By: Sophisticated

I despise stories that have a overly happy ending. Fairy tales and children’s stories, any Nicholas Sparks novel. I can’t read them. My reasoning is simple: they are unoriginal, and not true to life. Every single story is almost completely foreshadowed in the first few chapters of the story. And always with the happy endings. When really, I love stories that don’t have happy endings. I feel that I can relate to these stories much more than the ones with happy endings. For example, in my honest opinion, I think the Grimm’s fairy tales should be the more widely accepted versions.

Modern day Cinderella, an unfortunate girl is made into a slave by the evil step mother until she goes to the ball, and loses a glass slipper. Weirdly enough, every part of Cinderella’s outfit disappears after the clock strikes 12 EXCEPT for the shoe the Prince is to find. And after he finds it, he finds Cinderella, places the shoe on her foot and finds that she is the love of his life, they live happily ever after, whatever. Boring. But the Grimm’s stories seem to have more to do with teaching lessons. For example, in the Grimm’s tales, the Prince places the slipper on both the step sisters, who have both cut off their heel and their big toe in order to fit their feet into the glass shoe. A bird is what rats them out, and the sisters are shamed forever. This would teach children not to lie, they will always be caught, and they will not be well liked after they are caught. Unfortunately, scaring your children into submission is unacceptable parenting.

I think happy endings can more negatively affect children than they do any good. As a child, I never feared a monster under my bed, and I never read fairy tales like Cinderella until I was 8 years old. I grew up knowing who the real monsters were in life. I grew up not having unrealistic expectations of love, and most importantly, I learned that in my life, things could go wrong. And that these things may never change. I learned about consequences for lying, or stealing, or even the consequences of bullying somebody. I think it is important for young readers to know the true horror of their actions, even if it scares them. I think young readers should learn that their life will not be a fairy tale. Maybe if readers knew this, they would work more on making themselves happy rather than waiting for it to happen.