The Fairytale genre has many different forms of stories but they all follow a very distinct pattern. As laid out by Steven Jones in his book “The Fairy Tale: The Magic Mirror of the Imagination”, the pattern is the story first have a piece of fantasy that is directly related to the main plot. Along with that there has to be a protagonist and a problem of some sort. The problem should relate to a real-world problem that people often run into on some scale. The protagonist should be a good person. Finally, there has to be a moral to the story. In this paper is looking at the two fairytales “The Sleeping Beauty In the Wood” by Charles Perrault as our lens text and “There Once Was” by Margaret Atwood and seeing how they compare to the traditional sense of a fairytale. In Perrault’s story, it has the basic need of a fairy tale which is the fantasy elements. Perrault has fairies, magic, and ogres which all play key roles in the story. The next thing a fairytale needs is a protagonist which is generally a good person. Perrault has the Fairy who saves the princess from dying, Prince who is a kind and brave man who saves the day twice, and the servant who save the queen and her kids. A fairytale also requires a problem that arises and this problem generally relates to a real-world problem somehow. In Perrault’s work, he first has the curse on the princess which is lessened by the fairy and solved by the prince. He also has the ogre queen try and eat the queen and her kids which is resolved by the servant first and then the prince. The first problem relates to the quest for love in real life and the second problem relates to doing the right thing. The Final requirement of a fairytale is it needs a moral which Perrault clearly lays out in the end and that is love can wait. Perrault clearly has all the basic themes of a fairytale and clearly follows the general pattern.

As for Atwood’s story it contains no clear themes from the traditional definition of a fairytale. But even so it is considered a fairytale. This story has no fantasy elements in fact it never even gets to the story due to the narrators arguing. The story has a protagonist but we don’t learn much about her and the narrators keeps changing who the protagonist was. The problem was initially the stepmother but then that changed to stepfather and kept changing due to the narrators. Finally there was no clear moral. According to the traditional pattern this is not a fairytale. This being said the point of the book is it is trying to change the traditional sense of a fairytale. The entire book consists of two narrators arguing over why the fairytale has to go the way it usually does when it could do something different. Atwood was trying to say through her writing that the traditional pattern of fairytales is not the best way of doing things anymore, and that fairytales can be something more to help more relate to the modern day. 
