童話雖然充滿了幻想色彩，故事講述方式亦與其他文體有別，但是它和一個民族 的神話、傳說一樣，是可貴的民間文學，它反映出了一個民族的文化和倫理思想。而各民族 的童話故事取材、人物形象常有相似之處，只是兩地風俗民情，社會文化背景不一，表達在 故事裡，其情節與主題自然迥異。本世紀以來西方學界曾就歐洲童話，尤其是德國格林兄弟 童話之題材，以各種角度切入研究，如從文學理論、社會民俗學、心理學或兒童心理學等之 觀點來探討童話，也都提出不少寶貴之詮釋文獻。而中國民間童話方面近代則有譚達先、趙 景深等人做了一番研究。但學者們多各自偏向東方或西方之觀點，未能就東、西方童話題材 作深入比較，而本文則是嘗試彌補此一缺失。 本文主要是比較分析德國格林兄弟童話與中國民間故事，除了探討童話中後母的角色外，亦 試著分析中、德國童話裡男女愛情故事、中國之仙女與西方之公主、人類與異類通婚、西方 之「天鵝女童話」、「水妖童話」以及童話中兄弟姊妹間手足之情、數目字的涵意等。進而 歸納中、德文化及社會背景之異同及其反映在童話上之人文思想和世界觀。

　　　　　Fairy tales are full of imagination and they have their own narrative styles. They are closely related to legend and mythology of a nation. Fairy tales, therefore, are precious national literature. They also reflect culture and moral of a nation. Though fairy tales in varied nations usually share their similarities in plot and characters, they are different because of the social and cultural background throughout the world. From the beginning of this century, many scholars had tried to use different aspects, for instance, theory criticism, psychology, children psychology, just to mention a few, to analyze fairy tales, especially Grimms Maerchen, in order to understand their structure as well as their contents. In China, scholars like Tam Da-zan, Chao Chin Shun did some research in the field of Chinese fairy tales. Yet none of these scholars did anything in comparing the Eastern and Western fairy tales. The main purpose of this paper is to compare and analyze the Grimms Maerchen and Chinese folktales. The major comparison will focus on the roles of step-mother in both works, then love story, fairies and princesses, marriage between human and beast, the legend of swan, the relationship among brothers and sisters, the meaning of numbers, will also be discussed. We will then easily discover the differences in culture and social background in China and Germany is actually reflected in their fairy tales.