Rapunzel Research Paper

768 Words4 Pages
Fairy tales have a great influence in today’s culture. It can be seen in our movies, our books, and our TV shows. One of the most recognized fairy tales is the story of Rapunzel. A story that has seen much popularity, Rapunzel is a story that most children would be able to recognize. For people who study folklore, Rapunzel is an interesting tale because of its peculiar background. Rapunzel is the result of variations of a motif that is present in many folktales and can be seen as the culmination of these folktales. In the book The Study of American Folklore, a definition for folklore comes up as follows, “…those materials in culture that circulate traditionally among members of any group in different versions, whether in oral form or by means…show more content…
She originally came into the tower when her parents made a promise with a witch to give her their child after stealing from her garden and the witch wanting retribution. The witch who holds Rapunzel finds out about the prince and becomes furious. The witch cuts Rapunzel’s hair and banishes her to a desert. The prince is tricked by the witch when she uses the hair to have him climb up the tower and he despairs about his beloved. Years later, he finds her along with her twin children and takes them back to his kingdom. “Rapunzel” is a result of a variation in a previous fairy tale, however even with this tale that is so widely known there are variations to this tale too. One difference is of how after being tricked by the witch, the prince throws himself out the window and becomes blind after his eyes are poked out by thorns at the bottom of the tower. Rapunzel finds the prince and her tears heal his eyes and in another the witch gets trapped in the tower after throwing out Rapunzel’s hair. There are also stories where Rapunzel is taken at birth by the witch or early adolescence. With so many different stories, it’s hard to tell where they began, however we know where the story ends up and that is with the Grimm brothers. Rapunzel is a story collected by the Grimm brothers in the 19th century. It is interesting to note that the tale of Rapunzel collected by
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