Understanding Story Classification and Fairy Tales

Match of the Stories

*Ana Pelegrin*

There are 1000 ways to classify stories. Here are some:

1. Tales of Tradition

These have been passed down orally from generation to generation. At some point, different authors throughout history gave them written form. This is how many stories have come to us.

2. Current Stories

These are stories that authors write to target children. Nobody can change their content.

Classes of Traditional Tales

• Formula Tales: Their structure is a formula. This means that in these cases, there is no minimum division of the story.
  • Turn-on Tales: Right at the beginning is the ending. Their formula is to open and close the story; the rest is free to the imagination.
  • Never-Ending Tales: Their structure is also a formula that allows us to play with it and make the story end when the listener fails to attend and listen.
• Cumulative Tales: Also specially formulated, to chain elements and accumulate them all repetitively.
• Animal or Fairy Tales: The oldest of which we have news. They arose in the Paleolithic and then transformed into animal tales. They can also be termed "fairy tales", but they need not have this character because they get a wonderful item.

Characteristics of Fairy Tales

• There is always the presence of the wonderful element.
• What is a fairy? This name comes from the word "factum", which means fate = destiny. This means that the fate of man appears in the fairy tale characters at certain moments. They are usually benevolent, but sometimes they also put heroes to the test and can also get angry. Fairies have free spirits. They possess powers through the magic wand, a symbol of power. They almost always benefit the hero or heroine.
• Characters: Very often, little children. Age of marriageable characters is often repeated.
  • Principal: Children or young people.
  • Secondary: Often repeat with their parents. The mother's role is often more important than the father's because the father is sometimes only named. They are coal miners, millers, and farmers - a society that suffers and works.
• Characters are extremes: a castle or an extremely poor house. There are no middle terms. The characteristics of the characters are too extreme, either very handsome or very ugly. Also, in psychological consequences, good or evil. We face "character types", which makes them always appear the same way and always behave the same. Therefore, children identify them perfectly as they arise. One of the characters who always appears negatively is the stepmother, a character opposite to the mother.
• Actions develop in places that are not described but listed with a series of symbols that go beyond the usual meaning. They help develop logic or imagination.

Symbolic Elements

• Forest: It indicates a dangerous place. Something will happen if the character enters it. It repeats.
• Tree: Wisdom, knowledge, and knowing.
• Light: Hope. It provides security.
• House: Quiet and safe refuge. The place of salvation.
• Events occur that belong to times past and have to do with the folklore of the people, but they pose deep human themes, and that made them stay through time. From a psychological point of view, they are perfect for kids.
• Happy endings often punish the characters who embody evil, although in adaptations, this is removed today.

Structure

• External Structure: Presentation and denouement.
• Internal Structure: According to Propp, all fairy tales have a structure. Only the best have gone down in history. During that time, 31 functions have existed. None have lost all of them.