Select ONE folk or fairy tale from the special Paper 1 folder, which contains a selection of global tales that lend themselves well to structural analysis. Please use MLA formatting链接到外部网站。 and citation链接到外部网站。 style for this paper.

Then, create an essay in roughly 2-4 pages that undertakes a “formal” structural analysis of the tale employing the functions outlined in Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale, 2nd Edition (Link to e-book链接到外部网站。), which discusses the structure of folktales in terms of dramatis personae and their associated functions. Following the system and formulae that he outlines in Chapters 2-3 and 6, where you complete the following:

identify and enumerate upon the dramatis personae in the tale (i.e. hero, false hero, princess, villain, donor, magical agent, etc.)

• Enumerate the structure, or formal organization, of your text by notating the chronological order of the linear sequence of elements in the text using Propp’s designations from his Morphology of the Folktale. Make sure and list out all the sequential limited functions that you think are significant to the overall composition of the tale, keeping in mind the goal of Propp’s approach, that the order of the functions is crucial.
• Think about how the dramatis personae and functions in your tale work as a whole.
• Consider what is the value of this approach in your mind and/or what are the shortcomings of this approach. Identify any potential problems that come up especially if you’re working with a global folktale that falls outside the realm of Propp’s intended corpus. Remember, Propp only considered Russian folktales to develop his theory and yet, according to him, his theory was supposed to represent tales from all over the world. His approach is of course very Eurocentric so you can identify that as a potential problem. You could also see this as maybe potentially too subjective or too general, or you could identify any gray areas or paradoxes that exist in the theory.