Mourning in animist tales

Abstract

Mourning appears at the core of many stories for children. In the western world, the attempt to inhibit or express suffering mingles frequently with Christian reflections. In this article, however, we will focus on different “animist” tales, starting with several versions of Cinderella. We will then look at other tales which show reciprocal mourning shared between the living and the dead, revealing a tension between man and nature, in order to question the role of animist sensibility in childhood literature.

Keywords : mourning, animism, Cinderella, human-nature, ecology