The master’s thesis will discuss the presence of gender stereotypes and gender roles in fairy tales. We will determine whether and to what extent these concepts are present in nine fairy tales in the textbook I fili del racconto 1 (2014). The textbook is used for Italian literature in 1st grade of lower secondary Slovenian language school in Italy. We will use Vladimir Propp’s structuralist analysis and qualitative content analysis. With these analyses we shall determine how female and male characters are portrayed in fairy tales and whether gender stereotypes and gender roles are present. The results show that the roles and functions of female characters put these characters in a passive position. The description of female characters shows that they are passive, emotional and powerless and that they never express courage, cunning, intelligence, etc., in contrary to the male characters. In addition, fairy tales locate female characters in an interior setting and in the private sphere and present household chores as a woman's responsibility. We conclude that female characters are stereotypically portrayed: in these fairy tales, gender stereotypes are present and they reinforce the dominance of men over women.
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