Jul 25, 2008

The Sailor-Boy's Tale | Fairy Tale Form

In the following essay, the author explores the fairy tale form and the initiation theme of Dinesen’s story.

The word ‘‘tale’’ in the title of Isak Dinesen’s short story ‘‘The Sailor-Boy’s Tale’’ lends insight into the nature of the story. This is not to be a realistic true-life account; rather, it is to be a story in the sense of a fairy tale or a parable. In the tradition of her countryman Hans Christian Andersen, the writer of well-known children’s tales, Dinesen uses the form of the fairy tale for the stories in her collection Winter’s Tales, of which ‘‘The Sailor-Boy’s Tale’’ is one. However, Dinesen subverts the traditional form to make this a story...