A sweet friend of mine updated her status on Facebook to "now believes in fairy tales" and this has kept me thinking for a while today. Do fairy tales have any relation with the real world? Do fairy tales actually tell true stories? Do fairy tales have a hidden meaning imbibed in them? So lets explore the world of fairy tales.
Since birth we are fed an amazing number of fairy tales right from Cinderella to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves to The Frog Prince and each fairy tale has a unique flavor and a hidden lesson which brings the fairy tale close to real life experiences. Each fairy tale carries many insights. The adventures depicted in the stories are a reflection of the challenges we face in the course of our lifetime. People can have different understandings of the same fairy tale. But let me give you my insights about some fairy tales.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin might look to be a simple fictional tale on the surface but probe deeper and you will realize the lesson it depicts for us - let go of greed for money or else you will lose your most precious assets like the mayor's greed for money led to the town losing its most precious assets, it's children.
The Beauty and the Beast is a portrayal of true love. It teaches us that true love comes in everyone's life even as we keep dreaming about it all the time.
The story of Cinderella is a lesson for us that bad times do not stay forever. We have to be optimistic and hopeful and never stop dreaming of a happy life because happiness is always round the corner.
Not only these good lessons but also the darker elements in the fairy tales have a hidden meaning, they reveal our fear. The dark forest, the wicked characters, the monsters represent the elements we fear the most. The monster might be the fairy tale depiction of the person who bullies us in childhood whereas the dark forest can be a place where we would not like to go alone.
Learning to find the reality quotient of fairy tales is not difficult; all it takes is a little effort to understand the symbolism and to decode the message. Every tale has its own lesson like the Holy Grail which is a depiction of each one's own desire. Like the desire for love will take you through the journey of The Sleeping Beauty who waited in her sleep for her true lover who kissed her and she rose from her slumber and said, "Is it you, my Prince (charming)? You have waited a long time.” The challenge is to pay attention and understand the message imbibed because the effects of what we learn can shape the course of our lifeline ;)
