Effectiveness of Fairy Tales in Conveying Its Moral Lesson: Analysis

of Indonesian and Japanese Fairy Tales

Linda Unsriana

Japanese Department, Faculty of Humanities, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia 11480

Keywords: Effectiveness, Indonesian and Japanese

Abstract: This research seeks to discover the opinions or responses from mothers who have preschool children in

relation to the moral lesson of children fairy tales as well as to ascertain whether conveying its moral

through fairy tales is still relevant today. The selected data were fairy tales of Japanese and Indonesian

origin. Based on the digital data investigation, two fairy tales were ranked as the most popular in each of

their respective countries. The method used in this research were mixed methods, questionnaires, and

qualitative analysis. The result of the research showed that in a story of fairy tales, both of Indonesian and

Japanese origin, had moral lessons that are still relevant to teach to date.

1 INTRODUCTION

On May 5

th,

2018, the Government of Indonesia

through Ministry of Research, Technology and

Higher Education as well as Directorate General of

Higher Education launched the National Reading

Book Movement (Gernasbaku), i.e.: a movement

that invites the participation from parents of

kindergarten students to spend time reading books

for their children. From this movement, the author

recognized the importance of the books for children.

One of reading books intended for children is fairy

tales. As a reading intended for children, fairy tales

are said to have a purpose, among others, to teach

values and to shape the child's character. The

importance of fairy tales was also introduced by

Bruno Bettelheim, who thinks that the subtly need of

Children moral education and, by the implication,

only convey the advantages of moral behavior, not

through the lens of abstract ethical concept but

through that which seems tangibly right and

therefore meaningful to them. The child finds this

kind of meaning through fairy tales (Bruno, 2010).

A literate person is needed to read the story,

especially in the case of preschool and kindergarten

students who have not been able to read yet. In this

condition, a mother plays an important role, that is to

convey the message of fairy tales to her children.

The importance of the role of a mother in reading

the fairy tale stories for children is also mentioned

by Goto Soichiro. He argues that to raise a bright

child who has the creative power of imagination, in

the period prior to the age of 5-6 years, the mother

should tell stories or read the stories for her children.

Soichiro added the importance of a mother that reads

stories and fairy tales to her children outweighs the

importance of teaching Kimigayou song, Japanese

national anthem (Goto, 2000).

This research seeks to discover opinions or

responses of mothers who have preschool children

(preschool and kindergartens students), about the

moral lesson of fairy tales and whether they think

fairy tales are still an applicable means of teaching

moral values in children. The selected data were

derived from Children tales of Japanese and

Indonesian origin.

The advancement of this age in the digital era

simplified the process of collecting data on websites

and internet. Based on our digital data investigation,

two fairy tales were ranked the most popular

position in each of their respective countries, i.e.:

“The Mouse Deer and The Crocodile (Kancil dan

Buaya)” from Indonesia and “Peach Boy

(Momotaro)” from Japan. Both were taken directly

from the website, which can be accessed by anyone.

Because the research target is Indonesian mothers,

the Japanese folklore chosen from the website is also

a fairy tale that has been translated into Indonesian.

444

Unsriana, L.

Effectiveness of Fairy Tales in Conveying Its Moral Lesson: Analysis of Indonesian and Japanese Fairy Tales.

DOI: 10.5220/0010010100002917

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social Sciences, Laws, Arts and Humanities (BINUS-JIC 2018), pages 444-446

ISBN: 978-989-758-515-9

2 METHOD

The Method used in this research were mixed

methods using qualitative questionnaires and

qualitative analysis. The data corpus chosen were

Indonesian and Japanese children fairy tales. Prior to

answering the questions, the respondents amounted

to 50 people initially asked to read both of the fairy

tales, those are “The Mouse Deer and The Crocodile

(Indonesia)” and “Peach Boy (Japan)”. These tales

were chosen for the reason that these fairy tales were

the most famous in each of respective country.

Meanwhile, the methods of research used were a

questionnaire and qualitative method, by analyzing

the answer result of the respondents to be made a

conclusion.

3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Fairy tales used for the data corpus in this research

were “The Mouse Deer and The Crocodile” and

“Peach Boy”. Kancil dan Buaya (The Mouse Deer

and The Crocodile), which tells about a crocodile

that has long wanted to eat the mouse deer, however,

because the mouse deer is quick-witted, the

crocodile has never captured it successfully. Even

though the mouse deer always escaped from the

crocodile’s pursuit, little by little the mouse deer

grew concerned and on the alert. Because of it, the

mouse deer moved from its home to another region

to avoid the crocodile. However, the crocodile

successfully found the mouse deer. The crocodile

also learned that the mouse deer cross the river by

hopping on the river stones every day. The crocodile

then disguised itself as a stone. However, owing to

the mouse deer’s wit, the mouse deer realized that it

was only a crocodile’s trap to catch the mouse deer.

However, using its clever wit, the mouse deer can

outwit the crocodile. The crocodile was surprised,

apparently, its disguise had been uncovered. It then

realized that it has been outwitted. The crocodile

was really upset with its own stupidity.

The other fairy tale is Peach Boy (Momotaro),

which tells a story about a grandfather and a

grandmother that doesn’t have any child. One day,

the grandmother was out to wash the laundry in the

river, and she found a big peach fruit. Emerging

from inside, a baby appeared, which then named

Momotaro. The village that the old couple was

living in often disturbed by monsters, that is why

Momotoro determined to go to the devil’s island

(Onigashima) to eradicate the monsters. With help

from the animals he encountered along the way to

Onigashima, at last Momotaro managed to kill all

the monsters so that the village becomes peaceful.

From those two fairy tales, respondents were

initially asked to read, then to answer some

questions.

3.1 On First Question: Do You Think

That This Fairy Tale Entitled the

Mouse Deer and the Crocodile, as

Well as Momotaro, Contains a

Moral Message?

Figure 1: Moral message

of mouse deer &

crocodile story.

Figure 2: Moral message

of peach boy story.

From figure 1 and 2, it is visible that 48 respondents

agree that in both the fairy tales contains a moral

message. Even though there are some answers ‘no’

and ‘not sure’, but the portion is very small. In line

with Courtney’s opinion that children’s literature

can also be used to teach a variety of lessons,

morals, and ideas (Courtney, 2012), respondents

agree that fairy tale contain a moral message.

3.2 On Second Question: What Moral

Message Do You Get from These

Fairy Tales?

Based on the nature reader- response theory, it is

believed that reader as the ones that shape and

become the core source of learning a particular

literary text. Tompkins in (Trisnawati, 2009) has

explained, the procedure involves the following

terms, i.e.: the readers, the reading process and the

responses to mark out an area for investigation of a

literary work. It means that placing readers as the

focus of analysis must include their responses to the

literary work after they finish their reading process

on that literary work. Thus the responses given by

readers are seen as a product of a new creation

regarding the text which they have read so that later

it may become the interpretation of the single text.

Effectiveness of Fairy Tales in Conveying Its Moral Lesson: Analysis of Indonesian and Japanese Fairy Tales

445

Figure 3: Moral message content of the mouse deer and

crocodile story.

Figure 4: Moral message content of peach boy story.

Figure 3 and figure 4 shows that the moral

message contains in the story of Momotaro (Peach

boy), is considered better compared to the story of

“Mouse Deer and The Crocodile”. A story is

considered good when the content of the story also

contains a virtuous moral message for the character

development of the child. According to advocates of

traditional character education, reading virtuous

stories is one of the pillars of moral education

(Darcia, 2002).

3.3 On Third Question: Is a Fairy Tale

an Effective Tool in Conveying a

Moral Message?

Figure 5 shows the confidence of 48 respondents from the

story “The Mouse Deer and The Crocodile” and 49

respondents from the story “Momotaro (Peach boy)” who

consider that fairy tales are still an effective means in

conveying moral messages.

The benefits of using children’s literature to teach

values are also stated by Prestwich. According to

him, literature can be a good way to teach character

education because literature lends itself to the

teaching of specific moral dilemmas and the

examining of specific character traits (Prestwich,

2004). Why are fairy tales still considered as an

effective means of instilling values? I think it is

because fairy tales have many stories that are sad,

interesting, frightening, or exciting. It can be said that

fairy tales have the ability to pique someone’s

interest.

4 CONCLUSION

There are a number of ways that one might morally

educate a child. One might tell the child stories with

moral lessons in order to elicit the favorable

behavior and to discourage unfavorable behavior.

Figure 6.

From the data of respondents, fairy tales are still

believed to be an effective means to convey moral

messages to children and mothers have an important

role to deliver the moral messages through fairy

tales to their children. Mothers play an important

role in helping children to understand the story and

capture the message of the story.

REFERENCES

Bruno, B. (2010). The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning

and Importance of Fairy Tale. New York: Vintage

Book.

Courtney, T. (2012). Bringing Books to Life: Teaching

Character Education through Children’s Literature.

Rising Tide, 5, pp. 1-16.

Darcia, N. (2002). Does Reading Moral Stories Build

Character?. Edu Psy Review, 14(2), pp. 155-68.

Goto, S. (2000). Mukashibanashi no Sekai: Sono Rekishi

to Gendai. Japan: Tono Monogatari kenkyusho.

Prestwich, D. (2004). Character Education in America’s

School. School Community Journal, 14(1), pp. 139-50.

Trisnawati, R. (2009). Implementing Reader-Response

Theory: An Alternative Way of Teaching Literature

Research Report on the Reading of Booker T

Washington's Up from Slavery. Journal of English

and Education, 3(1).

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