7 Basic Fairy Tale StoriesBy Natalia D.

Achilles(Heroes with a flaws)

Contemporary superheroes are influenced by classical heroes in their characteristics, as well as missions. Modern literature and comics basing their villains and heroes on ancient Greek and Roman stories, they’re very easy to adapt in modern life as they deal with ageless lessons.

e.g. Achilles with only his heel as a week point and Superman dealing with hiding his identity.

Cinderella (Rags to Riches)

Rags to riches refers to any situation, in which a person rises from poverty to wealth, and in some cases from absolute obscurity to heights of fame, most of the modern literatures and movies base their stories on Cinderella. e.g. poor Cinderella marries reach prince; Pretty Women- Prostitute meets reach Businessman.

Dr. Faust (Sell your soul to the devil)

• Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend. He is a scholar who is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. All the stories-new and old tells that selling your soul to the Devil may bring riches, but eventually, you will belong to him.

• e.g. Wall Street movie shows the same story that shows a men dealing with devil, which goes to the same moral.

Romeo & Juliet (Romance)

• Some of the elements in the love story have changed over time. In the ancient world and during the Middle Ages, love stories did not have happy endings, and they focused on love outside of social and economic status. This was an innovation at that time, because most marriages were arranged and the partners were of the same social class. In the modern stories we can often see true love win, although many of them are based on a tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

• e.g. In Sleepless in Seattle the women and men tries to meet each other even though there is so many adversity like distance between them.

Orpheus(Loss of something personal)

In the original Orpheus myth, he losses his loved one – a wife (Eurydice), then he tries to release her from underworld. Many modern stories are rewritten to modern life but characters are dealing with the same ageless problem of loosing something personal.

e.g. Regarding Henry losses his memory in the accident.

Tristan & Isolde (Men meets women but one or both are spoken for)

• It has become an influential romance and tragedy, retold in numerous sources with many variations. The tragic story is of the adulterous love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Isolde. While the details of the story differ from one author to another, the overall plot structure remains much the same.

• e.g. the plot of Fatal Attraction shows a story od married men attracted to other women.

Circe (The Chase)

Circe was a goddess that changed her enemies into a pigs, this myth inspired many modern artists. For example, in the movie The Blues Brothers the brothers are also making enemies and both of them teach us the same lesson.