328—The Boy Steals the Ogre’s Treasure; ATU 1119—The Ogre Kills his Mother (Wife); ATU 531—The Clever Horse)

Move 1: There were seven princesses who always stayed on the balcony (α). The king forbids them to do so (β), but they disobey (δ). The king punishes them with imprisonment (A), but they decide to run away (C) and leave their home (↑). They are traveling around and eventually arrive at the sorcerer’s house (G), where they ask for accommodation. The sorcerer and his wife are cannibals and they want to eat the princesses, who have overheard their arrangements, so they swap places with their daughters (H). The cannibals eat their daughters, and the princesses are saved (J). At night they run away from the cannibals’ house (Rs), and then they come to town and all get married. The youngest marries a king (W).

Move 2: The king’s brothers-in-law are jealous and decide to hurt the queen (A). They persuade the king to ask for the ring of the sorcerer’s wife from his wife first, and then another two gifts (L). The wife receives a difficult task (M) and solves it (N). This is repeated three times. Her marriage remains stable in the end (W*—renewal/consolidation of a royal marriage).

Date, Oh Beautiful Date

(ATU 510A—Cinderella; ATU 480—The Kind and Unkind Girls)

Move 1: There is a father who is a merchant and has three daughters (α). He goes on a journey in order to do some trade and leaves her daughters at home (β). They order gifts, while the youngest only asks for a date palm tree. She forbids the father to return without the date palm; otherwise he will not be able to return (γ). He forgets the date palm and experiences a problem on his way back, because there is a storm at sea (δ). The father completes his business successfully (K) and returns home. He has got a magic helper for his youngest daughter (F).

Move 2: The eldest sister drops her thimble into the well (a), and she tells her sisters (B). The youngest decides to descend to get it (C) and she does that (↑). There she discovers an entrance to a garden full of fruits and flowers (G) and finds a prince. She returns with the thimble (K) and gifts (↓). This is repeated three times. The prince notices her and likes her very much.

Move 3: The prince misses the girl (a). His father finds it out (B) and decides to begin counteraction (C). They organize a ball for three nights in a row, she is clothed by the fairies from the palm and she provokes the prince every night (H) and he is more and more in love with her (J). Unsuccessfully sending his servants after her for two nights, on the third night the king addresses her. He says that he knows everything (Q) and reveals her game with the prince (Ex). She marries the prince (W).

The Old Woman of the Garden

(ATU 310—The Maiden in the Tower)

Move 1: Two neighbors were having a lot of trouble to feed their families (α). Near them was a garden full of delicious cabbage. They started to steal the cabbage (δ). (The move is not completed here.)

Move 2 (begins during the first one): An old woman had a garden full of delicious cabbage (α). One day she noticed that someone had been stealing her cabbage (A). She decided to tie the dog to watch her cabbage (B). The dog was not successful, as were the tom cat and the rooster (K_neg).

Move 1 continues: The old woman had tried thrice to outsmart those women, but failed (ηθ three times neg.). Only the fourth time, when she hid to watch the cabbage, did she manage to catch one of those two women, the one who was pregnant. The woman promised to give her the child she carried after 16 years (K).

Move 3: When the girl turned 16, the old woman took her, locked her in the cage and fed her well in order to fatten her up and eat her (A). After a while she checked whether the girl had gained weight, but the girl showed her a mouse’s tail (η, θ—the second is negative). The old woman tried to persuade the girl to get into the caldron, but the girl outwitted her (H and J). The girl pushed the old woman into the caldron, closed her and thus was saved (K).

Research Findings

The tale The Parrot with Three Tales to Tell has a pretty complicated structure. The total number of moves is six, where the ranges of actions of characters alternate with each other. In the first move the narration refers to the first female character, a young woman locked away by her husband before his going on a journey. The second move refers to her suitor (a notary), whereas the remaining four moves regard a princess, the girl who is the main heroine in the parrot’s tales. The first and the second move make the framework for the remaining four moves.

The first female character is not of the heroic type; on the contrary, this female character is a victim of male characters: first of her husband, who leaves her locked away and goes on a long journey, and then of the two suitors who try to win her over. A female-hero seeker is a protagonist of the parrot’s tales. She assumes the heroic role in the first parrot’s tale—she voluntarily embarks on a quest for the doll which she misses and after a series of twists and turns she finds and saves the king’s lost daughter. In the second and third tale she emerges as an already renowned hero and she is in both cases summoned to solve an almost insoluble problem. The girl is depicted as a person of strong will from beginning to end, brave and self-confident—when the two kings call her (from the second and third parrot’s tale) she sets off voluntarily and proves successful till the very end. In the end she marries the prince who is unlike her portrayed with some gentler qualities.

The parrot is in love with the young woman. He is a male predator who tries to seduce her by any means and by selling his soul to the demon. Interestingly enough, it is precisely he who tells feminist tales about a girl who is anything but helpless.

The tale entitled The King of Spain’s Daughters does not have a determined ATU type, but it is still a variant of the previous one. The plot of this story also commences with the disappearance of a favorite doll, after which the girl goes on her own initiative. After returning she suffers villainy, which will give her an opportunity to find and save her missing sister. The tale has a typical marital ending, but the princess has displayed all the qualities of a hero-seeker.

The third tale is My Three Beautiful Crowns. In the beginning, the girl-seeker loses her mother, so that loss-induced pain takes her to wanderings, which is a typical heroic action. On her way she encounters a queen who needs help. The girl is interested, decides to help and manages to solve the queen’s problem and to get her lost sons back. In addition to showing courage and determination, this heroine also displayed wisdom—she has found a cure thank to these qualities.

In the tale Marvizia a princess is left without the seed of her favorite plant and sets off in search for a bird which harmed her. Along the way she encounters some hermits who provide her with information, but also with gifts. In addition to the main search—the one for the bird—the search for the missing prince also begins. It will turn out later that the bird is actually the bewitched prince. The girl solves difficult tasks, gets punished, is almost on the verge of death, but she emerges triumphant from each event only to deserve both the prince and a crown in the end.

The Story of a Queen is a tale about a female company, where the youngest member possesses the best qualities. The girls from this tale are cheerful, curious and brave. Together they leave the king’s castle in order to get a little more freedom denied by the king. During their wanderings and travels they manage to outwit the cannibals and save themselves. After their getting married, jealousy emerges among the brothers-in-law, which is to be a new reason for the main heroine to additionally prove herself brave, prudent and skillful.

Date, Oh Beautiful Date tale belongs to the type of Cinderella, but precisely this story most strongly fails to meet the horizon of expectations in terms of the construction of a female character and in terms of her actions. In Disney’s the well-known version of Cinderella, the protagonist is gentle, tortured, and hardworking; everybody maltreats and abuses her, while she marries the prince virtually without exchanging a word with him. In addition, the loss of the mother and the appearance of the stepmother with her wicked daughters create an additional tension around the character of the abused girl. However, in Pitrè’s version the protagonist Ninetta does not resemble Disney’s Cinderella in any way, nor are their family circumstances similar. As a matter of fact, she does not have a mother, but she does have a kind father and two good sisters. The plot runs in the vein similar to the well-known versions of the tale—the father goes on a journey and brings gifts for his daughters. Ninetta is not very modest but on the contrary insists on her gift (a palm tree in a pot) to such an extent that she manages to obtain it by magic. In her father’s absence, the sisters do not maltreat her. One of the sisters drops her thimble into the well and from that moment on Ninetta becomes a hero-seeker because she decidedly goes to look for it. Searching for the thimble, she finds a royal garden where she will be spotted by a young prince who will fall in love with her. Just like in the classical Cinderella the prince’s father organizes three balls in a row. Ninetta’s father and her sisters invite Ninetta to come with them, but she refuses very brazenly. After their leaving, she begs the fairies from the palm to clothe her. The provocative dialogs between her and the prince during the balls are particularly interesting. A completely different character of the girl is here revealed—she is smart, aware of her power over the prince and she actually flirts and seduces him very boldly.

The story The Old Woman of the Garden features a much different heroine from Rapunzel, who the story initially bears a resemblance to. The mother first betrayed the girl, promising before her birth to give her to a witch. When the witch imprisons the girl, the prisoner manages on her own and struggles; she does not need a prince to rescue her from the clutches of an evil woman. Eventually she manages to defeat the witch and return to her mother forgiving her initial weakness. This heroine is not a hero-seeker; she is a victim, so she significantly shifts the horizon of expectations by managing to emerge from such a bad position as a winner.

Discussion

Connell’s (1987) concepts of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity describe the tandem which creates a heterosexual pattern in the patriarchal society (Butler, 1990). This pair of gender types provides a narrative axis of heroic stories such as folk fairy tales (Hourihan, 1997). In relation to this, it is possible to conceive that the structure of the story and especially portraits and roles of characters in it show whether the story does or does not contain traditional patterns. The central form of femininity which function within patriarchy is “defined around the compliance with this subordination [towards men] and is oriented to accommodating and the desires of men” (Connell, 1987, p. 183), and thus labeled emphasized femininity. Female characters of fairy tales which do not suit this concept due to their disobedience to the traditional division and their participation in tasks which are not typical of women may designate tales as feminist. Therefore, heroine-seekers, who venture on distant travels and quests, make decisions and solve problems, represent literary characters that teach young readers that normative patterns of behavior of both females and males are not the only possibility of establishing gender identity.

The seven stories display atypical female features, including non-standard relations among female characters. In all analyzed stories heroines show features which enable them to help themselves and others—they are independent, determined and self-confident. They willingly help other female characters (the principle of a loyal female company is realized in The Story of a Queen), and female rivalry is not established in the tales, but rather cooperation is founded. Even when they are struck with some personal problems, some of these heroines are capable of helping others (My Three Beautiful Crowns). The girls are reasonable (which is a conspicuous feature of all analyzed heroines), and they make decisions and persistently strive to fulfill them, which does not represent typical patriarchal characteristics. Furthermore, the heroines are not attributed the features which relate to hegemonic masculinity in order for them to be able to complete their tasks successfully. They are female characters and carry out the tasks that they face during their traveling by “female” means—cautiously and tactically, never by means of pure strength or aggression. They are brave, because each of them encounters the unknown circumstances without hesitation and without expecting a male savior, the heroine of the story The Old Woman of the Garden being a particularly obvious example of this.

The heroines of the analyzed stories display the behavioral patterns which deviate from the patriarchal gender discourse, so they may serve in the process of education to construct gender-equal positions and relations.

Implications for Education

Seven analyzed fairy tales offer a different construction of gender from many traditional fairy tales. Such construction is natural—it has appeared as a part of folk tradition, has lasted for centuries and is absolutely acceptable in esthetic terms, which is confirmed by Zipes and Russo (2009) as well. The number of these tales compared with the total amount of stories within the group is almost insignificant (7 out of 141), but they are important in another way: they show that even under highly patriarchal conditions, which were dominant in Sicily, there still are ideas that wanderings, adventures, struggles and other actions are not limited exclusively to male characters.

These stories stand in clear connection with the feminist perspective and they are suitable for reading in education. As other authors also state, the choice of fairy tales with a more equal gender discourse is not a sufficient reason for a change in children’s perceptions of gender issues (Kostas, 2018). With a good selection of fairy tales, an important condition is their critical thinking and discussion of what has been read (Vučković, 2018).

A functional model of critical thinking has been developed under the name Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking (RWCT) (Crawford et al., 2005). RWCT program has been founded on the reader-response theory. The process of critical reading of a text is performed through three stages: evocation, understanding the meanings and reflection on what has been read.

The stage of evocation refers to determining a student’s horizon of expectations. In this stage children revise the well-known stories, provide associations regarding the subject of the text, give their expectations and assumptions about the text they are going to read. Expectations and assumptions are given on the basis of a familiar genre, a familiar author, a given title and alike. The purpose of these activities is not for children to guess the content and point of the text, but to get interested and to be able in the final stage to independently define the esthetic distance—a novelty noticed in the text.

The second stage (understanding the meanings) relates to the reading of the text and discussion of what has been read. The reading part may be organized integrally or in parts, whereas children can read while solving research-based and/or problem-based questions. If our principal goal during the reading is that children notice the construction of gender in the text, then questions are asked precisely in relation to such aspects. After the reading, discussion of what has been read is organized. RWCT program suggests a series of techniques which may be used, for example Venn’s diagram (it has the basic function of comparison between e.g., antagonists and protagonists, male and female characters), then pro et contra discussions, perspectives, and the like (Crawford et al., 2005). The task of all these techniques is to help children construct the meanings of the text.

The final stage is reflection and its primary goal is to determine the esthetic distance. In the fundamental interpretation of the reader-response criticism the esthetic distance represents the perceived innovativeness of the text (Jauss, 1982). In the cases of the fairy tales we have singled out in this paper, children should be encouraged to shape the construction of the gender position of the heroines whose adventures they have been following. In order to make their comprehension more complete, it would be useful to compare these tales with the ones where the traditional concept of gender prevails. For instance, while comparing Disney’s Cinderella story with the text Date, Oh Beautiful Date, children can independently notice the significant difference in the profiles of the protagonists.

Conclusion

The present research started from the perspective of literary pedagogy, which is associated with reader-response criticism as well as the feminism. It has been shown that the reader-response theory suits the feminist approach very well, and that this theory has a developed model of critical reading of the text in education process (RWCT).

Applying Propp’s structuralist method, we have carried out the analysis of the collection of fairy tales from the 19th century and among 141 popular fairy tales we have found seven stories which conform to the starting points of feminism. These stories develop around a female character with the qualities of a hero-seeker, which is a non-normative position in a folk fairy tale. Since the stories are part of the folk tradition, it is clear that they were acquiring their esthetic shape gradually and inherently. This makes a particular recommendation for their reading in education.

Naturally, the very selection of the text is not enough to be certain that children will construct a gender perspective in a non-traditional way. In addition, it is very important that the stories be received according to some model of critical reading. This paper suggests the RWCT model based on reader-response criticism.

The contribution of this paper is in the following: (1) It has shown that reader-response criticism, as a literature-relevant theory, suits feminism because it insists on the fact that the reader is an active constructor of meanings. This theory clearly explains the interaction between a child-reader and a fairy tale; (2) Propp’s value-neutral model of analysis which enabled us to single out the stories with the features of feminism has been applied to the collection of folk tales, notwithstanding the fact that these stories are among the great number of traditional texts. Even though folk fairy tales in many cases depict a patriarchal gender stereotype, it is evident that even among such stories it is possible to single out those which feature qualities in accord with the modern age.