Stories influence a person as a whole. Good stories provide us with codes of conduct(honesty, courage, kindness) and good examples(King David, Abraham Lincoln). Positing that there is a contrast between fairy tales and Aesop`s fables in terms of ethic...
Stories influence a person as a whole. Good stories provide us with codes of conduct(honesty, courage, kindness) and good examples(King David, Abraham Lincoln). Positing that there is a contrast between fairy tales and Aesop`s fables in terms of ethical codes and characters, this study was conducted to compare young children`s responses to the characters in fairy tales with their responses to those in Aesop`s fables. The subjects were 160 five and six-year old children (80 girls, 80 boys) randomly selected from three kindergartens located in Seoul. Data were collected by interviewing each child after a group story-telling of a fairy tale and an Aesop`s fable. The fairy tales used in this study were Hansel and Gretel and The Sun and the Moon. The fables used for this study were The Fox and the Stork and The Ant and the Glasshopper. The data were analyzed by a chi-square test. The findings of this study are as follows: 1. Children showed stronger feelings of liking and disliking for the characters in fairy tales than for those in Aesop`s fables. 2. Children were more likely to identify with the main characters of fairy tales than with those of Aesop`s fables. 3. There was a distinct difference in some young children`s criteria for liking, disliking, or identifying with the characters of fairy tales and of Aesop`s fables: they tended to judge characters in terms of gender and good/bad behavior in fairy tales and by external features and morality in Aesop`s fables.