The one thing that I questioned most in this story is the ending. Supposedly, he learns what "the creeps" are because his wife dumps a bucket of cold water and minnows on him while he's sleeping. This doesn't make any sense. First of all, how does he suddenly think he knows what "the creeps" are after that happens? That's not even what I would really call "getting the creeps." I mean, is that the point - that he thinks he knows what the creeps are but he still doesn't because he's that stupid? And what does the fact that of all the people that have tried to show him what the creeps are, he thinks he's figured it out because of his wife? What are the implications of this given that she is female?
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
A Tale of a Boy
"The Tale of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was" is a very intriguing story. The boy is rejected and considered ignorant because he "could neither learn nor understand anything." Of course, he ends up becoming the hero and marrying the princess who eventually shows him what "the creeps" are. But I think more important than his ignorance is his lack of fear. That is, after all, how he wins his bride. He is the only one who is able to stay in the castle for 3 nights without being killed because is not afraid of the ghosts and other creatures and can easily defeat or outwit them. I think this is mainly pointing to the fact that he accomplished great feats in the end because he had no fear; and fear tends to hold people back.
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Katie, I think you're right to question the final moments of this story. Does it have a moral, and if so, what are we supposed to take away from it? The tale clearly favors the "stupid" son because of his fearlessness, so that fearlessness becomes a desirable and rewarding trait to have, but it also questions this fearlessness when his wife gives him the creeps. We are left with a character who is not afraid of death and its representations, but who is afraid of minnows flopping around in a bed - perhaps symbolic of sexual anxiety. If this is indeed the case, then the story has the same meanings as many of the tales about women (The Frog Prince, Bluebeard, Beauty and the Beast). Sexual anxiety is just manifested differently when the protagonist is male.
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