“KILL THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF YOUR FIRST WIFE, AND PUT SOME OF THEIR BLOOD ON MY FOREHEAD”: POWER AND VIOLENCE IN THE COLLECTION OF INDIAN FAIRYTALES

Abstract

The human race is defined by its verbal expressions and subsequent actions based on these expressions which have a socio-historical account, and we obtain them from folk and fairy tales. Although the tales vary from one region to another with different participants, they are correlated with one another concerning their thematic significance related to political and family structures. Through the usage of folk and fairy tales, people make themselves familiar with the social world around them. The current study analyses the role of the main participants and the material processes that are involved in the selection of the corpus of 29 tales from the Indian Fairy Tales collection. The intended purpose of this analysis is bidirectional: firstly, to indicate the process that how violent actions, social status, and power are internally related in these tales and how this narrative is embedded within a visible social construction. Along with that, the researchers intend to establish the fact that the degree of violence and transgression in these tales does not suit publishers’ readings criteria in terms of tentative age which is generally applied to readers for children. The theoretical framework for this research study is taken from Alcantud (2010) which is based upon the principles of CDA and CL. The results confirm the idea that the verbal processes performed by the participants who execute the power that is provided to them by their social positioning could have influenced the potential readers (children) of these tales.