The specificity of the performance of fairy tales about animals. Tale about animals: system of images, plot typology, poetics. Need help with a topic

Relying on the rich imagery of a satirical folk tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin interpreted complex social phenomena with the help of unsurpassed examples of brevity. Every word, epithet, metaphor, comparison, every artistic image in his fairy tales has a high ideological and artistic value, concentrates a huge satirical power. In this regard, those tales in which representatives of the animal world act are especially noteworthy.

Images of the animal kingdom have long been inherent in the fable and the satirical tale about animals. Under the guise of a story about animals, the people acquired some freedom to attack their oppressors and the opportunity to speak in an intelligible, funny, witty manner about serious things. Usually, in folklore tales about animals, the heroes are animals such as bear, wolf, fox, hare, etc., endowed with the same, generally accepted character traits. The hare is cowardly, the fox is cunning, the wolf is greedy, stupid, the bear is clumsy, good-natured. This form of artistic narration, beloved by the people, found wide application in Shchedrin's fairy tales.

The animals presented in Shchedrin's fairy tales testify to the great mastery of the satirist in the field of allegory and artistic allegory. The choice of representatives of the animal kingdom for allegories in Shchedrin's fairy tales is always subtly motivated and is based on the folklore and fairy tale and literary fable tradition.

Saltykov-Shchedrin used images fixed in the fairy-tale and fable tradition (lion, bear, donkey, wolf, fox, hare, pike, eagle, etc.), and also, starting from this tradition, extremely successfully created other images, such as crucian carp, minnow, roach, hyena, etc. Saltykov-Shchedrin in his tales supplements the characteristics, assigns these animals social status; a hare is a layman, a bear is a ruler, an eagle is an autocrat, crows are peasants, a scribbler is a petty official, etc.

The image of the bear as a stupid, self-satisfied, limited official, quick to be punished, appears more than once, personifying ruthless tyranny. The philistine scribbler "lived - trembled and died - trembled" M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin. coll. cit: In 20 volumes - M., 1965 - 1977.C.142., without trying to do something or change. An idealistic crucian who knows nothing about nets or ears is doomed to death.

In the fairy tale "Selfless Hare". Saltykov-Shchedrin shows a lot positive traits hare: nobility, love for neighbors, honesty, directness, but all of them are meaningless in front of slavish obedience and fear of disobeying the wolf, that is, power. The hare plays here the same role as in Russian fairy tales, but in folk stories about animals, the weakest is almost always the winner.

The hidden meaning of the fabulous allegory of Saltykov-Shchedrin is easily comprehended by the reader from the figurative pictures of folk tales and fables themselves and, due to the fact that the satirist often accompanies his allegorical images with direct allusions to the hidden meaning.

The special poetic charm and irresistible artistic persuasiveness of Shchedrin's tales lies in the fact that no matter how the satirist "humanizes" his zoological pictures, no matter how difficult the roles he entrusts to the "tailed" heroes, the latter always retain their main natural properties. Smirnov A.A. A manual on Russian literature for applicants to universities. - M.: Publishing House of Moscow State University, 1993. C.67.

Each fairy-tale genre is distinguished by its originality of fiction and narrative form, is original in origin, is characterized by special types of heroes inherent only to it and an independent circle of plots.

Tales about animals (or animal epic) are distinguished by the main feature that their main characters are animals. Especially popular were the tales "A fox steals fish from a cart (sleigh)", "Animals in a pit", "Cat, rooster and fox", "Cat and wild animals", "Fool wolf", "Luplen goat".

In world folklore, about 140 plots of the animal epic are known, in Russian - 119. A significant part of them are original. So, among other nations there are no fairy tales "The midwife", "The cat, the rooster and the fox", "The wolf visiting the dog", "The house of the fly". The originality and freshness of the East Slavic animal epic has been noted more than once. However, in the repertoire of all fairy tales, it occupies only about 10% of the plots and is relatively uncommon (only a few fairy tales have been recorded more than 10 times).

In fairy tales about animals, traces of that period of primitive housekeeping have been preserved, when man could only appropriate the products of nature, but had not yet learned how to reproduce them. The main source of life for people at that time was hunting, and cunning, the ability to deceive the beast played important role in the fight for survival. Therefore, a noticeable compositional device of the animal epic is deception in its various forms: insidious advice, unexpected fright, voice change and other pretense. The experience of the ancient hunters is connected with the constantly mentioned pen pit. He who knows how to outwit, deceive, wins and receives a benefit for himself. The Russian fairy tale assigned this quality to one of its central characters, the fox.

Fairy tales often feature representatives wildlife. These are the inhabitants of forests, fields, steppes: a fox, a bear, a wolf, a wild boar, a hare, a hedgehog, a frog, a mouse. Birds are represented in various ways: raven, sparrow, heron, crane, woodpecker, black grouse, owl. There are insects: a fly, a mosquito, a bee, an ant, a spider; less often - fish: pike, perch.

As historical development fairy tales began to appear about domesticated domestic animals and birds. The Slavs were surrounded daily and became characters in their fairy tales: an ox, a horse, a ram, a sheep, a dog, a cat, a rooster, a duck, a goose. The man himself entered the fairy tales as an equal participant in the events. Since JTH fairy tales were intended for a very long time mainly for lay listeners, the people acting in them also acquired a m`-ization understandable to children: grandfather, woman, grandson, granddaughter. The human mind and friendship, mutual assistance of domestic animals began to be opposed to the brute force and cunning of the inhabitants of the wild.

The most archaic plot layer of the animal epic belongs to the pre-agricultural period. These tales mostly reflect the real ancient life, and not the worldview of people, which was then in its infancy. Direct echoes of beliefs, the deification of the beast, are found in a single fairy tale - "The Bear on a Linden Leg." Beliefs Eastern Slavs about the bear, a variety of information from folklore, ethnography and archeology testify that here, like among many other peoples, the bear was indeed deified. The tale "The Bear on a Linden Leg" recalls the once-existing ban on harming him. In all other tales, the bear is fooled and ridiculed.

For example: “Once upon a time there was a grandmother. She went into the forest through brushwood. Suddenly she hears: it cracked in the swamp, it hit in the woods - the bear is going.

- Grandma, grandma, I'll eat a filly.

“Don’t eat, so-and-so, I’ll give you a car.”

Another time she promised the bear a strong man, and the third time she promised him a tombolk. But when the beast came to the village for this, it turned out that the car was a warm oven, on which the grandmother was lying; krepushka - a tightly locked gate; potombalka - "does not go to the forest and has no luck with firewood" ("The Bear and the Old Woman").

Here you can name many plots: "Cat and wild animals", "Bear learns to play the violin (or carpentry)", "Man, bear and fox". More stupid than a bear is, perhaps, only a wolf.

The mockery of the beast indicates the decay of the totem cult. It is no coincidence that the "bear fun" was widespread among the Eastern Slavs - a dramatized amusement, a grotesque mockery of the rites of the past. In relation to the main plot corpus of the Russian animal epic, we have the right to speak not about traces of totemism, but only about a fantastic device for endowing animals with human speech and reason, that is, about the purely artistic convention of these images.

Russian fairy tales about animals are associated with laughter and even with naturalistic details, which, according to the observations of V. A. Bakhtina, “are perceived as fantastic and have a deep meaningful character. serves as one of the means of characterization of the character ... ". In the animal epic, traces of the professional art of buffoons, wandering entertainers, who usually played "bear fun" were preserved. It is no coincidence that part of the repertoire of fairy tales about animals turned out to be directly opposite to the tasks of folk pedagogy. In terms of their crude, albeit witty, erotic content, such tales began to be intended exclusively for a male audience, joining a certain group of anecdotal tales.

Later, under the influence of literature (in particular, with the penetration of translations of Aesop's fables into Russia in the 18th century), the satirical stream noticeably intensified in the Russian animal epic, the theme of social denunciation appeared, prompted by life itself.

For example, the tale of a fox who intended to "confess" a rooster underwent a series of literary alterations in manuscripts, printed collections and in popular prints. As a result, elements of the bookish style, satirically imitating the speech of the clergy, penetrated into the folk rendition of this tale.

Satire, as well as naturalistic erotica, found their further development in an oral anecdote with animal characters. In general, animal tales broadly reflect human life. They capture the peasant life, a rich range of human qualities, human ideals. Fairy tales figuratively summarized the labor and life experience of people. Performing an important didactic and cognitive task, they passed on knowledge from adults to children.

Animal stories are very different from literary fable. In fables, allegory is born speculatively, in a deductive way, therefore it is always unidirectional and abstract. Fairy tales, on the other hand, come from life's concreteness, preserving, for all the conventionality of their characters, their lively charm, naive plausibility. Fairy tales combine human and animal in the images of animals with the help of humor and fun. As if playing with words, having fun, the storytellers observantly and accurately recreated the features of the real inhabitants of their native fauna. The child-listener was also involved in the process of word creation, for whom acquaintance with the outside world and learning speech turned into an exciting game.

A. M. Smirnov compared the variants of the fairy tale "Terem flies". “The whole artistic meaning of it,” the researcher wrote, “is to give as accurate a designation as possible, to vividly depict the subject, to emphasize its characteristic essence in one or two words.” In the poetic speech of the storyteller, new words often arose under the influence of alliteration, rhyme, rhythm - for the sake of word game. At the same time, the fairy tale "Terem of the fly" contains numerous examples of the semantic origin of new words: each animal evoked its own series of impressions, and this was developed in versions of the tale by its different performers.

The nicknames of the frog were associated with the sounds it made in the water: rakhotuha on the water, skunk toad, frog frog, balagta on the water. The bunny aroused visual impressions: Ivanov's son, the white bunny, the runaway bunny, the lapan bunny, the stray bunny. The bear and the wolf were accompanied by nicknames of a motor character: at the lair, a felt tree, forest oppression, an oppressor to everyone, you crush everyone, "Misha Korchin - he came to make you wrangle." The fox received evaluation characteristics: fox-beauty, fox-beauty, fox-gossip, fox-sister, when talking beauty, "I am a fox, butter gubiid, divya beauty, raspberry color"; and also: the fox is sly, the fox is affectionate words. Lisa Patrikeevna. But what nicknames did the tales of the cat so famous for them endow: a cat, a cat, a cat-cat - a gray pubis, a purr ~ lyshko, Vaska the cat, Kotofey Ivanovich, a gray cat, a mischievous cat, a mighty cat, a cat.

The pedagogical orientation of fairy tales about animals also corresponds to their other features. Game performance was combined with a clear, didactically naked idea of ​​the plot, artistic simplicity of form. Fairy tales have a small volume and a distinct composition, the universal device of which is the meeting of characters and dramatized dialogue. The writer and folklorist D. M. Balashov noted that in children's fairy tales "the bear speaks in a low, rough voice, the grandmother speaks in a thin voice, etc. Such a manner is not typical when telling "adult" fairy tales."

Songs are often included in the narrative.

For example, the song of a kolobok concretely and figuratively depicts the process of its preparation. In another tale, the song reveals the rough voice of a wolf pretending to be the mother of goats. The wolf makes the blacksmith "reforge" his throat and again repeats the goat's song, but in a thin voice. And the fairy tale "The Cat, the Rooster and the Fox" turns into a kind of creative competition between the insidious fox and the devoted friend - the cat. In nature, the cockerel is the most "melodious" among these animals, but the fairy tale assigns him only the role of a gullible listener of fox songs seduced by flattery, whom the fox carries away. However, in the end, she herself becomes a victim of such a deception, as she is fascinated by the artistry of the cat:

"... Not finding his comrade, carried away by the villainous fox, the cat grieved, grieved and went to help him out of trouble. He bought himself a caftan, red boots, a hat, a bag, a saber and a harp; dressed up as a harpman, came to the fox hut and sings:

Tribulation, goslings,

Golden strings!

Is Lisafya at home

With my kids…”

Thanks to dialogues and songs, the performance of each fairy tale turned into a small performance.

Structurally, the works of the animal epic are diverse.

There are single-motif tales ("The Wolf and the Pig", "The Fox drowns the jug"), but they are rare, since the principle of repetition is very developed. First of all, it manifests itself in various types of cumulative plots. Among them - a three-time repetition of the meeting ("Bast and ice hut"). Plots are known with a multiple line of repetition ("Fool Wolf"), which can sometimes claim to develop into a bad infinity ("The Crane and the Heron"). But most often cumulative plots are presented as multiply (up to 7 times) increasing or decreasing frequency. The last link has a resolving possibility. So, only the last of all and the smallest - the mouse - helps to pull out a big, big turnip, and the “terem of the fly” exists until the last and largest of the animals comes - the bear.

For the composition of fairy tales about animals, contamination is of great importance. Only in a small part of these tales are stable plots, but in the main, the index does not reflect plots, but only motives. The motifs connect with each other in the process of storytelling, but are almost never performed separately. Contamination of these motifs can be both free and fixed by tradition, stable. For example, the motifs "The fox steals fish from the cart" and "The wolf at the hole" are always told together.

Zueva T.V., Kirdan B.P. Russian folklore - M., 2002

Tales about animals are a kind of fairy tale genre. Having arisen in ancient times, they reflected the observations of the animals of a man of primitive society - a hunter and a trapper, and then a cattle breeder. The meaning of these fairy tales in those days consisted, first of all, in the transfer of life experience and knowledge about the animal world to young people. At first, simple stories about animals, birds and fish were formed. Later, with the development of artistic thinking, stories turned into fairy tales. The genre was formed for a long time, enriched with plots, types of characters, developing certain structural features. With the development of human ideas about nature, with the accumulation of observations, fairy tales include stories about the victory of man over animals and about domestic animals, which was the result of their domestication. These stories are very simple and everyday. Their spatial world is limited to the situation of the Russian village. The range of problems that the heroes have to solve is very grounded: how to lure a rooster out of the house, how to spend the winter in the forest, how to satisfy hunger, get out of the pit, etc. In fairy tales about animals, animals, and birds, and fish, and in some, plants also act. V.Ya. Propp in the index attached to the third volume of Russian folk tales by A.N. Afanasiev (1957) identifies six groups of fairy tales of this type:

• 1) fairy tales about wild animals;
• 2) fairy tales about wild and domestic animals;
• 3) fairy tales about man and wild animals;
• 4) fairy tales about domestic animals;
• 5) fairy tales about birds, fish, etc.;
• 6) fairy tales about other animals, plants, etc. [Eleonskaya E.N. 1994:272].

The spiritualization of nature, coming from animistic views, has become a familiar convention of many fairy tales, ballad songs. But the animals themselves in them, having the ability to speak and think, are not the main characters. They act as wonderful helpers, or as conditional characters that help to reveal the emotional experiences of a person. In addition, fairy tales such as "The Lynx Girl", in which the stepmother turns her stepdaughter into a lynx, the husband skins her, burns her, and thereby removes the spell, do not belong to fairy tales about animals. The fairy tale "Ivan Medvedko" cannot be attributed to fairy tales about animals, where the hero is "a man to the waist, and a bear from the waist."

Afanasiev himself divided fairy tales into those where the animal is the subject or the main object of the narrative. For example, "Midwife Fox", "Fox and Crane", "Fool Wolf", etc. However, there are fairy tales in which the characters are both humans and animals. But in the fairy tale "The Wolf at the Hole", the main character is undoubtedly the wolf fishing, and not the women going to the hole and beating the wolf. This classification is not absolutely reliable. In some fairy tales, animals and people perform on equal rights: "The bear is a fake leg." Thus, the plot typology of animals is not a fully explored topic and has many questions and mysteries.

The characters of the characters in fairy tales about animals are most developed. It is no coincidence that we easily notice any substitution of characters in the plots and perceive it as a violation of tradition. In tales about animals, each image receives an individual development. Most often in fairy tales about animals there are a fox and a wolf. This is explained by the fact that, firstly, a person most often had to deal with them in economic activity; secondly, these beasts occupy the middle in the animal kingdom in size and strength; finally, thirdly, thanks to the previous two reasons, a person had the opportunity to get to know them very closely. But no less often there are other characters in fairy tales - wild and domestic animals - a bear, a hare, a ram, a dog, fish, a cat, insects, etc. Each of the characters is an image of a very specific animal or bird. The characteristics of the characters are based on observations of the habits, demeanor of the beast, and its appearance. Also, in the images of animals, parallels are drawn with the qualities of a person: animals speak and behave like people. This combination led to the typification of the characters of animals, which became the embodiment of certain qualities: the fox - cunning, the wolf - stupidity and greed, the bear - gullibility and ingenuity, the hare - cowardice. So fairy tales acquired an allegorical meaning: animals began to be understood as people of certain characters. Animal images became a means of moral teaching, and then of social satire. Animal tales not only ridicule negative qualities(stupidity, laziness, talkativeness), but the oppression of the weak, greed, deceit for profit are also condemned. However, there is hardly any reason to believe that human features are depicted in all images of animals. The peculiarity of the image of an animal in fairy tales lies precisely in the fact that the human features in it never completely crowd out the features of the animal. No matter how developed allegory is in fairy tales of this type, one can also find patterns in them in which it is difficult to detect allegory. The well-known tale of the fox and the black grouse contains a clear allegory; it is obvious from a number of details: a fox, for example, tells a grouse about a decree requiring grouse not to fly up a tree, but to walk on the ground. But in the fairy tale "The Bear is a fake foot" or in the fairy tale "The Wolf and the Goats", there is probably no allegory. These tales captivate not with allegory, but with the depiction of action. In fairy tales about animals, the analogy "man-animal" does not allow the fairy tale to miss either the qualities of a person or the qualities of an animal. This is the originality of fairy tales, this is a special aesthetic effect. And it is in the interweaving, intersection of the animal and the human in the unexpected contact of these, in essence, different planes (conditional and real) that the effect of the comic in the animal fairy tale lies. In moral terms, two main ideas of animal tales can be distinguished: the glorification of camaraderie, thanks to which the weak defeat the evil and strong, and the glorification of victory itself, which brings moral satisfaction to the listeners. The wolf is often stupid, but this is not its main feature: it is cruel, ferocious, angry, greedy - these are its main qualities. He eats a horse from a poor old man, breaks into "the winter quarters of animals" and violates their peaceful life, he wants to eat goats. Peaceful animals, even if they are stupid, achieve victory: the ram fools the wolf, the sheep and the fox defeat the wolf. The fox wants to eat a rooster, a black grouse. But if she, along with other animals, opposes the wolf, then she receives a positive assessment, if she harms others - negative [Morokhin V. N. 1975: 514].

The wolf in fairy tales traditionally personifies greed and malice. He is often portrayed as stupid, so he is often fooled by more cunning characters in fairy tales, such as the Fox. The opposition of these two strong animal characters is found in many fairy tales, and in almost all the wolf, being slow-witted and short-sighted, again and again allows itself to be deceived. However, in ancient cultures, the image of a wolf was associated with death, so in fairy tales this animal character often eats someone (“The Wolf and the Seven Kids”) or disturbs the quiet life of animals (“The Wintering of Animals”).

A dexterous, strong and fearless bear gets a manner of clumsiness, sluggishness and slow-wittedness. These qualities were attributed to him to ridicule him as an enemy of the peasant. The scary ceased to be scary. In the fairy tale “The Bear is a Lime Foot”, the bear is neither stupid nor gullible, as we are used to seeing him in other fairy tales. The tale resonates with untouched ancient beliefs. The bear did not leave a single insult unavenged. He takes revenge according to all the rules of the tribal law: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But this is rather an exception. Indeed, in animal tales, the bear most often appears as a simpleton. But in more ancient sources, the bear is shown as a friend or brother of a person, enters into a marriage with a woman, has a son belonging to the human team, fights with evil spirit brings wealth to a person. The bear has a dual nature: he is the master of both the forest and a creature closely related to man.

There is a very noticeable ambivalence towards the fox. She is a robber, a godfather, a bear and a drag, but smarter and more cunning than all other animals, which cannot but cause a certain sympathy. An aesthetic image also gives it liveliness and dexterity: an elegant skin, an elegant muzzle, a bright tail. The fox appears to be a crafty, treacherous, cunning beast, with its cunning taking precedence over other animals stronger than it - over the wolf and the bear. But with all this, she easily manages to maintain good relations with all deceived. Another one of her characteristic This is, of course, hypocrisy. In fairy tales, the fox has a number of nicknames: Kuma-fox, fox-sister, fox-Patrikeevna, Lizaveta Ivanovna, etc. In addition, in the animal world of fairy tales there is a special type of hero - a trickster, a rogue and a deceiver, which she most often acts as. This is a stable image, which is dominated by cunning, a tendency to deceit and tricks. The fox will do anything to get her own - she will pretend to be weak and helpless, use all her charm and eloquence. In Russian fairy tales, the trickster is opposed to a simpleton character. It can be a wolf, which the fox successfully fools, a rooster (“Cat, a rooster and a fox”), or a weak hare, whom she drives out of her hut (“The Fox and the Hare”). Initially, in myth, it was his unusual behavior that contributed to the creation of the world and the acquisition of knowledge. Unlike the myth, the trickster fox is often punished for its antics, especially when it attacks weak, helpless heroes. For example, the Fox in the fairy tale "The Chanterelle with a Rolling Pin" flees and hides in a hole.

The structure of animal tales is quite simple. The basis of the composition is the structure of the plot. Depending on the course of action, the entire narrative material is distributed. The most remarkable structural feature for animal tales is the so-called cumulative or chain structure. The rooster choked on a bean seed, the hen runs from one to another, asking for help until she saves the rooster ("Bean Seed"); the fly built a tower, they come to her in turn different animals: one, another, third ... ("Teremok"). The same structure is in the fairy tales “Gingerbread Man” and “Goat with Nuts. The meeting of animals with each other is very characteristic of the development of the action. As Yu. M. Sokolov rightly noted, in the plot of fairy tales about animals, the method of meetings is very widely used - meetings of animals with each other or with a person. So, at the heart of the fairy tale "The Fox, the Hare and the Rooster" is the meeting of the hare with the fox, dogs, bear, bull and rooster. In the fairy tale "Old Bread and Salt Is Forgotten", a man first meets a wolf, and then together they meet a horse, a dog and a fox. The reception of meetings is the best possible answer to the ideological and artistic task of fairy tales about animals. On the one hand, some elements of the real are transmitted through it (meetings between animals and people with animals are quite possible). On the other hand, this technique makes it possible to bring together, push any animals in the plot, rewarding them with appropriate qualities and actions, thus conveying the most incredible, surreal and fantastic. But the meeting is usually just the beginning of a whole series of other meetings. Quite typical in fairy tales is the three-fold situation: three times the fox turns to the rooster and three times to the black grouse; three times the wolf comes to the goat's hut. In fairy tales about animals, dialogism is developed much more than in fairy tales of another type: it moves the action, reveals situations, and shows the state of the characters. Songs are widely introduced into fairy tales: a fox lures a rooster with a song, a wolf deceives kids with a song, a gingerbread man runs and sings a song: “I’m scraping in a box, sweeping in the bottom of the barrel ...” There are fairy tales, the main content of which is transmitted only through dialogues: for example, fairy tales “ Sheep, fox and wolf"; "Fox and black grouse"; "Wolf and goat". Dialogue is so widely used in fairy tales about animals because it is one of the simplest and at the same time effective forms of endowing animals with human signs and qualities (speech and judgment). The amazing in such a fairy tale is achieved by a peculiar combination of the real and the unreal, the human and the animal. That is what makes the story interesting for the listener.

The beginning of fairy tales is characterized by the construction “once there was an old man and an old woman” (various variants). Accordingly, in fairy tales about animals we find: “once there was a godfather with a godfather - a wolf with a fox”, “once there were a wolf and a fox”, “once there were a fox and a hare”. The plot of some of them has a small exposition. So, for example, the fairy tale “The Wolf and the Goat” begins with such an exposition: “Once upon a time there was a goat, she made herself a hut in the forest and gave birth to children. The goat often went to the forest to look for food; as soon as she leaves, the kids will lock the hut behind her, but they themselves will not go anywhere. The goat comes back, knocks on the door and sings: “Kids, kids! Open up, open up! .. "And the kids unlock the door." The given exposition characterizes the situation preceding the development of the action, gives some motivation to a certain plot. However, it already contains fabulousness, it paints a very amazing picture: a goat and her children have human qualities. Most of the tales about animals do not have any exposition, but immediately begin with a plot. For example, the fairy tale “The Animals in the Pit” begins with such a plot: “The pig went to St. Petersburg to pray to God. She comes across a wolf to meet her: “Pig, pig, where are you going?” - "To Peter, pray to God." - "Take me too." - "Let's go, kumanek!". The main purpose of these beginnings is to surprise the listener with an unusual situation, to rive his attention to the incredible and unusual. So, undoubtedly, it is surprising that a bear comes up to an old man in the forest and says to him in a human voice: "Old man, let's fight." No less surprising is the fact that a pig goes to St. Petersburg to pray to God, and a wolf suggests itself as a peaceful companion [Propp V.Ya. 2000:416]

The beginning of the story is followed by the development of the plot. But it must be said at once that the plot in fairy tales about animals has not received any significant development, it is very simple. Sometimes it consists of any one situation, one small episode. Most often, the plot, as mentioned earlier, is a kind of ordinary, rural picture, which is a more or less expected end, prepared in a certain way. Many animal tales are built on insidious advice ("The Fool Wolf"), an unexpected fright ("The Bast and Ice Hut") or deceit ("The Midwife Fox").

The endings of animal tales are usually quite predictable and short. Most often, this is fooling a simpleton hero (for example, a goat offers an ox to stand downhill and open its mouth so that it can jump into its mouth, and the mass knocks over the wolf and runs away) or punishing the cunning one (this is what happens in the Bast and Ice Cabin). Animal tales are currently aimed at a children's audience. They are characterized by the process of transition to the genre of a joke or a funny fairy tale as a result of detaching a song from a fairy tale, which is already performed as an independent work in the form of a joke, or as a result of the transition of a fairy tale into rhythmic prose. It is worth noting the importance of fairy tales about animals. They not only moralize, showing through animals the purely human aspects of good and evil, aspects of human behavior, but also equate man with animals, thus removing a certain idealization of man, the fact of his superiority over animals. The structure of animal tales is quite simple. The basis of the composition is the structure of the plot.

chain structure

The most remarkable feature of the plot structure of this type of fairy tales is the stringing of episodes. The meeting of animals with each other is very characteristic of the development of the action. But the meeting is usually just the beginning of a series of other meetings. Quite typical of animal tales is the so-called cumulative or chain structure. The beginning of the tale is characterized by the construction “there once was an old man and an old woman” (there may be different options).

Dialogism

It is much more developed than in fairy tales of another type: it moves the action, reveals situations, shows the state of the characters.

Optimism

Tales about animals are characterized by bright optimism: the weak always get out of difficult situations. It is supported by the comedy of many situations and humor [Okladnikov A.P. 1967:392].

Undoubtedly, fairy tales about animals are actively circulating at the present time. Children not only listen willingly, but also tell them themselves, supplementing them with fairy tales gleaned from books. Tales about animals are widely published in numerous children's books and school anthologies, as a rule, repeating the same texts, which is facilitated by the small size of the tales and the limited number of plots. This explains why the records of animal tales have only minor variant differences. The erasure of local features in fairy tales leads to the establishment of a single all-Russian repertoire of fairy tales about animals, stable in plot construction and poetics. In fairy tales about animals, all the features characteristic of people, their reactions and certain actions are presented on the example of animals. They act as the main symbols of the human character, its vices, shortcomings, stupidity and greed. They also show examples of kindness and care, which at an early age should be perceived by children as standards of behavior in adulthood.

The system of images in fairy tales about animals

The system of characters in Russian folk tales about animals is represented, as a rule, by images of wild and domestic animals. The images of wild animals clearly predominate over the images of domestic animals: fox, wolf, bear, hare, and among birds - crane, heron, thrush, woodpecker, sparrow, raven, etc. Domestic animals are much less common, and appear not as independent or leading characters, but only in conjunction with forest: dog, cat, goat, ram, horse, pig, bull, from domestic birds - goose, duck and rooster. There are no fairy tales only about domestic animals in Russian folklore.

As mentioned a little earlier, in fairy tales about animals, fish, animals, birds act; they talk to each other, declare war on each other, make peace. Such tales are based on totemism (belief in a totem beast, the patron of the family.)