Gender Roles in German Fairy Tales

Abstract

Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm first captivated the world with their collection of tales in Kinder- und Hausmärchen These stories have served as the basis for many of the stories we call fairy tales They are told to countless children around the world and have been transformed into the feature length films we know and love Fairy tales also act as a form of didactic literature that has been used in classrooms since the nineteenth century In this thesis, I attempt to define this unique genre of literature, while also examining the different roles played by male and female characters and the ways that fairy tales have been utilized since the Grimm brothers.