STRUCTURE
(word count is there for guidance only - might change later on)
Introduction (500 words) - Brief overview of dissertation - do last maybe?
- General ideas that will be discussed in further details
- What is this essay investigating?
- Influence of fairy tales on the formation of children's identity.
- Fairy tales contribution to children's behavioural patterns, value systems and the formation of gender ideology and stereotypes.
- Why is this relevant to society today?
Chapter 1 (2000 words) - What are fairy tales?
- Oral tradition to written text - origins - impossible to date origin because they started with the oral tradition.
- Talk about writers Charles Perrault, The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson - their backgrounds.
- What were the aims of their fairy tales? Talk about the society at the time these were written - its effect (moral lessons but also instilling traditional values - gender roles).
- Also raise points about racism - no person of colour in these tales - symbolism in colour - white = purity, good. Black = evil, bad.
Chapter 2 (2000 words) - Roles of males and females in fairytales
- Talk about this in relation to works by writers mentioned in previous chapter
- Use examples of their tales to explain in further detail - Compare and contrast different versions of the same tale:
- Cinderella
- Snow White
- Sleeping Beauty
- Beauty and the Beast
- The Little Mermaid
- Overall feeling is that women in fairy tales are less active than men.
- The effect this has on young people's self-images
Chapter 3 (2000 words) - Adaptations - Fairy tales in contemporary times
- 20th Century - the advent of filmmaking, fairy tales appeared in a new medium.
- Influence of television viewing as a whole - similar to books, learning from TV has much to do with peoples' pre-existing schemas.
- Talk about Walt Disney - how his fairy tales became widely popular movies - why? perhaps it is the sanitising of the tales plus the musical element that makes it seem harmless and appeal more?
- Talk about how gender roles are still quite the same in his movies
- link with examples of his movies:
- Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid etc.
- What's changed, what hasn't changed?
- Could mention how they've started to challenge social and gender norms - e.g. with Aladdin, Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Frozen.
Chapter 4 (2000 words) - Applying own research
- Remind that the purpose of this study was to evaluate if fairy tales (literary classics and Disney's movies) influenced children's perception of gender in a negative way.
- Data collection and analysis
- Has the perception of gender roles changed?
- Link back to points mentioned in previous chapters to further justify it.
Conclusion (500 words) - Summarise and Evaluate
- What do fairy tales teach?
- Are they harmful to children? or are they good?
- Should fairy tales be eradicated from our lives? (fairytales hold a special place in the childhoods of most people even today)
- The necessity for change (modification and modernisation of fairy tales in children's books/tv/movies could be a way to change children's perceptions of gender).
- Why this is important - could even be used to address social norms and the gender powers structure to break the cycle of global poverty - to develop girls' positive perceptions of themselves and shift how others see and value them.
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