The Story Archive

Tales of Mother Goose

Charles Perrault · c. 1697 CE · Folktale · French · Enlightenment

Eight prose tales published under his son's name at the height of the salon vogue for the form: a girl in a red hood who answers a wolf's questions, a husband who leaves his wife a key she is forbidden to use, a cinder-girl at a ball, a cat who talks a miller's youngest son into a marquisate. Each closes with a verse moral aimed over the children's heads at the adults in the room. The versions that fixed these plots for the rest of Europe, and the immediate model for the Grimms' collection.

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Lineage

Attributes

Genre
FantasyComing-of-Age
Theme
TemptationLoss of InnocenceTransformationClass & Inequality
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
InnocentTricksterVillain / Tyrant
Plot structure
EpisodicRags to Riches
Symbol / motif
The ForestThe GarmentThe Threshold
Conflict
vs Supernaturalvs Person
Mode / tone
IronicMythic
Culture / tradition
French

Closest analogues