Common Japanese Fairytale Themes

I’m a really big fan of fairytales and legends and mythology from other cultures as I think it gives you an insight into the culture. I have been reading a bunch of Japanese fairy tales and I noticed some really common elements. I’ll share some of them with you here, along with the values they seem to reinforce.

1) Childless people

It has gotten to the point that if a story starts “There was once a man and his wife,” I can instantly tell that the next line will likely be something along the lines of, “They were very kind people but one thing troubled their hearts for they were childless and longed for a child to bring them joy in their old age.” In one book I must have read four or five stories that all started this way. Often the couple is older and has no child, but sometimes it’s a younger couple who work very hard to have a child. In one story the couple had a dog that they spoiled like a child. The virtue here seems to be that children are the greatest treasures of all.

2) Wicked Neighbors

It seems that beside every kind elderly couple lives a wicked elderly couple. Whenever the kind couple stumbles into some fortune or other the wicked couple grows jealous and tries to gain the same thing for themselves. This usually backfires, often due to their own greed, but instead of blaming themselves for their actions which led to trouble, they grow to hate their neighbors even more. This seems to be a pretty clear lesson of don’t covet your neighbor’s goods.

3) Horrid Stepmothers

Poor step-mothers. They really get a bad rap in fairytales the world over. Why is that exactly? The Japanese examples I’ve seen involve the step-mother being jealous of the attentions her new husband gives to his daughter. And the stepmother often tries to kill the girl, or at least tries to have her driven away by telling lies about her to her father. The stepmothers are always found out in the end and they either repent and learn to love the child or are driven away themselves. At first I would think that this was a lesson to be kind to your children, but the primary focus always seems to be on the daughter who endures the hardship patiently and remains dutiful to her stepmother despite her obvious malice. While I think both messages persist in these tales (especially when the stepmothers repent and learn to love their stepchildren) the big message always seems to be honor your parents no matter what.



This picture has nothing to do with stepmothers,
buuuuuuuuuuut I didn't have a picture for that one.