Event Title

Does It Matter That Sleeping Beauty Waited for the Prince to Come? Virtues Highlighted in French Fairy Tales

Presenter Information

Elisha I. Peterson, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Location

CSU 253/254

Start Date

22-4-2008 8:30 AM

End Date

22-4-2008 10:30 AM

Student's Major

History

Student's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Mentor's Name

Christopher Corley

Mentor's Department

History

Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Description

Early education is a critical part of an individual's development, but historians have had a difficult time determining what early education looked like in the centuries before 1800. This study argues that we can learn more about premodern early childhood education from fairy tales by analyzing what children learned in the tales. To demonstrate how fairy tales were a form of early education, five fairy tales written by Charles Perrault (1628-1703) were qualitatively analyzed to determine good and bad qualities related to adolescent girls reflected in these fairy tales. Then, I investigated if the same characteristics that were noted in the fairy tales aligned with those of popular seventeenth-century educational manuals. The research concluded that fairy tales highlighted consistent behavioral practices of adolescent girls, and in doing so they exemplified model behavior for young children who heard them. Some positive attributes include patience, obedience, kindness, and beauty. On the other hand, negative qualities included curiosity, vanity, and spitefulness. In highlighting such qualities, the stories defined correct behavior for young children. Early education helps construct and maintain cultural systems through generations. Fairy tales offer one vital piece of the puzzle that helps us see the solidification of gendered virtues in 17th-18th European culture.