Name: Sam Gross, eh4287@wayne.edu
Major: History
Interests: Music, drawing, reading.
MIdterm project: The story I plan on working with for the midterm is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I want to look at how the gender roles differ in the Grimm's version compared to the television show Once Upon a Time in relation to the principal character of Snow White. I am also going to look at the Disney version of Snow White, although that is not going to be my main focus.
Thesis: There is a considerable progression of Snow White’s character in the television show Once Upon a Time compared to the flat, pretty-faced character depicted in the Grimm Brothers' tale as well as the Disney animated film, to a strong willed, complex, and independent woman, visually represented by clothing choice, miscellaneous personal effects, body type, and hair.
Midterm Paper:
snow white.docx
Final Project: For the final paper, I am going to be doing a close analysis of Little Snow-White and Cinderella. The premise of my paper is that fairy tales in contemporary society are evolving from the stereotypical "good vs. evil" trope into something a little more deep and harder to discern. I will be comparing the original telling of these two tales, and in particular the relationship between the heroines and their adversaries, to the television show Once Upon a Time.
Popular/Not scholarly sources:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/07/23/120723crbo_books_acocella?currentPage=all
http://www.worldtransformation.com/good-vs-evil/
http://www.worldtransformation.com/human-condition/
Scholarly sources:
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9676.pdf
http://hilo.hawaii.edu/academics/hohonu/documents/Vol07x07HappilyEverAfter.pdf
http://iscte.pt/~fgvs/Girardot.pdf
Working Thesis:
In recent years, “good” versus “evil” is still a widely used trope that the re-telling of fairy stories continue to employ, however there is an unmistakable emergence of the blurring of these clearly defined lines, and in particular the role of the young and virtuous female who is pitted against an older, evil counterpart. The distortion of this dichotomy can be seen through a close examination of Little Snow-White as well as Cinderella; more specifically, by examining the transformation of each character (protagonist and antagonist alike) individually as well as the relationship of the protagonist and their adversaries from the original telling in comparison to these same relationships in the ABC Family television show Once Upon a Time.
Rough Draft:
Gross Fairy tales final paper.docx
Final Paper: