Fairy tales have existed for centuries. When most people hear the word “fairy tale,” they immediately associate it with children. However, fairy tales, like bestselling novels you see at stores and critically acclaimed short stories in "The New Yorker," are works of fiction that authors put effort and craft into. Regardless of which age these stories are aimed for, adults can learn a lot of valuable lessons from reading fairy tales.

Fairy tales illustrate the importance of having empathy for others.

One fairy tale that depicts a dynamic character shift from selfish to selfless is “The Selfish Giant” by Oscar Wilde. In the story, the giant goes from not letting children play in his garden to helping a small boy climb up a tree and destroying his garden wall. Moreover, the wall is symbolic of the giant’s inability to consider the needs of others. Therefore, the breaking of his garden wall is symbolic of his change of mindset. This is not the only symbol in the story illustrating the giant’s character shift. In fact, the changing of seasons from Winter to Spring foreshadow the giant’s change from cold-hearted to warm-hearted. The sentence “He was a very selfish” giant is interesting because it is written in past tense, thereby highlighting that the giant’s selfishness was a thing of the past.

Fairy tales also teach us to show empathy for individuals who are different from the norm. For example, "The Ugly Duckling" teaches people to accept one another’s differences. More importantly, no matter how different we are in appearance, beliefs, etc., we all want social inclusion. I always feel so sad for the Ugly Duckling when he is excluded from the other ducks. Similarly, Beauty and the Beast illustrates how there is more to a person than their appearance, and that beauty is found within as well. People today still judge others based on their appearance (i.e., height, weight, skin color, ethnicity, etc.). Although these stories were not intended to be political allegories, "The Ugly Duckling" and "Beauty and the Beast"can be applied to modern issues regarding the stigma of African American individuals, Muslims, and people of Middle-Eastern descent.

Unlike The Ugly Duckling, however, Beauty and the Beast is a romantic love story, so Beauty and the Beast does not just promote the acceptance of physical appearance, but also that in romantic relationships. Nevertheless, the moral of "The Ugly Duckling" could be applied to romantic relationships as well. For a countless number of years, people have set standards on physical appearance when looking for a romantic partner. Also, women often try to change their physical appearance to meet the standards and expectations of men. This idea is depicted in “The Old Woman Who Was Skinned,” one of the stories in Giambattista Basile’s "Tale of Tales,"a collection of fairy tales written before Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. The first sentence of the fairy tale is, “The accursed vice, embedded in us women, of wanting to look beautiful reduces us to the point where to gild the frame of our forehead we spoil the painting of our face, to whiten our old and wizened skin we ruin the bones of our teeth, and to put our limbs in a good light we darken our eyesight, so that before it is time to pay our tribute to time we procure ourselves rheumy eyes, wrinkled faces, and rotten molars.” In the tale, a king becomes infatuated with an old woman’s voice, thinking she is a young maiden. After sleeping with her, he is repulsed by her wrinkly skin and throws her out the window. This is similar to how other animals run away from the Ugly Duckling. The old woman is offended as seen through the line, “she began to defend herself with the kicks and bites, saying that she appealed the sentence since he was the one who had turned her like a winch until she came to his bed.” After being thrown out the window, a group of fairies turn her into a beautiful, princess-like girl, and the king marries her. Marriage after the transformation of a woman from ugly to beautiful is also seen in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath. In both tales, the man only accepts the woman as a lover after she is transformed into a beautiful woman. The old woman-turned beauty queen is not the only character in “The Old Woman Who Was Skinned” who wants to appear beautiful. In fact, her jealous sister goes to a barber to smoothen her skin to look like her. Consequently, her skin is cut off and she dies. Furthermore, not only does “The Old Woman Who Was Skinned” demonstrate the importance of accepting the appearance of one’s romantic partner, but also that with self-image. Recently, an adaptation was made of The Tale of Tales. Matteo Garrone, the director of the film, discussed the depiction of beauty in the film at the conference for the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

The depiction of women in fairy tales, mythology, and folklore is a highly debated topic among feminist literary critics. Several feminists believe that traditional tales marginalize women by portraying them as “damsels” waiting for the male hero to save them. In the second half of the twentieth century, feminist retellings of traditional stories began to emerge, two of them being "The Bloody Chamber"by Angela Carter and "Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins" by Emma Donoghue. "The Bloody Chamber"features strong, independent women who don’t rely solely on men. In “The Bloody Chamber,” based on "Bluebeard," the female protagonist opens up a school for the blind with her mother at the end rather than getting remarried to a nicer man. Similarly, the maiden in “The Erl-King” kills the title-villain, thereby saving herself. However, "The Bloody Chamber" does not look down upon marriage and romance. In fact, both “The Courtship of Mr. Lyon” and “The Tiger’s Bride” end with the female protagonist and the beast happily ending up together. Nonetheless, these two stories are still very different. In “The Courtship of Mr. Lyon,” the female saves the beast from an illness, whereas in “The Tiger’s Bride,” the female transforms into a beautiful tiger. Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue (author of Room) is another great anthology because it contains LGBT-themed fairy tales. In “The Tale of the Rose,” based on Beauty and the Beast, the beast turns out to be a woman rather than a handsome prince under beastly skin. Similarly, in “The Tale of the Shoe,” based on Cinderella, the princess falls in love with the fairy godmother rather than Prince Charming.

To conclude, fairy tales should be read by people of all ages because not only do they teach us about being kind to one another, but also about our culture. Therefore, they should not be perceived as "inferior" to adult-targeted novels