Fiction

When exactly is “once upon a time,” what does it mean to live “happily ever after,” and how do these tropes from childhood storybooks find their way into so much contemporary literature and film? These traditional frames for fairytales are just one of the aspects we’ll study in this Delve; we will examine other aspects of structure, characters, and motifs of folktales, both in collected oral tales and literary retellings of those same tales over time, into the current day. We will analyze these stories in various contexts to discover their shifting messages, paying close attention to how they have been used for enculturation, and how their historical values linger today. We will explore the roles of teller and audience, asking how societal norms are…