Fairy Tales and Legends

The book’s exploration of the nature and influence of fairy tales and legends plays out on three levels: structurally, narratively, and thematically. Structurally, the narrative is itself constructed along the same lines as any number of fairy tales and legends. That is: a character in a challenging, unwelcoming home environment struggles to find a place in that environment and in the larger world; faces a series of challenges, many of which are to some degree mystical in origin; and, after a climactic challenge that has the potential to be life threatening, emerges triumphant and/or transformed. This is essentially the structure of Vasya’s story, the events of which form the structural foundations of the narrative – which, in its turn, leads to consideration of the second way in which the book integrates motifs from fairy tales. In the same way as structural...