Fairy Tales and Repetition

[Zoe Ullman Nagel]

Repetition is one of the most frequently used mechanisms in fairy
tales. Though you could probably find examples in almost every fairy
tale you read (such as "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair," or
even examples of repetition in Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty video
we watched for the first blog), I thought I'd analyze the fairy tale
for this week, which was the Grimms' "Snow White."

In many cases, I find that repetition is used more as a literary
device to make the story sound better or flow better. When the evil
queen asks her mirror, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most
beautiful woman in England?" it sounds weird to us if you were just to
use one "mirror" instead of two, similar to using just one "Rapunzel."
Using just one instead of two makes the sentence more terse whereas
adding the repetition adds a more prose-like quality that you almost
want to speak in a sort of lyrical way, which is fitting for a fairy
tale with fantastical elements in place already. Similarly, the very
first repetition I found in Snow White was that the queen wished for
"a child as white as snow, as red-cheeked as this blood, and as black-
eyed as this ebony window frame!" and the sentence after that says
that her daughter was, in fact, "as white as snow, as red as blood,
and as black as ebony." Could the writer just as easily gotten rid of
the repetition and said that the queen had a daughter that fit this
description instead of reiterating what had just been said previously?
Yes, of course, but the repetition again adds for a poetry-like
element. If you're reading into it the way some look at Snow White as
a feminist tale, then repeating those elements is further working to
instill the ideas of feminine beauty.

I found that the repetition of specific numbers seemed to be playing
more the role of markers for memory than anything else. It's mentioned
in the second paragraph that Snow White was "a hundred thousand times
more beautiful" than the queen, and the mirror than repeats this same
number back to the queen later. Likewise, the word "seven" is repeated
three times in the paragraph where Snow White first enters the cottage
to remind us of the fact that there are seven dwarves, in case we
could have forgotten the number if it were just mentioned once to us.

Though not literally word repetitions, there's also repetition in the
plot elements involving the queen, Snow White, and the seven dwarves.
Three times the queen disguises herself and seemingly kills Snow
White, three times Snow White is deceived, and three times Snow White
is saved, either by the dwarves (for the first two times) or her long
lost father (the final time). In this case, I think repetition is
being used to create meaning. Snow White, this "pure as snow" being
continuously is susceptible to the queen's tricks because she is so
pure and trusting, even of strangers. The queen, who is driven by her
own vanity, is shown to be evil in all three instances, though utterly
unsuccessful in the end. Speaking of which, the queen ironically
suffers a repetitive death as she is forced to keep on dancing and
dancing until she dies. Thus pure and good triumphs over vain and
evil.

Other functions of repetition we talked about in class other them
memory and to create meaning are to provide stability and structure,
create an emotional foundation for religiousness, understand the
principles of life, define the limits of our existence, and refute
contingency. I think that the literary elements and prose-like
qualities I described before serve to provide stability and structure.
Also, you could say that the apple serves as a symbol for Eve and her
apple, thus somewhat creating a foundation for religiousness. In terms
of the limits of our existence and principles of life, I suppose those
just come into play the multiple times Snow White "dies," but then
gets another chance at life because she is so beautiful, pure, and
this spectacle of femininity (and also with a great deal of credit to
the male figures of her life: the dwarves, father, and prince). I
don't particularly see how repetition in Snow White serves to refute
contingency, but perhaps I'm not fully understand what the function
means.

Though I'm not sure, I think perhaps repetition is so common in fairy
tales because fairy tales used to be taught to children in schools and
they would have to memorize them. Repetition facilitates learning and
memorizing of the fairy tales. So though that might have been the
original function of repetition, I think now their main function is to
help us identify them as fairy tales and again, add to the poetry,
lyrical melody, fantastical, suspend-belief elements that are common
to all fairy tales.

[Robert Snook]

Repetition is a common theme in many fairy tales and seems to serve multiple purposes. Zoe mentions the use of repetition as a means to "identify fairy tales and again, add to the poetry, lyrical melody, fantastical, suspend-belief elements that are common to all fairy tales." I agree with Zoe's assertions, but I believe that repetition tends to emphasize the plot elements that the author wants to highlight. In "The Fisherman and His Wife," the fisherman returns to the magical fish several times in order to relay his wife's demands. Each time, the wife demands more and more until the fisherman and his wife are returned to their initial state of relative poverty. The repetition highlights the ridiculousness of the wife's demands and serves to reinforce the oral message of the story. 

Besides supporting our memory, repetition in fairy tales reinforces the moral message of the tales. Additionally, repetition also seems to serve as a way to highlight the magical and uniquely fairy tale aspects of a fairy tale. Repetition of key phrases or words emphasizes characteristics of the various characters in a fairy tale and helps to distinguish heroes from villans. Repetition also differentiates the stories from reality. In reality, such repetition does not occur or occurs very rarely, while in fairy tales the repetition highlights the surreal elements of the story. Overall, repetition serves several purposes and is very prominent in fairy tales.

[Jenna Anne Lindley]

My high school history professor’s favorite quote to tell us was,
“redundancy is good, redundancy is good”. Now he loved it for its
cleverness and wit but also its truth. He would tell us this before
we wrote every paper or exam essay. “What’s important is that your
reader understands your arguments and main points and to do this you
will have to repeat them in interesting ways so the reader will
remember and retain something from your work,” is what he would tell
us. Repetition and reiterations in fairytales, just as in any other
type of writing, serves as markers and support our memory. But in
fairytales, they both function in other ways too. As Zoe and Robert
have both already mentioned they identify fairy tales, add to the

poetry, lyrical melody, fantastical, suspend-belief elements that are

common to all fairy tales, and emphasizing the plot elements authors
want to highlight. There is repetition in individual stories but also
repetition of themes and languages throughout all fairytales. For
example, like Zoe has already mentioned and I will repeat, in Snow
White there is the phrase,” Mirror, mirror on the wall who’s the
fairest of them all?” which is repeated through the story. However,
the phrases such as “once upon a time” and “happily ever after” are
phrases that can be found in multiple different fairytales and when
heard are constantly associated with fairytales and fairytale ideals.
One fairytale, not of German origin, wonderful displays repetition and
it is the tale of Goldilocks’ and the Three Bears. It is very similar
to Snow White actually—a lost princess wandering into a strange house
and falling asleep in a stranger’s bed. But instead of dwarfs,
Goldilocks’ encounters bears. It is repetitive because she walks
around the house saying “this chair is too big”, “too small”, “just
right” to a number of other pieces of furniture. Then when the family
comes home they repeat, “who’s been sitting in my chair”, “eating from
my plate”, “sleeping in my bed”, etc. Repetition in the tales adds to
the drama and suspense to the tale. The tale itself is pretty boring
but when you add the repetition, more layers are given to the story
and more suspense and intrigue is created for the reader or listener.
I totally agree with Robert’s Fisherman and his Wife example and I
think it’s a great one. The tale’s repetitive nature clearly adds to
the theme and moral message of the story and allows the reader or
listener and comprehend it fully while being entertained. In my
opinion, the main functions of repetition in fairytales are:
reinforcement and emphasis, confirmation and validation, cohesion (as
in linking and interweaving parts of the story), explanation and
expectancy for the reader or listener, movement to the tale, and
finally what we’ve previously posted about: mimesis.