Abstract The narrative structure of Japanese and Western European folktales were compared. Using a folktale popularity index, 21 Brothers Grimm fairy tales and 19 Japanese folktales were selected for analysis. One shared pattern and three culture-specific patterns were predicted and observed. A “moral lesson” pattern of rewarding good and punishing evil appeared in both samples. A “hero’s adventurous journey with happy ending” pattern appeared only in the Grimms’ tales. A “wondrous events with happy ending” pattern and a “wondrous events with return-to-baseline ending” pattern appeared only in Japanese tales. Japanese folktales also were shorter. Links to other genres within each culture’s narrative ecology, such as life stories, are discussed.
Mukaida et al. (Thu,) studied this question.