Fairy Tales 2010

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The transformation of human to animal

In the Grimms stories this week, all except one feature human beings turning to or turning back from animals. In these stories, some of the humans turned animals take on qualities you'd expect. For instance, in The Twelve Brothers, the ravens cleverly swoop down to save their sister who was waiting to be burned. One would not have expected this action to be taken by swans, for example, but we are not surprised to see brave ravens do this.
In the Seven Ravens as well, the ravens react to finding their sister's ring in a cup by knowing that she is among them. They show a trait of cleverness which would not have been applicable to a dull-witted animal though.
In the The Frog King, though, a handsome prince is transformed into something that is the exact opposite of his natural self, and takes on qualities unlike that make him larger than a mere frog. For instance, he is easily able to persuade the King of his encounter with the princess. More strikingly, the frog, a gross animal that immediately disgusts the princess, transforms into a handsome prince, shocking one who would expect a prince to be something more noble.
In the transformation as well, The Frog Prince changes under conditions very different from the ones the Twelve Brothers and Seven Ravens do. The Prince is changed after an act of cruelty by a young woman, and little explanation is given why exactly. On the other hand, The Twelve Brothers and Seven Ravens are changed after a woman does a great deed of heroinism, which seems to be a more expected reason for a transformation to occur. These changes are interesting, and the discrepancies between them are interesting as well. It would be interesting to know if someone did a more in depth study on how fairy tale characters transform back to their former beings.

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