Short Fiction Unit

Short Writing Assignment: Fairytale Psychoanalysis

Practicing armchair psychology is a common pastime. Many of us love to analyze the behavior of famous people or characters we see on television, not to mention family and friends. In this Short Writing Assignment, you will use some basic concepts from Psychoanalytic Criticism to analyze the unconscious motivations of a character in a fairy tale, folk tale, or myth we have read for class.

According to the Purdue OWL page on Psychoanalytic Criticism, Freud believed that all human behavior is driven by emotions, needs, desires, or conflicts of which a person is unaware. Select one character from "The Story of Aladdin," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Cinderella," "Icarus and Daedalus" or "The Great Hare." Then, identify and explain a feeling, need, desire, or conflict that unknowingly motivates the character's actions. Look for words or phrases in the story that reveal the character's unconscious motivation. Use two direct quotations from your selected story to support your interpretation. Your completed S.W.A. should be about 250 words long and have one to two paragraphs. Make sure your assignment uses M.L.A. manuscript format and correctly cited your direct quotations.

 

Required Reading/Watching: 

"The Story of Alladdin"

"Little Red Riding Hood"

"Cinderella"

"Icarus and Daedalus"

"The Great Hare"

The Purdue OWL page on Psychoanalytic Criticism

Purpose:

This assignment has these purposes: to let you practice using a theory to interpret a literary text, to provide refresher on the use of M.L.A. style, and to let your practice writing formally about literature in a short assignment before moving on to a longer essay.

Learning Outcome(s) Addressed: 

  • Analyze and interpret short stories, folk tales, fairy tales, and myths
  • Apply literary theories and terms to the analysis of short fictional work
  • Document the use of literary sources in MLA style

Skills:

This assignment will use these skills:

  • Reading comprehension
  • Choosing textual support
  • Writing
  • Critical thinking

Knowledge: 

This assignment will give you knowledge about how to use a literary theory to interpret a text; this short assignment prepares you for writing longer papers later in the course.

Task:

To complete this assignment you should:

  1. Do the assigned readings
  2. Select one character in one fairy tale, folk tale, or myth
  3. Identify an unconscious motivation that influences the character's behavior
  4. Find two quotations that support your analysis of the story
  5. Write 250 words that incorporate the two quotations into an analysis
  6. Format your SWA1 using MLA style