“The mythologist usually notices that in an identical or remolded form the same tales, the same characters, and the same motifs reappear in the tales and myths of a given community. “ This quote made by Levi-Strauss (176) is quite accurate in most of this quote, though he fails to see that folktales and myths hold no boundaries. Such tales have such a long life expectancy and impact that it’s impossible for them to be withheld behind a community’s borders.
fig. 1
For reference to this argument, we can take a look back to the folktale, Rapunzel. Rapunzel, like a surprising amount of other folktales, has many links across the globe. "Though the version most are acquainted with in modern day is German (Grimm,), there are many versions throughout the world, such as the earlier Italian, Petrosinella [1634], and South Africa’s Uzembeni [1987]" (Heiner, 4). However the root of the Rapunzel stories are linked back to the Iranian epic, Shahnameh [1010], to a Princess named Rudaba. Rudaba provides the same symbolic visuals as well as functions the European Rapunzel does. A girl with an overprotective parent and long stair-like tresses is ‘saved’ by a suitor hero. Though Rudaba (fig.1) first appeared in 1000 AD, the basis of her story still lives on through modern times.
fig. 2
Traveling to the opposite end of the spectrum of Rapunzel’s timeline, we can see the most modern spinning of this tale found in Disney’s recent motion picture, Tangled [2010], shown in fig. 2. All of these stories, regardless of how huge the time difference between them, still follow the main component and storyline. They all share 15 of Propp’s given functions (though the movie, Tangled, holds 28 functions due to a more stretched in-depth narrative). Overall the shining values found in this folktale have survived and proven itself to still be valid through the last thousand years.
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