Fairy tales since the beginning of recorded time, and perhaps earlier, have been “a means to conquer the terrors of mankind through metaphor.
— Jack Zipes
The most surprising Jack Zipes quotes that are life-changing and eye-opening
Alas for those girls who've refused the truth: The sweetest tongue has the sharpest tooth.
Over the centuries we have transformed the ancient myths and folk tales and made them into the fabric of our lives. Consciously and unconsciously we weave the narratives of myth and folk tale into our daily existence.
The fairy tale emanates from specific struggles to humanize bestial and barbaric forces, which have terrorized our minds and communities in concrete ways, threatening to destroy free will and human compassion. The fairy tale sets out to conquer this concrete terror through metaphors.
It was not once upon a time, but a certain time in history, before anyone knew what was happening, that Walt Disney cast a spell on the fairy tale, and he has held it captive ever since.
The role of the storyteller is to awaken the storyteller in others.
Inevitably they find their way into the forest.
It is there that they lose and find themselves. It is there that they gain a sense of what is to be done. The forest is always large, immense, great and mysterious. No one ever gains power over the forest, but the forest posses the power to change lives and alter destinies.
Fairy tales begin with conflict because we all begin our lives with conflict.
We are all misfit for the world, and somehow we must fit in, fit in with other people, and thus we must invent or find the means through communication to satisfy as well as resolve conflicting desires and instincts.
If there is one ‘constant’ in the structure and theme of the wonder tale, it is transformation.