In unit four, the class talked about how placing a text within a specific genre involves acknowledging that it works within specific conventions or constraints. These conventions or constraints depend upon an agreement between the author and the reader, this agreement between the author and the reader forms from reading other stories and books of the same genre (Mitchell, 94). Even though genres have these expectations, agreed on by the author and reader, does not mean that the story has to follow these conventions step by step. The Carolina Reader shows this by displaying two fairy tales, one after the other, for the reader to read. Both stories, “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood” by Charles Perrault and “There Was Once” by Margaret Atwood, show how all the conventions of a genre do not need to be followed step by step for them to be a part of the same genre. The Carolina Reader shows the reader that all conventions do not necessarily need to be followed by showing the text by Perrault that is the typical standards of the fairy tale genre, then by following it up by Atwood’s fairy tale that is structured like a fairy tale, but strays away from the usual conventions. 

In the fairy tale, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, Perrault displays the typical standards of fairy tales throughout the entire text. The reader might think that Perrault displays the typical standards of fairy tales because if one were to look at multiple books and stories within the same genre, the reader would be able to list the common characteristics that are seen in The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood (Mitchell, 94). Perrault displays a fairy tale starting off with “There were formerly a king and a queen, who were so sorry that they had no children,” (Carolina Reader, 503) this type of introduction is always used to start a fairy tale in some shape or form, the most famous is probably “once upon a time,” which is why it is a common characteristic in fairy tales. Perrault then says, “The princess shall indeed pierce with a spindle; but, instead of dying, she shall only fall into a profound sleep, which shall last a hundred years, at the expiration of which a king’s son shall come and awake her,” (Carolina Reader, 504) this tells the reader one of the conflicts in the fairy tale. A conflict in a fairy tale is a convention because in every fairy tale there is a conflict that needs to be resolved, when something is known to be in a genre it is called an agreement between the reader and author. Perrault shows the reader another convention when he says “They were brought out accordingly, and the executioners were just going to throw them into the tub, when the King (who was not so soon expected) entered the court on horse-back” (Carolina Reader, 510). This always happens in fairy tales, it seems like the antagonist is going to win, then right at the last second the protagonist comes out on top. This is the biggest convention to a lot of readers because it happens in every fairy tale. 

In the fairy tale, there was once the author, Margaret Atwood, displays a fairy tale starting off with “there was once a poor girl… who lived with her wicked stepmother,” this establishes the “once upon a time” kind of introduction that all fairy tales have. The author then says “in a house in the forest” which is later changed to “a house in the suburbs” this lets the reader know where the fairy tale is taking place or in other words the setting of the story. In this fairy tale, the author continues to change what comes after “there was once” this gets the reader to see that what comes after “there was once” is the subject of the writing and that, in other words, means that what comes after there was once is the theme of the fairy tale. Even though There Was Once has some qualities of a fairy tale it is not a typical fairy tale because unlike other fairy tales it does not finish the story of the girl who lived with her wicked stepmother but instead the story is an argument between two people within the text about the way the story should be presented. This shows the reader that the conflict of the story is about the way a story is presented between two characters within the text talking about the story. When learning about the argument between the two, the reader figures out that the story is not about the “poor girl” and the characters are not the poor girl and the stepmother but the story is about an idea of a story.

The Carolina Reader has the reader focus on these two stories, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood and There was Once, to point out the differences between the two to the reader. In the fairy tale, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood the author, Perrault, shows the reader how a fairy tale, with all its conventions and constraints, is setup and told. In the second fairy tale, there was once the author, Atwood, shows how a specific genre does not have to follow the conventions and constraints made up by an agreement between the author and the reader. Atwood breaks these conventions or traditions/standards to show the reader a different way to write and tell a fairy tale. The author of there was once shows the reader that breaking the constraints of a genre is okay because there is no specific way to write a fairy tale, there are only common characteristics that readers point out when looking at stories/books within the same genre (Mitchell, 94). Breaking the constraints of typical genre conventions exposes the reader to a different setup than usual. By doing this the author shows the reader there is more than one way to set up a fairy tale and the conventions agreed upon by the reader and author are just guidelines/suggestions. 
