From Mythic Goddess To "Anti-heroine" Witch-On The Metamorphosis Of Witch Image In European Fairy Tales

"Witch"is one of the most fantastic literary images in fairy tales. As a typical image which is not in the essential position, the witch image has not lost her charms any more in all ages, instead, the witch image becomes more and more lively and vivid. And this is closely related to the witch image's anti-heroine character which reflects the spirit of humanism.The formation and evolvement of fairy tales experience the myths in ancient times, folk oral fairy tales, modern artistic fairy tales and post-modern artistic fairy tales. For the social and cultural background of each period is different from each other, the anti-heroine character reflected in the witch images is different as well. This thesis tries analyzing the witch images in the fairy tales of each period, and then explores the significances and values reflected in the witch images with anti-heroine character. At the same time, the manners of representing witch images and the related reasons are also discussed in this paper.There is no independent and vivid witch image in myth, only the gods, fairies and priestesses can reflect some vague witch characters. The goddess image in the myths of ancient times is the prototype of witch image. The two kinds of images both reflect human beings'worship of wisdom, and also represent the eulogization of human's wisdom. In the folk oral fairy tales, there are two original witch images: evil witch and good witch which represent the evil and goodness in reality. Although the two types of witch images are simple and ordinary, they both convey the moral connotation of repressing the evil and encouraging the good. And the germination of anti-heroine character in witch images is reflected in that period. In modern and post-modern fairy tales, the anti-heroine character gets more development than ever before, witch images'vivid human natures and the spirit of humanism are represented obviously. At the same time, the witch images also represent more plentiful significances and values, for example, the overturn and deconstruction of the traditional witch world and the emergence of human's"ego"consciousness."Anti-heroine"is the key point of research and innovation in this paper. Exploring witch image as the evil human in the narrow sense and the ordinary people in broad sense who stand opposite to the traditional heroine, and then analyzing the significances and values, these above are the themes of this thesis.