Most people of modern America are familiar with the concept of the Tooth Fairy, but few are privy to the elusive fairy’s history. While most are familiar with how the Tooth Fairy tradition works, there are few who understand where it started and what it signifies. In truth, the evolution of the Tooth Fairy is one with a rich history that spans over centuries and over the world. A brief education in the progression of old traditions into the modern one is both interesting and gives one a deeper understanding of the idea behind the Tooth Fairy. The earliest records of practices resembling a Tooth Fairy stretch back hundreds—perhaps a thousand—years. Viking warriors were said to buy lost teeth from children to take into battle as good luck …show more content…
She first appeared in the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1908. A column of advice for parents held an entry detailing today’s Tooth Fairy tradition of taking the child’s tooth from under their pillow and replacing it with a reward, saying it was the Tooth Fairy. Interestingly enough, although many other fictional childhood characters have a generally agreed-upon appearance (such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny), the Tooth Fairy has no such uniform image. While 74% of people think the Tooth Fairy is female, and 20% said the Tooth Fairy could be either or neither male or female, the Tooth Fairy seems to take many guises in the imaginations of those who believe. Descriptions of the Tooth Fairy range from a literal fairy or pixie to a small animal such as a mouse or bat to a dwarf man. No matter the description of the American Tooth Fairy, however, the intent behind it is the same. Generally, parents use the Tooth Fairy to ease their children through a time of losing a tooth, which can be an unsettling experience. Psychologists further say that parents may have the character of the Tooth Fairy in their children’s lives as a comfort for themselves, too: parents often do not wish for their children to grow up too quickly, and the belief in fantasy like fairies show that childhood wonder is still
Tatar, Maria. Off with their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Tatar, Maria. Off with Their Heads!: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1992. Print.
Fairy-legends in particular often reflected the people’s fears and became a way for them to explain things they just could not understand. These fairy legends were told very long ago before people had an understanding of science so when an unexpected death or a child went missing fairy legends were created to explain this. People’s anxieties were greatly reflected in fairy legends such as giving birth to a child and what had to be done, children being taken and replaced by changelings, women getting taken away, and children being abducted.
Myths play an influential role in all cultures and societies. Back when communication was not easy, stories were told among family and friends to help spread lessons. Values to help children to learn about how to live a blessed life are made into these stories. One may not notice the same thing that happens today. Stories told of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and creatures alike who reward those for being balanced.
Fairy tales portray wonderful, elaborate, and colorful worlds as well as chilling, frightening, dark worlds in which ugly beasts are transformed into princes and evil persons are turned to stones and good persons back to flesh (Guroian). Fairytales have long been a part of our world and have taken several forms ranging from simple bedtime stories to intricate plays, musicals, and movies. However, these seemingly simple stories are about much more than pixie dust and poisoned apples. One could compare fairytales to the new Chef Boyardee; Chef Boyardee hides vegetables in its ravioli while fairytales hide society’s morals and many life lessons in these outwardly simple children stories. Because of this fairytales have long been instruments used to instruct children on the morals of their culture. They use stories to teach children that the rude and cruel do not succeed in life in the long run. They teach children that they should strive to be kind, caring, and giving like the longsuffering protagonists of the fairytale stories. Also, they teach that good does ultimately defeat evil. Fairy tales are not just simple bedtime stories; they have long been introducing cultural moral values into young children.
At first glance, what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale may seem obvious—some kind of magic, hidden symbols, repetition, and of course it’s evident it’s fiction—but fables are more than that. As Arthur Schelesinger puts it, it’s about “[expanding] imagination” and gaining understanding of mysterious places (618). While doing this, it also helps children to escape this world, yet teach a lesson that the reader may not be conscious of. A wonderful story that achieves all of this is Cinderella, but not the traditional tale many American’s have heard. Oochigeaskw, or The Rough-Faced Girl, and Ashputtle would be fitting for a seven-year-old because they get the gears of the mind turning, allowing for an escape on the surface, with an underlying enlightenment for children of the ways of the world.
The simplicity of fairy tales and non-specific details renders them ideal for manipulation allowing writers to add their own comments often reflecting social convention and ideology. Theref...
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Vintage, 2010. Print.
A little boy and a little girl sit, eyes wide, eagerly awaiting the story. ' Once upon a time...', and they are reeled in. This short phrase is a trigger to our subconscious; for every fairly tail is a mirror reflecting our own or our societies morals. Passed down through centuries of oral tradition, variations arise; yet beneath the differed versions the lessons are the same. Both to entertain and condition its audience fairy tails have maintained their popularity through out time.
Fairy Tale Text & Motif. Prod. Distribution Access. Distribution Access, 2001.Discovery Education. Web. 1 December 2001. .
As Tartar notes, fairy tales “adap[t] to a culture and [are] shaped by its social practices” (xiv). As American culture began to change, the fairy tales produced by Disney studios began to change and adapt to changing American sensibilities. The main focus of this shift is the role that women play in the fairy tales. While many of Disney’s early fairy tale movies have female characters, they are fairly passive. They achieve their happily-ever-after as a reward for good behavior in the face of adversity. The prevalence of this in the early tales occurs for two reasons. First, the women’s behavior serves as a guide to the American people who, too, are facing the adversity of the Great Depression and then war. Second, the women’s behavior mirrors the expected behavior of women in society at that time. As women fight for and achieve what they want out of life, the female protagonists in the Disney fairy tales mirror that action. As a result, the female protagonists’ behavior serves a different purpose in these later fairy tale films. The behavioral shifts serve to “endow us with the power to reconstruct our lives” (Tartar xii). They are “fictional stories that provide a truth applicable in the real world as a moral” by embracing the growing importance of equality for women found in modern American (Zipes, “The Cultural Evolution of Storytelling 10).
The origin of the Tooth Fairy traces back to the countries in the Northern European area. The Northern European
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. London: Thames and Hudson, 1976. Print.
Zipes, Jack. Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk & Fairy Tales. Revised and expanded ed. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1979. Print
Normally, when one was a child, our parents would tell us fairy tales as bed time stories, or to simply entertain us. This is a worldwide tradition in which every parent tells their child the stories they were told when they were little, or new stories. There are infinite stories to be told as well as infinite stories that have already been written or told. The stories told by our parents have influenced us and still influence us in our beliefs and values today. Throughout our childhood, we have been told many stories that teach us to be brave and courageous, respect others, love ourselves and others, to obey orders, and even to help and