Freeside Europe Online Academic Journal

Freeside Europe Online Academic Journal

Modern cultural, literary and linguistic perspectives

Moos, Renata: Intercultural differences in the structure of Cinderella: A Proppian and storygraph analysis of Russian, Scottish and Hungarian fairy tales

Article

DOI 10.51313/alumni-2020-4

Abstract

 

Some fairy tales are known worldwide, but in a variety of forms. This study attempts to seek intercultural differences in the structure and in the narrative of fairy tales, through the analysis of the Cinderella fairy tale versions from Scotland, Russia and Hungary. The structural analysis applies the Proppian method (1995). This morphological analysis proves the theory of Propp regarding the structural unity of the folktales, despite their differences in content and idiom. At the same time, some definitions of the functions as basic elements of the structural schema appear to be arguable. The rhetorical analysis of the tales is performed by the storygraph method of Söter (1988) to discover cultural influence on the narratives. Although, some differences were detected, in general all investigated fairy tales of this study resemble the Western rhetorical style. Overall, the results suggest that the influence of the cultural context are more traceable in the rhetorical patterns of the narratives than in their morphological structure.

 

Keywords

Propp, morphology, Söter, storygraph-analysis, narrative, rhetorical style

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ISSN 1786-7967

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