FAIRY TALE AS ONE OF THE MANIFESTATIONS OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Sopio Totibadze
PhD Student, Tbilisi State University, GEORGIA, sofiototibadze@yahoo.com

Abstract

Political fiction has a long history, dating back as far as Aristophanes and Plato. Being concerned with the themes like criticism of the contemporary ruling power, their policies, unjustness and social problems, political fiction has been used by authors like Jonathan Swift, Thomas More, George Orwell and many others.

Fairy tales, at first glance intended for children, convey a wide range of implications including the social and political issues. For example, Brothers Grimm are said to have played a great role in forming a German national identity. Fighting against the French occupation, the authors believed that spreading national consciousness through their fairy tales would encourage children, and not only, to strengthen the cultural identity.  However, Brothers Grimm national propaganda later led to extremes and turned into popularizing the Nazi. Nevertheless, at the same time, it proved that fairy tales are quite capable of spreading prejudice among the persuadable audience. George Orwell’s Animal Farm, a fairy story, is an outstanding allegorical novel against the Soviet Union and Stalinism, whereas some of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales can be considered to be one of the best political tales of his time.

This paper studies the political fiction of Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and George Orwell, as well as the Georgian and American modern writers’ political discourse manifested in tales and its implications. Based on comparative and qualitative methodology of research, the tales are divided into expressly, subversively or accidentally political tales and discussed from the standpoint of  hidden or obvious political messages, their historical background and importance. As well as this, it discusses the reasons behind the increasing popularity of political fairy tales in the 21st century. Indeed, the study generates a clear image that the authors use the fairy tales to explore the socio-political state of the country and express their opinions. They have found a perfect way to get across their ideas and reshape the most important part of the society- the future generation.

Keywords: politics, politically incorrect, sociolinguistics, fairy tale.