Jarek 1

Cameron Jarek

English 106

Yoojin Jang

4/5/20

The Overwhelming Potential of Fairy Tales

During my drafting process, I immediately thought of the potential that lurks in stories

such as fairy tales and the power they possess to educate us, attract our attention, and spark our

imagination. After hours of drafting and researching, the topic that I decided that I will be

researching and writing about is the overwhelming potential of fairy tales and their effect on

society. Fairy tales are characterized by their youthful audience, their ability to teach, and their

origin. While fairy tales are often thought to be enjoyable stories, the power of a fairy tale lies in

its ability to teach through example.

When used with wisdom and skill, the story is a powerful tool in the hands of the

educator (Cather and Hetherington pg. iv). The power of a fairy tale naturally arises from the

story’s ability to spread a message through story, instead of word. In order to educate people,

especially children, about the woes of society, a conversation or statement may not be sufficient

enough to capture their understanding. Fairy tales correct this problem, by providing a sort of

entertainment education, to demonstrate a message through a plot of conflict-resolution directed

at youth as a form of entertainment.

The education that occurs within fairy tales is known as Entertainment Education (EE)

and it is a communication strategy used within fairy tales to educate the audience about an issue

through the entertainment of the story. Entertainment Education is arguably the most important
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aspect of any fairy tale, because Entertainment Education gives the entire story importance and

purpose while also entertaining the audience so they have some way to relate to the issue or

lesson of the story. Research suggests that narratives are easier to comprehend and audiences

find them more engaging than traditional logical-scientific communication (Dahlstrom 1).

Entertainment Education intentionally weaves important social issues, lessons to learn, health

issues, etc. into fairy tales to educate the audience. The foundation of entertainment is based on

the strategy of appealing to an audience, via audience analysis, to convey a message important to

that audience in particular, through the use of entertainment to hold the audience’s attention.

I have never engaged in any research on the topic of Entertainment Education, but I have

always been intrigued how a story could give off such an important message/lesson while at the

same time also being very entertaining. Entertainment Education is a great resource to relay not

only positive messages, but to explain concepts to the audience that may be initially too

complicated to understand. For example, popular tv shows with magical elements often

communicate scientific concepts for kids. This initiates the learning of concepts at a young age,

as well as a foundation in a specific academic area. More so, these programs are often enjoyed

by children much more than classroom learning, due to the entertainment aspect. Some

questions that I would like to answer during research include the following, how do you

ultimately decide, as the creator of the story, what lesson/topic to teach the audience? How do

entertainment and education correlate to each other, and what is Entertainment Education and

why is it effective within fairy tales? I will address each of these questions as I further my

research in the future.

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A famous fairy tale I recently learned about was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,

which I analyzed in order to better understand it’s message. It was through this analysis I think I

am qualified to speak on entertainment education, as fairy tales in movies are excellent examples

of entertainment education. I learned a lot about how to analyze a fairy tale, as well as the

importance of different aspects in the plot, which I will use when analyzing my research on fairy

tales in this upcoming project.

Because of fairy tales prevalence in society, there is a wide range of access to diverse

fairy tales for research and analytical purposes. These sources differ in ethnic origin and time

period, but remain similar in concepts of messages, morals, and teachings. Thus, gathering fairy

tales from books and online sources to study patterns will be a feasible task.

The purpose behind my research in fairy tales is to gather information about their general

structure, and how the structure can relate to the function of the fairy tale. Certain fairy tales

focus on different aspects of morality, as well as differ in perspectives based on the author and

origin. It will be interesting to note how different the messages across fairy tales of different

origins are, or rather how similar they are. I also hope to note the types of lessons fairy tales

focus on, whether that be academic, ethical, or emotional. Entertainment education is a large

field of study, with many complex aspects contributing to its character, and fairy tales are no

different in this aspect, which is why I look forward to analyzing the details of such stories.

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because

they tell us that dragons can be beaten (Singhal 1). This quotation from the article demonstrates

how to beat/overcome monsters whether they are personal or societal. Fairy tales are a form of

entertainment education, and can have profound effects on the moral and educational
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development of children, teens, and young adults. It is for these reasons it is important to study

fairy tales, specifically their messages, structure, and origin, in order to observe and predict how

forms of entertainment education will affect its audience.

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Works Cited

Cather, Katherine Dunlap., and Clark W. Hetherington. ​Educating by Story-Telling, Showing the

Value of Story-Telling as an Educational Tool for the Use of All Workers with Children.​

World Book Company, 1918.

Dahlstrom, Michael F. “Using Narratives and Storytelling to Communicate Science with

Nonexpert Audiences.” ​PNAS​, National Academy of Sciences, 16 Sept. 2014,

www.pnas.org/content/pnas/111/Supplement_4/13614.full.pdf​.

Singhal, Arvind. ​Introduction: Fairy Tales to Digital Games: the Rising ...2​ 6 Feb. 2013,

www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02560046.2013.766971?needAccess=true​.