Moral Values in the Folk Tales of Ion Creanga

This paper aims to highlight the moral values of the Romanian people, of the wisdom-loving Moldavian, as they emerge from Creanga's folk tales. Our work method consisted in highlighting excerpts from Creanga's texts, bringing to light the moral values of his characters. Ion Creanga is the narrator par excellence; the universe of his creation is the world of folk tales, with heroes having supernatural powers, meant to defeat the evil forces. The other world is in this world, just a stone's trow from home, or as you pass by a forest, the fight between good and evil taking place here and now. His stories are throbbing with life that you can feel at every step. The world of Creanga is "a world of folk tales, with real people, whom you can recognize in the real life, the literary effect of his work coming from the original mix of the miraculous with the most specific reality." (Nicolae Manolescu, Recitind povestile lui Creanga). Ion Creanga's characters are either personifications of beauty, goodness and justice, or symbols of ugliness and evilness. Creanga's work is full of life and this is precisely what the folk tales were missing. He gave life to both his scenes and his characters. His characters are individualized by means of strongly delineated physical and moral portraits, resulting from their behavior in different circumstances and from their language. The scenes are not monotonous, they are vivified by dialogue, and the answers are prompt and precise, individualizing the characters. These characters are peasant-like; they speak the peasants' language. The main hero is an inexperienced young man, an ideal of physical and moral beauty, standing for goodness. By the tests he faces, the hero has to go over the threshold of childhood, becoming a man. The hero's qualities are highlighted gradually, as the hero faces the hostile forces. In our paper, we shall deal with the folk tales of Creanga, an example for the young, highlighting the Romanian people's moral values.