By Nor Ainun Barieah Zahari
Who does not love fairy tales? Almost no one! Adults, children, all love fairy tales.
Fairy tales are an essential part of folk literature. They are part and parcel of the oral tradition of every culture in the world. Fairy tales often have unknown author. The stories are passed down from one generation to another orally.
Other than fairy tales, folk tales also cover fables, ghost stories, legends, and myths. (Mohammad Qauyum and Rosli Talif, 2000, and Eslit, 2013). In Malay tradition, we have the stories of Bawang Putih Bawang Merah, Batu Belah Batu Bertangkup, Si Tanggang and the series of Sang Kancil fables.
The influence of fairy tales is very broad. Fairy tales can also be included as part of the children literature. Although fairy tales were initially created to entertain the adults, yet they were later adapted to fit younger readers (children). For that purpose, fairy tales were added with religious and moral messages (Lerer, 2008).
Many classic fairy tales were refined and polished before being published to the public, to make them suitable for all range of readers. Until today, fairy tales serve as a genre that is loved by adults and children.
Fairy Tales Across The Globe
As I mentioned above, fairy tales come from every culture in the world. In European fairy tales, there are a lot of famous fairy tales. One of them is Cinderella that tells the story of a girl living with her stepmother and stepsisters and was tortured by them.
Interestingly, in the other side of the world of Europe, in the region of Asia, the tale of Bawang Merah Bawang Putih carries the same structure and popularity as Cinderella. There are many versions of the stories. These two famous fairy tales were adapted to various medium such as animation, live-action movies, and even novel (for Bawang Merah Bawang Putih).
To explore the structure of both fairy tales, I will use the Grimms’ version of Cinderella and the Othman Puteh’s version of Bawang Merah Bawang Putih.
Structure Of The Cinderella And Bawang Merah Bawang Putih
At a glance, Cinderella and Bawang Merah Bawang Putih display plot of the story. Even though, both stories are originated from different parts of the world, they shared similar narrative structure. I have divided the structure into six simple steps, according to Propp’s 31 function of structure of fairy tales, in an attempt to analyse the stories.
Here are the narrative structures that I gained from the tale of Cinderella and Bawang Merah Bawang Putih:
- Step 1: The heroine loses the safety of the family
- Step 2: The heroine enters an unknown place and encounter magical events
- Step 3: The heroine meets her true partner
- Step 4: Adversarial interference
- Step 5: The true partner finds the heroine and get married
- Step 6: The villain is punished
To begin with, the protagonists in both fairy tales lost their kindreds. The kindreds are either died or absent from the beginning of the story. The loss of kindred appears in many other fairy tales including Snow White, Mother Holle and Darling Roland.
Throughout her life, the protagonist will have a difficult life. In the stories, both protagonists live as a servant to the step-family. Being the servant also shows the absence of protection from kindred. This step appears similar to function number 1 of Propp’s structure of fairy tales.
An unknown place usually frightens us. But thing goes differently with fairy tales. In unknown places, the protagonist finds friends and helpers to assist her throughout the journey. Unknown places are where the protagonist also encounters magical event.
As for Cinderella, she was under the hazel tree at the backyard of her house and was magically aided by the birds to dress beautifully before going to the ball. While in Bawang Merah Bawang Putih, Bawang Merah was in the forest before she encounters the magical spell that only swings when she sings. This step is in accordance with function number 12 until 14 of Propp’s 31 functions of fairy tales.
In step three, the heroine of the fairy tales meets an upper-class man, who had instantly fall in love with her. However, later in step four, the man needs to face some difficulties caused by the villain. In both fairy tales, the upper-class man appears to be the prince of the kingdom. The stepmother eventually tricked the prince into believing that their own daughter is the girl he was looking for.
The antagonistic interference leads to step five where the saviour of the protagonist finds her and finally reveals the truth of the trick that was set up by the villain earlier. After that, both protagonist and her partner live happily ever after.
In the final step of my narrative pattern, the villain will be punished. In Cinderella, the stepsisters’ eyes were pecked out and they suffered from blindness for the rest of their lives, while in Bawang Merah Bawang Putih, the stepmother and stepsister were prisoned in the dungeon. This step is following exactly function number 28 until 31 of Propp’s function of fairy tales’ structure.
Fairy tales existed a long time ago. It originated from various parts of the world. This analysis proven that fairy tales carry similar narrative patterns despite of the origin of the story. The similarity that appears from the difference is something that is worth to be studied further. I am personally looking forward to seeing the writing of fairy tales from the present writers.***
(The writer, Nor Ainun Barieah Zahari, is a fourth year BENL student. The views expressed in the article are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of IIUMToday.)