Answer to Question #300336 in English for 123

Question

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them

to be more intelligent read them more fairy tales” Albert Einstein.

In an essay of no more than 1000 words, discuss how stories such as fairy tales can

stimulate the imagination of young readers and why the imagination is so important to a

young person’s development. Use examples from two fairy tales that you are familiar

with to support your argument. 

Answer 1

Fairy tales increasing intelligence

Fairy tales have been majorly used to instill knowledge among kids with some of the mythical tales including entities such as dwarfs, dragons, talking animals, trolls, unicorns, and enchantments among others. The major reason why fairy tales were used among children is because it led to the expansion of the minds of children. The minds of the children expanded because of the different teachings and lessons learnt from the tales.

The fairy tales used had specific knowledge or lesson, which they instilled in the children. For example, a fairy tale of a dragon eating children was majorly told to prevent the children from practicing unwanted behaviors. It instilled fear in them with the thought of the dragon coming to eat them if at all they made the mistake they were not supposed to do. This justifies Albert Einstein's saying of fairy tales making children to be more intelligent. Different tales had different impact on the children since their existed different kinds of fairy tales including fables, folktales of the sea, creation myths, and tall tales and all of them impacted the children differently regarding the message it wanted to pass to the children.

Two of the most famous fairy tales include Peter Pan and Cinderella. Peter Pan is a mischievous young boy who do not grow up. He meets the three children of Darling family and takes them to Never Land where there is an ongoing war between Peter's gang and Pirate Captain Hook who is evil. The main message from the tale is to teach children to always be courageous as portrayed by Peter when he faces Captain Hook. When this kind of tale is told to the children, it will make them to be courageous and not a coward like Captain Hook, which increases their intelligence.

Another famous tale is Cinderella who has a wicked mother and two jealous sisters, who keeps her in rags and a slave to them. Cinderella's dream is transformed into a reality by her fairy godmother and she meets a handsome Prince at the ball, however she must face the wrath of her unforgiving stepmother and sisters when the spell wears of at midnight. Cinderella's tale teaches the morals of kindness and forgiveness. It differentiate good versus evil deeds where Cinderella portrays good deeds by forgiving her stepmother and her sisters. However, this is not true for the stepmother and sisters who have been cruel, unloving, and unforgiving to her.

If the two tales are told to children, if any of them was behaving in the same way then they can change. Moreover, the two tales will inform the children the ways in which they need to interact with people and instill better characters in them. This with time increases their intelligence by making them have better characters and what not to do to fellow people.