A Historicist Approach to the Evolution of Fairy Tales

Diverging from the New Criticism with its emphasis on literary texts as self-contained artefacts, the historicist approach examines the text as a malleable entity subject to the sociocultural pressures of localized times and places. Rejecting notions of fairy-tale atemporality and universality, the historicist asks: what conditions led to the emergence and permutations of particular narratives? To understand the meaning and importance of a fairy tale, you need to study the factors that shaped it adaptively within a given cultural environment. As a case in point, this chapter examines the vicissitudes of the narrative popularized as “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” during the Victorian era and its adaptation to the British Zeitgeist during Queen Victoria’s reign. Evolving through several stages, the bachelor bears metamorphosed into Mama, Papa, and Baby Bear, whilst the nasty old intruder who was expelled, imprisoned, or impaled on a church steeple became a golden-haired girl merely requiring better socialization to turn into a domestic angel. The history of this tale’s adaptations is read in relation to the concerns that affected it: the complications inherent in not only a figure of female sovereignty but also an expanding colonial empire and its consequential influx of immigrant others.