Human and Non-Human Beings: Ecological Discourses in European Fairy Tales

Abstract

From childhood, we heard a lot of fairy tales fascinating and imaginative to attract children. The impact of fairy tales on kids’ lives includes making their life colorful, expanding their horizons to the world and even having the meaning of moral education. Behind almost every European fairy tales, there seems to have a deep connection between nature and human being, in which has not only played a substantial role of our perception towards the environmental writing but also transferred to the modern movies, novels and children literature as well. Forest, the origin of enigma and mystery, plays a significant role in the European fairy tales. Throughout the folktales, mythology and Medieval Romance literature, the enchanted forests represent the places of unknown, cradle of uncertainty and danger. Another essential role of the natural writing in the European fairy tales is the ocean and the lake. As in many cultures, ocean is the beginning of life, the place where it brings the prosperity. As for in the literatures, ocean is often represented as human emotions, love, pity, calm, greedy, etc. Therefore, are the ecological representations related to fairy tales real or imaginary? Do the characters in these tales can be reflected from the text or images and be compared to typical figures related to ecology? This paper intends to analyze the European fairy tales from the ecological perspective. By comparing the natural elements and non-human beings plots of the tales, an attempt is made to summarize the ecological prototypes of European fairy tales.