The deep dark forest

Into the Woods and Fables: what about the narrator?

2010-04-23T00:42:00.002-05:00

I saw "Into the Woods" performed at my high school when I was in 8th grade and remember thinking that the first and second act are polar opposites, but the crucial link between the two was the narrator.

When there is no longer a narrator to tell the story of the characters, life doesn't fit together so perfectly--baker wives fall in love with Princes, Princes cheat on their princess, Cinderella is no longer happy living in the palace, Rapunzel abandons her family, and the fairy tale world as we know it gets turned upside down. The characters have to make their own decisions, and this seems to present more of a problem of finding the correct "ingredients" needed to help the baker's wife have a child.

As the witch says: "You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right. I'm the Witch. You're the world."

The characters in Fables face the same dilemma about making decisions about whether to do the "right" thing which may not always be good. There is no narrator directing the story--the only sense of the narrator is at the very beginning where it says "Once Upon a Time...In a Fictional Land called New York City," and at the end, where it says "The End--For Now." The entire story is run by the characters and there is no outside voice directing their actions, which is why there is so much conflict. The graphic novel form allows for the author to show different viewpoints of different characters that may be happening at the same time, and the musical form also allows for this as well. Multiple characters sing at the same time on stage, each telling their own story.

Fables vs. Into the Woods

2010-04-21T21:33:00.002-05:00

Both retellings put a more modern spin on the fairytales they represent: restlessness, adultery, death. The princes are interesting characters in particular in both Fables and Into the Woods. Instead of giving us the typically suave, charming men we've read about who instantly fall in love with their fair beauties, these princes have no problem with cheating on their new wives with new women, some expected some not (like the Baker's Wife in Into the Woods). Both retellings seem to point out that the men who have been good-looking all their lives are the ones who will go down the wrong path, whereas the Beast in Fables is still a devoted, loving husband: his only complaint is that lack of money has put a strain on his marriage with Beauty. Both stories have put more power in the hands of the so-called "damsels in distress." Cinderella in both versions is a force to be reckoned with; she goes out and get what she wants.

Both retellings also stay relatively true to their originals, in the major details anyway: Rose Red and Snow White are still sisters, Cinderella's stepsisters' eyes are still plucked out, the young maidens end up with their princes at some point, Blue Beard's reputation precedes him. The Grimms would have never made their young women sexual creatures, nor would they have had their narrator gobbled up by a giant.

Fables and Into the Woods

2010-04-21T17:23:00.002-05:00

Both of these "stories" were interesting and unusual. Fables seemed to be more modern than Into the Woods, but both incorporated a variety of fairy tale characters. In both cases, there were some elements of the fairy tales that were included to maintain the recognizability of the characters, such as Bluebeard's reputation and the wolf meeting Red Riding Hood in the Woods. But because the characters from different stories were interacting with each other, some details had to be changed. For example, no one tried to take Little Red Riding Hood's cape and Bluebeard did not marry Rose Red.

I guess in the sense that these were all originally fairy tales, a compilation of them must also be a fairy tale? Many details are left that would not coincide with the new story that is being formed with all of the characters in Fables, such as Snow White's evil stepmother or the seven dwarfs. That is made to be part of her past, so that instead of combining the fairy tales, they just use the characters to form another fairy tale that presumably occurs after the events of the original tales.

Into the Woods, on the other hand, more or less maintained the actions of the original tales, but had the characters interact with each other in the infamous forest that many stories use. Cinderella is still trying to get to the ball despite her stepmother and stepsisters and Red Riding Hood is still trying to get to her grandmother's house.

In a way, Into the Woods is more like a traditional fairy tale than Fables because it maintains the separate story lines, and Fables is a mystery, which is not typical for fairy tales. There is not a great deal of magic in Fables, and it feels more like "a day in the life of a fairy tale character." Though they both combine elements of well-known fairy tales, the end products are not the same.

Sondheim and Willingham

2010-04-20T13:32:00.002-05:00

I found both of this week's contemporary fairy tale encounters extremely interesting, not only because of the extensiveness of the characters portrayed but also because of the relatively accurate retellings of the Grimms' tales (Cinderella in Into the Woods suffered the same consequences as her Grimms counterpart and Rose Red - who is virtually unknown to most readers not familiar with the Grimms' "Snow White and Rose Red" - was included in Willingham's comic book). But I think what I found most interesting in both of these contemporary fairy-tale themed plots was the way in which Prince Charming(s) was represented.

A stark contrast to the fairy tale prince of perfection, both "Into the Woods" and "Fables" have cheating, untrustworthy princes who hurt the women that love them. In "Into the Woods," both princes represent this very idealistic stock type that falls head over heels exceedingly quickly but then once the chase has ended, they rapidly lose interest and move on, singing of "Agony" and "Moment(s) in the Woods". Similarly, in "Fables," there is only one Prince Charming who wedded and cheated on and divorced each of the female fairy tale characters whose fable ended with marriage to Prince Charming. He uses his skills in bed to trick women into giving him money and support.

Snow White's harsh attitude toward her ex-husband signifies scathing resentment and anger (hundreds of years after the fact) at his adultery with her sister. Into the Woods seems acutely aware of the fairy tale romance ideal and turns that on its head when Cinderella doesn't seem especially excited about being pursued, as well as when the Baker's Wife realizes that being with Prince Charming is not an ideal to long for. This new male prince character most likely results from a more modern feminist, cynical viewpoint that doesn't portray men as rescuers, or rather doesn't portray women as needing rescuers. The women in both of these contemporary versions are strong and independent, instead of the poor, silent female who is simply destined, so it seems, to wed a prince.

Hyacinth and Roseblossom

2010-04-14T22:14:00.001-05:00

The fairy tale elements of this story are rather shallow. It could be said that the main character is a loner, a dissenter from social norm; he seeks solitude and worries others in his excessive time spent in the wild. This connection with nature is typical of a fairy tale hero or heroine, as is the first quality attributed to Hyacinth: goodness. Immediately, however, romantic elements are thrust into the story. Hyacinth is not only good, but thoughtful. That goodness does not entail thoughtfulness is important to note (and typical of “good” fairy tale characters who are simply such by virtue of their innate moral codes), but so is their being classified side-by-side. That thoughtfulness is suggested as in some way furthering Hyacinth’s goodness is an entirely romantic concept. As the reader, we thus know from the start that he will eventually reap benefits from his connection with nature.
Hyacinth’s home town is also set up in a somewhat fairy-tale like manner, in the sense that the townspeople and his parents are ordinary (they raised and treated him well, and are now concerned for his welfare), his lover is nearly perfect and likewise is their love relationship. Naturally, he embarks on an uncertain journey to escape this cookie-cutter lifestyle.
In Hyacinth’s search for deeper meaning, there are many references to the complications of communication; it is suggested that effective verbal communication between any two creatures is next to impossible. This, of course, represents speech and human contact within the real world; one can never express to another what it is that truly constitutes the human condition. So, at first we feel lost. As the reader, we expect that this uncommunicative world is a helpless one, that the only response Hyacinth can illicit is laughter or silence foreshadows doom, does it not?
Quite the contrary: as each individual perceives the world around him subjectively, this is the limit of his understanding and is thus—to him, and him alone—perfection. On this journey, Hyacinth does not gain new eyes, but rather renews the ones he has. He is transformed not because he has discovered anything revolutionary but instead he has rediscovered everything, “familiar yet filled with a brilliance he had never seen before” in its wondrous harmony– utterly confusing and imperfect, yet thrilling.

The Story of a Fairy Tale

2010-04-14T21:23:00.002-05:00

This story is about 5 wise men who go out into the world to find Truth, which has apparently been lost. Each comes back, convinced of his own findings, which include: Science, Theology, Love, Gold, and Wine. They all begin to fight each other and end up in poor condition. Then, a little girl comes along, saying she has found Truth in the meadow. So, everyone follows her to find this being that cannot really be categorized in any human form, but is rather like, a god or an angel or some other supernatural being. This we learn is a Fairy Tale. The wise men leave to continue fighting but many people stay behind with the Fairy Tale.

This story resembles a fairy tale in that there is a problem and a journey to find a solution. As the story goes on, each of the men is referred to as whatever he considered Truth. Thus, the story is more about the opposition between Science, Theology, Love, Gold, Wine, and the Fairy Tale, than the people themselves. In addition, the description of the Fairy Tale was very perfect and inhuman. This contributed to the typical timeless, placeless, magical feel of the fairy tale.

I think Carl Ewald uses this story to make some kind of point about Truth and its interpretations. Although, the fact that he construes the Fairy Tale in the end as the "real" Truth is interesting. Obviously, fairy tales are not realistic, so maybe the fact that he compares them to Truth says something about his disbelief in a real Truth or that Truth cannot be interpreted in one single way or found in one particular place.

The biographical notes mentioned that he wrote to incorporate his views on social Darwinism. So, perhaps this can be included in the interpretation of his message?

Of Feminine Subtlety

2010-04-14T16:40:00.002-05:00

The Gesta Romanorum is an anonymous collection of legends, fairytales, fables, et cetera, based on Roman history and medieval legends that can be dated back to the end of the 13th century. Most of these collected tales have either a didactic or Christian message: "Of Feminine Subtlety" is no different.

There are several elements in this story that could very well make it a fairytale: the repetition of the number 3 (3 brothers, 3 enchanted objects, 3 times Jonathan is outsmarted), the presence of enchanted/ magic objects, and the eventual torturous death of the manipulative, overly sexual woman. Jonathan, the protagonist of the story, is the youngest brother of 3. Each of the young men inherit things from their father: land, possession, and, in Jonathan's case, magic objects. Unlike his brothers, however, Jonathan is instructed to give his inheritance to his mother until he's mature enough and ready for them. He goes to university and excels in his studies, but when it comes time for him to start collecting his inheritance, his mother will only give him one object at a time and warns him not to give any of his to gifts to women because they will lead to his downfall. Being a didactic fairytale, Jonathan does not heed his mother's advice and ends up in the middle of desert.

But there's hope since Jonathan works his way back to his native city by claiming he's a physician and calls upon the woman who's bested him since she's dying:

Now the lady who had cheated him of the talismans was sick to death, and she immediately sent for him. Jonathan was so well disguised that she could not recognize him, but her remembered her very well. As soon as he came to her, he declared that the medicine would not be able to help her unless she confessed her sins...Since she was on the very verge of death, the lady admitted in a low voice that she had cheated Jonathan of his ring, necklace, and cloth and had left him in a desert place to be devoured by wild beasts...Then Jonathan gave her some of the fruit which produced leprosy, and after she ate it, he gave her some of the water which separated the flesh from the bones. As a result, she was tortured with agony.

This sounds very much like the end of stories like Snow White, where the evil mother/ stepmother must dance in red hot iron shoes until she falls down and dies. Like those stories, it's almost as if the "victim" forces a little too much justice on the party who has injured him/ her. Sure this woman, who after her initial meeting with Jonathan is referred to as "the concubine," was manipulative and did deserve her comeuppance. But the punishment did not exactly fit the crime because Jonathan had also intended to leave this woman in the desert to fend for herself against the wild beasts; she just beat him to the punch. Why should she be "tortured with agony" because this guy was too naive and stupid not to continually give away all his secrets?

The Day Boy and the Night Girl

2010-04-14T15:08:00.006-05:00

I read George MacDonald's The Day Boy and the Night Girl which was published in 1879, so not too long after the Grimm tales. This story has an evil witch who keeps captive a boy and a girl. However, the characters have names that are very specific to their personalities, and MacDonald takes extra care to describe their physical appearance.

The tale starts out by describing Watho, who is an evilly beautiful witch with red hair, white skin and black eyes. She also has the ability (as found out at the end of the tale) to turn herself into a red werewolf. Clearly her hair is symbolic of the flames of hell.

Watho has two ladies "visit" her. One is Aurora, who has rosy skin, blonde hair and blue eyes, whose appearance clearly correlates to the day. The other lady is Vesper, who is blind and lives in an underground chamber. Her hair is black and she has black eyes, and her skin is described as being "silvery." Both of these women have children--Aurora has a boy and Vesper has a girl. Watho tells Aurora that her baby has died and so Aurora flees from the castle. Vesper dies in childbirth so the little girl never knows her mother. Who are the fathers? The boy (Photogen) is the son of a king, but Vesper's husband was dead, so there is a mystery of who the father of her daughter (Nycteris) is.

Watho has a "plan" for both children. She keeps Photogen in the sun all day and never lets him see night, and he is the embodiment of the strong and fearless male. When Watho forbids Photogen to hunt at night, the reader knows that he will not obey, which is a characteristic of the fairy tale. "Photogen listened respectfully, but as he knew neither the taste nor fear nor the temptation of the night, her words were but sounds to him."

Nycteris is kept in the underground chamber, so when she escapes and sees the moon because it gives off so much more light than her little lamp, she believes it to be the day.

The literary elements are that MacDonald places a lot of attention of the characters' thoughts, and he switches between characters throughout his story, it is divided into sections, and when Photogen and Nycteris meet and their stories combine, their story is divided into chapters. It is also much longer than a regular fairy tale.

Both Nycteris and Photogen have to rely on each other to survive because Nycteris fears the brightness and heat of the sun, and Photogen becomes a coward by night. Through their combined efforts, they defeat the werewolf form of Watho. Nycteris smells the beast on the wind because of her heightened senses, and Photogen strikes the wolf in the heart with his arrow.

I believe that what makes this more of a literary tale despite the characteristics of the fairy tale is that there is so much attention to detail, to the names (Photogen-sun, Nycteris-night), to the use of detailed images to describe the emotions of both characters upon their encounters with the night and day.

When Nycteris feels wind for the first time, it is described as such:

As she knelt, something softly flapped her, embraced her, stroked her, fondled her. She rose to her feet but saw nothing, did not know what it was. It was likest a woman's breath. For she knew nothing of the air even, had never breathed the still newborn freshness of the world....Still less did she know of the air alive with motion--of that thrice blessed thing, the wind of a summer night. It was pure spiritual wine, filling her whole being with an intoxication of purest joy. To breathe was a perfect existence. It seemed to her the light itself she drew into her lungs. Possessed by the power of the gorgeous night, she seemed at one and the same moment annihilated and glorified. (Zipes 437)

Of all the traditional fairy tales we have read, not one of them described a person, or nature in such precise detail. The description is beautiful and compelling, and definitely the work of literature, not of folk origins.

Rilke's How Treason Came to Russia

2010-04-13T14:02:00.003-05:00

In Rilke's short Kunstmarchen, taken from "Stories of God," a greedy Czar demands 12 barrels of gold from neighboring princes who in turn require that he answer 3 riddles in 3 years time. The Czar asks all the wise men and counselors, beheading all those who do not know the answer. The time goes by in such a fashion and he must meet the princes, although he hasn't solved the riddles yet. On his way to the meeting place, the Czar encounters a peasant who knows the solutions to the riddles. The peasant, after some hesitation, requests one barrel of gold in return for the answers, to which the Czar consents. But the Czar is greedy and gives the peasant instead a barrel of sand and a little gold on top. The peasant sees through this, gives a moralizing lesson, and vanishes. The messenger describes this peasant as "God himself."

There are several characteristics that clearly demarcate this tale as a Kunstmarchen rather than a fairy tale. For one, the Czar is named - Czar Ivan Vassilievitch. As we know little about his character, it is interesting that Rilke would name him so specifically. This serves in contrast to the unspecified timelessness generally featured in fairy tales. Moreover, the violent repetition and pure selfishness of the Czar's persona inhabits something not typical to the fairy tale. He is merciless and greedy, similar to King Mark from the Philosopher's Stone, situating this tale with the later literary fairy tales that emerged. The character of God, as well, stems from a more contemporary Christian influence. As the Grimms 1857 versions compared to the 1812 version of their fairy tales indicates, Christianity started to be written into the original tales over the course of the 1800s. It is reasonable to understand, then, the importance of the God character in "How Treason Came to Russia" which was written at the turn of the 20th century.

In terms of the literary fairy tale having similar conventions and characteristics to the fairy tale, the title - "How Treason Came to Russia" resonates with the folk tradition of making the purpose of certain tales be to describe how a cultural belief, value, or tendency came into practice. The tale also parallels the common fairy tale motif of a riddle or series of riddles that need to be solved in order to receive a reward. Yet in this tale there is neither competition between brothers nor an obstacle keeping the Czar from solving the riddles. The peasant/God simply tells him. Thus, while literary fairy tales have some resemblance to fairy tales in shared motifs, similar titles, contrast between courtly life and peasant life, it is too parabolic and too attentive to literary stylistic devices and themes to be a true fairy tale. There is, in short, not enough magic (other then the vanishing act of God) happening to locate this text within the fairy tale genre.

The Philosopher's Stone: Is it a Fairy Tale?

2010-04-08T00:56:00.002-05:00

The Philosopher's Stone transfixes magical fairy tale storytelling elements within a less fairy tale-esque framing, ignoring or escaping different generic conventions in order to reconfigure what it means to be a fairy tale by taking certain literary, artistic licenses. The framework of the story with the Tristan and Isolde allusion and the embedded narratives of multiple plots within the same literary space differs from the traditional backdrop/lead-up to the fairy tale, at some points specifying a distinct moment in time and at others abstracting this conception of time and space.

At each moment independent of others, The Philosopher's Stone acquires the same thematic concerns and basic plot as the fairy tale. King Mark gets tricked. King Mark transforms. King Mark enters a robber's den. King Mark transforms. These are all things we've seen before - trickery, loss, transformation, helper/"fairy godparent" - in places we've seen before - castle, robber's den, peasant life (particularly once expelled from courtly setting). Yet this is intercut with less traditional motifs - greed, at least in the stories we've read, isn't a prominent theme... it's often featured but not the main event; adultery; gender swaps (Floribell is female); ethical decisions and lessons (the final one), often present in parables; dream sequences while still a donkey.

I could go on and on with this weird back and forth interplay between "Fairy Tale normative" and "Fairy Tale transgressive". Essentially the story uses the traditional, magical elements of the fairy tale to provide the reader with something that is easily understood and taken as normal, in order to present themes and ideas that are not part of the fairy tale world, and in fact, are extremely satiric and rational. In other words, the fairy tale tropes are only used to provide more cutting commentary on contemporary societal issues.

The Philosophers' Stone

2010-04-07T23:49:00.002-05:00

"The Philosophers' Stone," despite its seeming to have been a mixture of several folk tales, can be considered a fairy tale by our standards. It involves magic, though not completely outright since King Mark/ Sylvester dreams about how to fix himself, and several morals. This tale provides a sort of didacticism for its readers in making it rather obvious that greed, no matter what kind, will always lead to one's downfall. Hard work and generosity, however, will always ensure that one has a fulfilled and happy life. The Grimms would be proud.

It isn't until King Mark only wishes to achieve his needs, eating the lily when he's a hungry donkey, that he truly understands what it is to be a good man: "The food and drink had never tasted so good to him when he had been king, for he had never been hungry or thirsty. He had never slept so well, for he had never worked until he was tired... Indeed, now he was a real human being." This mindset seems to go hand-in-hand with the traditional folktale.

Wondrous Oriental Tale

2010-04-07T23:39:00.001-05:00

Although it does not read like a typical fairy tale, A Wondrous Oriental Tale of a Naked Saint seems to contain many fantastical fairy tale elements. It begins, as Propp argues all fairy tales do, with a lack of something: a lack of peace for this saint. He is haunted by the constant rush of time that makes him feel desperate and uneasy, and leads him to judge others who are able to appreciate life despite this furious force. His situation is lonely, as is often the case with the fairy tale hero or at least a character in the story. Although the saint does not leave home on an excursion in order to actively seek fulfilling the void in his life (missing peace), he does embark on the adventure on a subconscious, spiritual level. He wishes so terribly to escape his situation; finally, nature casts its force in a most enchanting way in order to gain the saint’s entirely undivided attention and display that more exists than mere passage of time. Magic helpers then make their appearance, and nature is one with them, and they bring the additional gift of music.
Further, the fact that the naked saint discovers art (through music) is evidence of the self-awareness very typical of fairy tales as well as many other literary (and other artistic) forms. As stories are often embedded in stories, this one contains a song with a story of its own. It is through the discovery of this art—music— is what brings the saint to a place of peace; although time still rushes by, he is able to himself pause and take a new outlook on life.
The entire tale, brief as it is, reads much like a romantic tale. There is a build up to the moment of the sublime, and then a very satisfying peace to follow. What is interesting is how explicit these elements are made through the very course of the story and the character’s experience.

An Oriental Tale

2010-04-07T23:07:00.002-05:00

This story is different from most other stories we have read. There is no moral, no good vs. evil, no king or princess, no helpful animals or other magic objects, no wishes to be granted. The story does have some kind of magic, but still, it is not the same as in other fairy tales we have read. Another difference in this story is that there is really only one character and he is developed more than usual. We come to learn more detail about the saint and his specific actions and feelings. It also feels like this story does not have the same timelessness that other fairy tales have. And it has a more spiritual theme. However, I guess it is still considered a fairy tale because of the magic and the broken spell. I don't know...it just has a different feel - it's different than other fairy tales but not enough to name it something else.

The Devil's Three Golden Hairs

2010-04-01T13:40:00.002-05:00

I particularly liked reading "The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs." The young boy marked with the caul whose destiny is to marry the princess is set against by the evil King. Much like in the robber bridegroom, the boy gets lost in the forest (a place that represents growth and discovery of one's self) and stumbles upon a robber's den. It is through the help of an old woman that he survives, and the "hard-hearted" robbers take more pity on this boy than the supposedly noble king. Even when the boy marries the princess, and she is happy, the King still attempts to get rid of him by sending him into hell on an impossible task. However, the boy proves he is worthy of the princess's hand by returning with the golden hairs AND more gold. His kindness to the people he met was rewarded, and once more, the figure of the old lady helps the boy out so he is not discovered by the devil. I think this story was meant to teach a lesson, not as a fable, but through the story of the boy's growth and development into a man, the reader sees two different kinds of men. One (the king) is greedy and evil-hearted, and ends up ferrying across the river while the boy's diligence and kindness rewarded him with a princess, a kingdom and wealth.

Wild Man

2010-03-31T23:55:00.003-05:00

In the earlier, more simple version of the Grimm's "Wild Man," it seems to me that this beastly character holds a certain magical, superhuman quality-- though subtle, and in fact acts much like a mentor or helper to the young boy, similar to a typical fairy tale fairy god-parent. I say this for several reasons.
First, it seems that when the Wild Man takes the boy back to the forest with him, he is simply doing a kind gesture in order to save him from the consequences of his actions (setting the caged beast free). Thus, he helps him avoid conflict with his parents; further, he helps bring the boy into manhood, symbolized through his entering the vast forest in which he is alone and able to discover himself.
Second, when the boy decides he wants to go to war, he is supplied by the Wild Man with horses and an army. It is because of these elements that he is successful and treated as a hero by the king and townspeople. However, his sources remain a secret, thus implying that the boy takes credit for the humble deeds of the Wild Man.
Looking at the story in this way reminds me much of the story of the young woman who is not able to spin well and thus employs two old women to do her spinning so that she may impress the prince and be wed into aristocracy. The glamour of the boy in this story's rewards are certainly comparable.

Becoming a man

2010-03-31T23:42:00.002-05:00

In two of the stories this week, Iron Hans and The Tale of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, young men who manage to mess their lives up in rather profound ways: The Tale of a Boy son being banished by his father and the son in Iron Hans getting kidnapped. Both end up making bad impressions on people whom they encounter along the way as well, as the Boy ends up upsetting or killing off the people he met, while the other son upsets Iron Hans because he cannot fulfill a simple task assigned to him. In the end of the two respective tales though, both young men end up with fame, fortune, and princesses for wives.

The two tales differ greatly though in how they are resolved. The "Iron Hans" boy with the help of Hans suddenly develops characteristics one easily identifies with a hero that allow him to bravely conquer in fierce battle. The boy in Iron Hans is somewhat more savage than the average young man though, as his exposure to the outdoors gave him long, light, messy hair and he found his superhuman strength there. The resolution in the "creeps" story is one of persistence rather than great change coming over an individual. The boy in this story is constantly defiant, refusing to do as he's told with regards to anything. This is turned in to his advantage when it comes to fear though, as he is able to do whatever he wants without regard to the consequences of this emotion.

He is born with a few other positive characteristics, as he is able to fight off monsters with intent to kill, but this is primarily a story of one strong virtue being able to defeat all other vice, as despite the boy's seeming incapability in other areas, his fearlessness takes him far in the world.

Dense vs. Dashing

2010-03-31T22:55:00.005-05:00

It's interesting that this week is all about boys and how they grow up and mature, yet "The Boy Who Went Forth..." glorifies a young man who is a complete fool. He gets money, glory, and the girl. True, he shows no fear at all of the frightening things that jump out at him, but perhaps this is due to the fact that he doesn't have enough sense for these things to scare him. The whole premise of the story is that this boy wanted to find out what "the creeps" are and never actually experiences them. Just imagine what it must have been like to have been married to an imbecile like that: he constantly complains about never having found out what "the creeps" are. It's no wonder she has a bucket full of minnows poured on him in his sleep; at least he'd hush about it.

The wild man stories, on the other hand, exemplify the kind of man a boy should strive to be: hardworking, humble, and noble. The boy in these stories does what he's ordered to do to the best of his ability and earns his rewards: a kingdom, a bride, etc. The Wild Man/ Iron Hans teach him well and push him to be a good man. Perhaps this is what distinguishes the young prince from the boy in search of fear: the young prince has a mentor, someone to guide him, whereas the boy was simply a burden for his father and older brother.

Wild Men-Killers and Kings

2010-03-31T22:55:00.004-05:00

In both Iron Hans and The Wild Man, the story begins with the wild man doing something evil. In Iron Hans he lurks in the bottom of a pool and comes out of the water to pull huntsmen to their deaths. This is a very terrifying, evil image. In The Wild Man, the wild man destroys all the crops in the fields so the peasants starve. This is less horrific in a horror movie kind of way, but even more evil than Iron Hans killing a few huntsmen. In both of the these stories, the wild man is a killer, causing pain and suffering to innocent people. Why then, does he help the little prince throughout the rest of the story?

I really don't have an answer to this question, but I think it's an interesting dilemma. The wild men are supposedly under a curse that makes them act wild and evil, yet they are still under the curse when they are helping out the prince. In The Wild Man there's a blatant about-face of the wild man's character as he destroys crops in the beginning and then tends the king's garden right after that. He has a sort of flip-flopping nature when it comes to his evil plant killing ways. Iron Hans is an even more interesting case because not only does he help the little prince and provide him with what he needs to win the princess, but he also forces the boy to grow up and learn to be a useful man. The prince gets kicked out the forest to fend for himself and learn how to survive like a normal man rather than royalty who are apparantly useless. Why does Iron Hans help the prince and contribute to his growth as a man? Why does the wild man go from destroying fields to being an expert gardener? I have no idea, but I would love to see some people's ideas in the comments!

Wild Man as Alter Ego

2010-03-31T21:27:00.002-05:00

I'd like to take this week to do a psychoanalytical reading of Grimms' "The Wild Man" and other related tales. It seems that the strange anonymity of the Wild Man - we don't know where he came from, why he was under a spell, etc. - and the fact that the only person who really engages with the Wild Man is the boy enables the possibility that the Wild Man is really just an internalized outlet for the boy as he copes with becoming an adult.

The story begins with the Wild Man harassing the village and causing chaos. The Wild Man's outward acts of aggression and violence are manifestations of adolescents' anxious sexuality and confusion over where and who they are and what their role is as they begin to metamorphose into an adult. The Wild Man is, then, captured after imbibing too much alcohol. Because drinking/getting drunk is a right of passage, the Wild Man's inability to handle his alcohol signifies that the boy is not ready to be fully adult, and therefore must be constrained to childhood by his symbolic parents, the king and queen.

The spectacle of the caged Wild Man can then be understood as the boy's role as a passive agent. He is only the prince and cannot act fully nor have full power over anything. Rather, he is looked to and examined as the future heir to the throne, with the cage restricting the boy from acquiring his active kingly duties. The boy releases the Wild Man in order to free his own caged masculinity or caged adulthood - with the ball - a child's plaything - being lost, the boy therefore has room to become an adult.

The Wild Man and boy go off together and go straight to court. There is none of the time spent in the wild as we see in "Iron Hans" (the wild being a symbol for the hormonal instability of puberty). Instead, "The Wild Man" establishes the boy in a courtly space as the gardener. The very occupation of gardener parallels this concept of growth and change. The boy must blossom, and the Wild Man here becomes the cultivator. So we see the boy becoming extremely passive and almost lost as a character in that the Wild Man - the mad adolescent energy starts to become the primary agent contributing to growth (growth of the flowers and growth of himself into an adult).

When the boy goes off to war, he saves the kingdom, but only with the help of the Wild Man. His victory in battle is yet another rite of passage into adulthood - "war turns boys into men" - and it was only accomplished because the boy and the Wild Man merge into one, balancing the strengths and weaknesses of one another. So, the boy gets the princess and then the kingdom, and the Wild Man has the spell broken (the spell being his adolescent frenzied energy) and is able to reign his kingdom. Essentially, both boy and Wild Man end at the same place/on the same level because they are the same person. Thus, this story can be read as a coming of age in which the boy negotiates his boyhood with the increasing rise toward adulthood and is educated/indoctrinated by the Wild Man in order to become adult.

A Tale of a Boy

2010-03-31T21:22:00.002-05:00

"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.

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?

The Huntsman

2010-03-25T06:12:00.004-05:00

(I apologize for my tardiness. I don't mean to make excuses, but I have two tests this morning and this important thing slipped my mind.)

The Woodsman is a character who goes through changes in the different versions of Snow White. In the Disney version of Snow White, the woodsman is a burly character who somehow strikes me as unintelligent yet kind deep down in his heart despite being a hired hand. In this version, the Woodsman seems like a man who would otherwise certainly commit murder, but is overcome by the beauty and innocence of Snow White and lets her go for this reason. The scene with him has an emotional intensity to it.

In the DEFA version of Snow White, the Huntsman is very different. He is thin, seems intelligent, and actually looks and seems like a scoundrel. The scene where the Huntsman lets Snow White go is very different than in the Disney version. The scene is extremely unemotional. He seems to be going through a rational process when he decides not to kill her. Snow White also has to 'convince' this Huntsman to not kill her. While in the Disney he comes to the decision on his own.

The Grimms version of Snow White leaves much to the imagination, and that is why two very interpretations came to be. Snow White does ask the Huntsman not to kill her, but is only one sentence. He also has virtually no personality at all, except that he feels great moral relief when not having to kill Snow White, suggesting the more emotional Disney version might be a more genuine adaptation.

Dopey!

2010-03-24T23:48:00.002-05:00

In watching the DEFA version of Snow White, there was one dwarf in particular whom I took to be the equivalent of Disney's "Dopey." (The German name escapes me at the moment!) In both films, all of the 7 dwarfs are portrayed as both lovable and loving, genuinely caring, and safe. Further, they are efficient, industrious, and intelligent. I attribute this last characteristic to the lot of them as they are the group responsible for saving Snow White time and time again. They not only detect someone dangerous is lurking in the woods, attempting to harm Snow White, but they are able to quickly find the object that has inflicted her, putting her in a momentary dead-like state. What is especially endearing about Dopey and his alter ego in the DEFA version, however, is the fact that he retains this innate intelligence that is obviously the result of a caring heart and soul, and is able to contribute to the saving of Snow White despite his mental capacity showing signs of limited capacity. In Disney's film, a more overtly sweet and loving relationship between Dopey and Snow White is portrayed, as we see him return again and again for kisses... simply silly in love with the young girl, making the audience laugh-- more precisely, maybe is the word giggle?-- often. In the DEFA version, "Dopey" is funny, too, but as more of a jester-like comical character. The rest of the dwarves are always keeping him in check, as he is the one distracted or left behind, but only out of natural curiosity and a playful attitude. In this version, Snow White herself seems more distant (less motherly and more maid-like, perhaps) in her relation to the dwarfs. Accordingly, her relationship with them is not quite as deep as is Disney's princess with her own dwarfs.

The Dwarves in the Snow White Tales

2010-03-24T23:32:00.001-05:00

In both, “Snow White” and “The Three Little Gnomes in the Forest” (in the Grimms book), the dwarf/gnomes expect Snow White to do things for them without question.

In “Snow White”, she is made to do chores in exchange for food and a roof over her head. This is pretty reasonable. The gnomes in “The Three Little Gnomes in the Forest” seem much more arrogant and demanding. She has only a small piece of bread to eat and upon meeting them, they demand she share it with them. They then demand that she sweep their back porch. After Snow White does these things without question, they bestow gifts upon her for being “so polite and kind”. Later, the other daughter is cursed after she refuses to take orders from the gnomes. She tells them, “Do your own sweeping! I’m not your maid.” (Exactly what I would have said). They describe Snow White as “obedient” and the woman’s daughter as “wicked”. Snow White’s role in the “Snow White” tale is very reminiscent of the old-fashioned housewife stereotype. She has to have the dwarves’ dinner ready and waiting for them when they return.

In this way, the dwarves/gnomes represent the patriarchy. Women are expected to be subservient and meek, performing all tasks asked of them by men, even complete strangers. If you dare to question them or stand up for yourself, you are “wicked” and “greedy”.

The Wicked Queen

2010-03-24T22:30:00.002-05:00

In Snow White, the wicked stepmother, or queen, is known for her beauty and vanity. Despite some variations, in all of the Snow White stories the queen wants Snow White killed because she is vain and wants to be the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. Disney treats the evil queen's beauty interestingly, because she is vampy and sexual, but her hair, arguably one of the most important features a beautiful woman has, is never shown. She keeps her head completely covered by a sinister looking perversion of what looks like a nun's habit. It is only when she transforms herself into a hideous old woman that we get to see her hair, although at that point it is grey and stringy. The film opens with a shot of the queen looking into a mirror. It highlights the shape of her body and the cruel beauty of her face, as well as the covering over her head. By highlighting her sexuality and beauty, but hiding her hair, Disney makes the queen seem less womanly. She is a perversion of femininity, not only in her actions, but in her very physical makeup. After she becomes the old woman, she remains a perversion of femininity because her beauty and her hair are still absent. As an old woman, she is a an abberation of youth. At no point in the story does the queen appear totally human, with all the parts that would make her a complete woman. She is an unnatural woman on the inside, so she is presented as an unnatural woman on the outside.

In the silent film we watched in class today, the evil queen begins the film as an ugly woman who desires beauty. Instead of being vain and beautiful from the get-go, she has to ask an old witch to make her beautiful. The first thing she notices after her transformation is her long, thick hair. The operatic braids she lifts with excitement represent the ultimate in femininity. It wasn't until she became beautiful that she could have ultra-feminine hair. This version of the Snow White story emphasizes the queen's desire to be as truly female as possible, if femaleness is defined by beauty. It is different from the Disney version of the story because gaining beauty does not make the queen any less human. It actually makes her seem more feminine and complete by beauty standards. Her evil actions do not match her appearance in this story. The two different depictions of the queens in the films highlight Disney's propensity to make the characters look on the outside how they are on the inside. Disney's queen has to be beautiful to make the story work, but she doesn't have to be truly female. The traditional way the queen's beauty is portrayed in the silent film contrasts the way Disney portrays their villain.

Reflections of a Killer Queen

2010-03-24T21:41:00.004-05:00

The presence, or absence, of the mirror, as well as its gender, in the Snow White tales makes an important distinction in the stepmother's paranoid narcissism. The Grimms' "Snow White," the 1812 version anyway, does not kill off Snow White birth mother which makes her narcissism and worry that her daughter will replace her within the household and her desire to kill her daughter much scarier. She utilizes a genderless magic mirror, which "she knew would always tell the truth" and informs her that even at the age of 7, Snow White has surpassed her in beauty. The mirror's very real and implants the jealousy in the queen's mind. Perhaps the Grimms didn't endow this magical entity with any sort of gender clues because its observations have such dire consequences: the ideal female has already been violated by making Snow White's own mother the one who desires her death and an upright male voice would never order such a thing.
Walt Disney endows his Wicked Stepmother's magic mirror with a male, Jewish voice, thus provoking both wise deception and a promise behind its observations. It's a mask that covers nothing, yet the Queen trusts it so. The fact that Disney made the mirror a male voice gives its observations more weight since more than likely, it is for men that a woman's beauty matters. It's also interesting to point out that a man would never feel threatened, especially by a woman, by telling a woman that she isn't the most beautiful thing in the world. A woman, on the other hand, knows better: they know how dangerous it is to their welfare to fight against anyone in power; they're supposed to be meek, docile creatures.

The Magic Mirror

2010-03-24T14:36:00.002-05:00

To continue along with the discussion we started today in class, I'd like to further examine the "character" of the magic mirror, since "it" is one of the primary drivers of the plot, more so than Snow White, the prince, or the dwarves, and arguably more than the queen/stepmother (who may or may not be the same person). In all written texts, the magic mirror has no gendered voice, it is simply an inanimate object overtaken by some magical force. The same is true for the 1916 film version. The mirror has no voice, as indeed no character has a voice in this silent film. And while silence is only due to the contemporary filmmaking technology, let's pretend that this silence was instead thought-out and chosen a such. In my opinion, a silent mirror is in some ways more in keeping with the queen's psyche argument. We may not hear it, but the queen certainly does. The mirror does not need to speak because its visual image tells all. The mirror reflects its fair queen, but her reflection pales in comparison to Snow White's and that is obvious. No words even need to be spoken, for it is all internalized.

But what does internalized mean? If we want to continue with the queen's psyche argument, the Disney version could be seen as the voice of patriarchal society, which is the queen's own voice because she's been indoctrinated within that society. Therefore, the male voice refers us to the ways in which men in our society get to judge what is beautiful, so that women can only consider themselves beautiful when a male affirms their beauty. In contrast to the queen's psyche theory, however, the Disney mirror, rather than simply being magical as in the 1916 version, is also demonized with fire and smoke. "He" is a mask, not a person in and of himself, but an outward guise to hide a person's true appearance. So while he inhabits the most human form of any of the mirrors in film Snow Whites, the magic mirror is still not fully human, but rather some illusion to be summoned. It is also important to note that the queen's reflection is entirely lost in the mirror so that only the mask and smoke are featured. This separates the mirror from the queen's character to such an extent visually that it would be very difficult to extend the queen's psyche theory much further than I already have.

In the 1961 DEFA film, the mirror is portrayed with the queen's reflection, while its frame lights up and a female voice comes forth when asked its question. The magic mirror being coded female eliminates the patriarchal judge of beauty evident in the Disney version. Instead, the prince is the only male character who decides what is beautiful. The mirror then becomes more of an expression of female jealousy. She (the mirror) is perhaps entirely representative of the queen's own feelings, while at the same time being separate from her (the queen at one point asks her serving woman what the mirror said and the mirror possesses knowledge of Snow White's whereabouts that the queen isn't conscious of). The feminized mirror provides an objective female voice that tells us what beauty is, perhaps regardless of patriarchal society's views.

Bluebeard and Cannibalism

2010-03-18T08:22:00.002-05:00

I hope it's okay that I'm a little late on this. I have a big project due today in one of my other classes, and this just slipped my mind.

From this week's readings, I was especially interested in "The Robber's Bridegroom" because it seems the least congruous with other Bluebeard tales, while still maintaining the basic theme of marital anxiety - the horror of marriage. In several ways, "The Robber's Bridegroom" presents a story more in line with the fairy tale than most other Bluebeard tales. It has the horror aspect of the bridegroom repulsing the bride for some uncanny reason and also of the bridegroom rightfully (in the sense that the girl is right to be afraid) presenting danger to the girl. Unlike the other Bluebeard stories, however, in this tale, the girl actually witnesses Bluebeard's horrible acts. It is not his past that is the problem, but the horrifying present situation. He was and certainly still is a threat; rather than wanting her to trust him and forgive/not know of his past, Bluebeard is presently a murderer and cannibal who most likely plans to devour her upon marraige.

"The Robber's Bridegroom" also differs in its notions of feminine curiosity causing trouble. Primarily, she does not want to go to his castle. She does not want to explore parts of her future husband that are hidden from her. She is afraid of him, trusts her initial instincts, and wants to stay away from him. It is only because of his continuous pleading and threatening that she is compelled to explore her bridegroom's dark side. She is not curious, and it is not her curiosity that can potentially cause her destruction, but simply the evil nature of her future husband.

Additionally, fairy tale elements set this tale apart from the others. The old hag in the cellar of the castle aids the girl by protecting and hiding her from the robbers. Cannibalism is also a major theme throughout various fairy tales, and so its inclusion here does not expressly shock us. Yet cannibalism in the context of other Bluebeard tales does become rather transgressive in that it creates another element of horror. She will be consumed, just as the other maiden is chopped up and consumed. So that, relating back to the theme of marital anxiety, this tale can theoretically be seen as purporting that marriage means that the female and her independence is threatened to be consumed and devoured by her husband and his dominant role over her. The evidence of the finger, then, provides the bride with the ability to protect herself from this consumption and avoid marriage and the problems it incurs and signifies.

Bluebeard

2010-03-18T01:14:00.000-05:00

Sorry this is late...on my computer that's still an hour behind!

In reading Bluebeard, I can easily see why one may not classify the story within the fairy tale genre. I had never read it, nor heard of it by name, before being assigned the reading in this course; yet, the story does not seem at all odd, nor unfamiliar. The idea of curiosity is absolutely a recurring theme in many tales, and so is disobedience. I can even think of another story in which the luring aspect is morbid in a similar manner: Sleeping Beauty. Yet, in this tale (which I now question whether or not it is a fairy tale), Princess Aurora touches the spindle while under the curse of the female villain Maleficent; there is no consideration of her disobedience to her (nonexistent) husband. Sleeping Beauty is surrounded by familial, maternal figures that wish to protect her thus making her draw to the spindle not at all her fault.
What is disturbing about Bluebeard is that the woman may here have agency; she may be seeking to find an answer about her husband’s secret past. Does this, along with he r intuitive knowledge of his unnaturalness, make her somewhat superhuman? One gains the sense that she perhaps has the intention to uncover the mystery of Bluebeard all along; why else would she consent to marriage to someone so uncanny and repulsive? This story seems to have a certain fate written all over it from the very start, suggesting that this female character likely does as well. I can thus see why Melies depicted the story through film as overtly fantastical, dreamlike—the tale itself seems to be much like a vision, perhaps a warning more than a lesson.

Bluebeard on film: Why it doesn't work

2010-03-18T00:17:00.002-05:00

The 1905 version of Bluebeard made by Georges Melies is both entertaining and funny, but it lacks a certain something that makes it a real representation of Bluebeard. Bluebeard is a fairytale that one would not necessarily identify as such if it were not in a Grimms collection. This is because Bluebeard is grimly (excuse the play on words) realistic and has many thoroughly frightening dark characteristics that are rarely elements of fairytales. Outside of Bluebeard's ugly blue beard, there is really very little that is meant to make this fairytale magical. This is why it is odd that Melies's film has many magical qualities in the religious and individual realms. For example, Bluebeard gives his bride a key that enlarges and shrinks for some magic purpose. In contrast, though, there is no indication in this black and white film that Blue Beard's beard is actually blue! This is a sad shortcoming in my opinion. In Melies, certain dark creatures force the bride to take certain actions rather than her doing them on her own, representing a tempting force that does not exist in the short story.

Oddly, because of elements like that, where substitutes are put in the place of the maiden genuinely acting on her own, the Grimm version of Bluebeard can almost be interpreted more favorably by modern feminists than the more recent film. This is true in other senses as well. For instance, outside of not being able to save herself, the Grimms Bluebeard is a strong, independent woman. Her curiosity, and not so much one of weakness, shows independence and gets her into trouble. Outside of her mistakes though, she does certain things to save herself, such as warning her brothers that she may cry out, praying when the tides were against her, and fending off the monster and calling her brothers to help before its too late.

These features are gone from Melies. All of the maidens help comes from a sort of Deus Ex Machina, as outside forces come to her aid without her doing much to call for them. Her brother's come with out her asking, for example, and God helps revive the dead maidens without a scene of the maiden taking her own initiative in prayer. A petty Bourgeois ending is presented too, where many women are married off to men in a conformist fashion, as little reason for these bonds are explained unlike in Grimms fairytales. This replaces the more satisfying Grimm ending where true family bonds are emphasized as the brothers and sister come together after her rescue.

Questionable Morals...

2010-03-17T23:20:00.002-05:00

At the end of Perrault's Bluebeard story, two morals are presented. One basically says that curious women always end up in trouble if they try to satisfy their curiosity. The other is a little more ambiguous, but seems to be saying that husbands are no longer unreasonable and jealous, and that women rule the relationship. The first moral is contradictory to the second. In the first, women are shown to be weak and "succumb" to their curiosity all the time. Clearly, this is a bad thing because we all know women should stay out of men's business and not go looking into locked rooms that aren't the kitchen or the nursery. Perrault uses this "moral" to show his view of women's place in the world and the consequences they will face if they step out of it. The second moral contradicts this by implying that women rule in relationships and make their husbands "toe the line". The only reason I can think of for Perrault to provide two very different morals at the end of the story is to make fun of the "curiosity killed the women" message in the story. The first moral is perhaps an ironic acknowledgment of the apparent misogynistic message of the story. Many people would look at the story and only see the moral as, when women go where men tell them not to, bad things will happen. Perrault added the second moral to show that this is a simplistic view of the story and an old fashioned way of thought. The first line of the second moral is "if you just take a sensible point of view". He is showing that a sensible person would see beyond that initial moral and understand that "this tale is one that took place many years ago". In "modern" or Perrault's time, women can be curious and question their husbands without fear of death. So the second moral is the one that Perrault really believes.

Women in the Bluebeard Tales

2010-03-17T23:14:00.002-05:00

There seem to be a lot of stories throughout history that involve a woman’s inability to quell her curiosity, such as the story of Adam and Eve and Pandora’s Box, among others. These stories paint the female characters as easily tricked and lacking self-control. In the Brothers Grimm version of “Bluebeard”, though the maiden is forbidden from entering the one room, she is unable to resist her desire to see what’s inside. It is interesting that when her groom threatens to kill her and leaves her alone to pray, attempting to defend herself(something sharp, a blunt object perhaps?) or hide or run away aren’t even presented as an option in the story. She must instead rely on men (her brothers) to come save her.

In “The Robber Bridegroom”, the maiden is once again almost killed by her curiosity. She arrives at this house which she is afraid of because it is “so dark and dreary” yet still goes inside. A bird immediately warns her repeatedly that the house belongs to murderers who will kill her once they arrive home…yet she continues looking through the rooms. She is eventually helped by a woman BUT she is very old and therefore wise (though she was in possession of a sleeping potion and had apparently never tried to use it before to escape...). In each, the women are portrayed as somewhat naive and helpless.

Bluebeard....encroaching on reality?

2010-03-17T22:02:00.004-05:00

What makes the Bluebeard stories so frightening is that the serial killing is very real, there are men like Bluebeard in the real world who have a habit of killing.

In the Grimms' Bluebeard there is the scene of horror that greets the young bride's eyes of all the previous wives hanging from the walls, a pool of blood underneath which means that the killing is fresh. Another creepy part to the Bluebeard stories is that he is not recognized as a monster, but maintains a regular appearance as a nobleman (usually) who is married. In contrast to the Beauty and the Beast stories, the Beast's physical appearance is threatening, but he is able to fall in love, and he has a gentle soul. Bluebeard, however, looks like a man, but on the inside is a monster, unable to feel or respond to any kind of love.

In Georges Melies film we watched in class Wed. March 17, the film seems innocent enough with lively music, and the characters never actually speak, but I found the image of the hanging women disturbing. While the entire movie seemed to be very surreal, the dead women seemed very real in contrast to the rest of the movie, as if something out of a horror movie today.

Perhaps all the gruesome stuff that has happened in other stories doesn't seem so horrible because I can't see it happening today, but Bluebeard is probably one of the fairytales that doesn't exactly fit the category.

Bluebeard Stories

2010-03-17T20:55:00.002-05:00

There is an interesting difference in attitude towards women between Perrault's Bluebeard and the Grimm's Robber Bridegroom. Perrault uses the story to teach the moral that curiosity is a bad trait in women and that they will inevitably be faced with negative consequences if they allow the temptations of curiosity to overcome them. This portrays women as weak and mischievous. Perrault is sure to point out that this story took place long ago, and that while husbands are no longer so terrible, it is still clear that they are in charge of the women - "it is not hard to tell which of the pair is master."

The Robber Bridegroom has a more positive view of women. The girl quietly hinds behind the barrel when the robbers arrive at the cottage and cleverly keeps the cut-off finger as proof for when she tells her story to everyone. She also used the peas and lentils on the way to the bridegroom's house, not unlike Hansel and Gretel, so that she could find her way back. Here, the girl is portrayed as clever, thoughtful, not easily distressed, etc. She is able to handle herself (and get herself out of) stressful situations. The bridegroom has no power over her, as does Bluebeard in Perrault's version. In fact, she is able to have the band of robbers executed for their deeds. She is a strong, independent woman, unlike the one portrayed in Bluebeard, who is at the mercy of her husband.

The Fairy Tale as a Means of Escape

2010-03-02T08:26:00.005-06:00

In response to Alexandra Scott's post, I did not find this movie to be sweet. In fact, I was a little disturbed. While it is clear that her world view is shaped by fairy-tales, Laura-Anne seems very bent on the fact that she will not be happy if she does not have a man to protect her and love her. She goes through 3 boyfriends (Ben, she dates twice), despite the fact that they do not treat her well at all. Perhaps watching this movie was so strange because she is only ten, yet she feels her happiness depends on having a man in her life, and that she knows she is set for motherhood. This might not be so weird if she wasn't so young. Maybe I was also shocked by the very adult like demeanor behind these children's actions, but I feel like living in such a poor town as Siddick means that innocence is left behind very quickly, and I feel like this is where I felt there was a conflict. Obviously Laura-Anne has childlike fantasies of love and being a princess who is loved by a strong and handsome prince, yet the thing is that her "childhood" fairy tale is not innocent at all.

This makes the film more interesting, and I think Laura-Anne's entire worldview is summed up when she says on Halloween, "Laura Anne was too old for the children's party, and too young for the teens, she was stranded somewhere in between." (Or something to that nature.)

Laura-Anne lives in a place where there is no escape from the harshness of that life, but it is whenever she is outside playing in the surf or on the tree that you remember that she is still mostly a child, and that is why she dreams.

I believe that her fairy-tale fantasies are created because if she can't make her life seem like a fairy tale, even in its simplicity, the reality of her situation becomes very clear. However, she makes the story fit into her life, so that it is possible for her fairy tale dream of finding love to become a reality in the small and poor town that she lives in. The beauty of the movie is that her simple life can be transformed into a fairy tale with a few rhyming words.

Someday My Prince Will Come

2010-03-02T00:18:00.002-06:00

In this short film, Laura-Anne narrates her life as though she is the princess at the center of a fairy tale. In some ways, this young girl does mirror the classic princess. She is at the brink of womanhood (or teenage years, at least), and naturally feminine in her desires for and direction towards a more mature sexuality. Though not exceeding gorgeous, we sense that she simply has yet to bloom, as is symbolized in the scenes following her learning about the transitions of puberty in which flowers are blossoming, and all sorts of plants are spreading their seeds in the blowing wind. Further, Laura-Anne has some understanding of children, as we see in her interactions with her infant sister and cousin, as well as a caring for animals such as the bunny rabbits they find; more obvious, however, is her closeness to nature shown through the film's landscape. The scenes in which Laura-Anne appears are remarkably beautiful and serene. Finally, the princess is undoubtedly a bride and mother to be, as she both verbalizes explicitly and demonstrates through her gentle care of the young boys in her town. Granted the fact that she has a crush on him, Laura-Anne gives her coat to Ben without question while they are together on the beach. He has been ignoring her nearly the entirety of the time, busily engaged in a most disgusting and boyish game of digging for worms. This scene certainly displays the gender role cliches of male as wild and vulgar, and woman as gentle, caring, and civilized.

There is a minimal presence of Laura-Anne's father in this film. It is evident that the familial masculine presence representing home and security which is replaced by an outside lover is her cousin, Steven. He cares for her in his initial concern for Ben's "two-timing" of Laura-Anne, and his desire for her to know the truth. In the latter part of the film, after Laura-Anne has learned of and begins undergoing sexual maturation (and her fertility is represented through the images of nature), we see Steven left without the young girl whom he once protected, and thus somewhat at a loss-- much like the father of a fairy tale princess.

I really enjoyed watching this sweet story unfold through beautiful pictures, and recommend it to anyone who wants to see something fresh and full of life!

Fathers and Daughters

2010-02-24T23:44:00.005-06:00

Why is the parent so crucial in Beauty and the Beast stories, and more specifically, the father? It is in trying to gather Beauty's present that most of the time he encounters the beast, who is angered that his property is being taken. The father has to make a promise to the beast that he will give his daughter to die in his place. Beauty's willingness to sacrifice herself for her father is what shows her virtue and kindness that eventually lead her to loving the beast. However, I found one Beauty and the Beast rendition particularly interesting from the Ashliman site, the story of the Singing Rose from Austria. The father is a king, so the family is not in dire financial trouble, nor does Beauty want for nothing. The father sets a task for his three daughters, that whoever finds the singing rose will become queen. Of course "the youngest and most beautiful of all" ventures into the dark forest, where she gets the rose from an ugly old man. He makes her promise to return to the forest after 7 years. Much like in the Frog King, this girl disregards the promise and doesn't really believe in keeping it. Seven years later, the old man shows up, and the king (although he doesn't want to send his daughter away), makes his daughter keep her promise. In a sense, the father's role in this story and in the Frog King are teaching their daughters lessons of loyalty.

The old man tells the young maiden that if she cuts off his head in three blows, she will be free from his lonely castle. Since this story was in the Beauty and the Beast category, I thought that maybe under the skin of the old man there would be a young prince.

Big, big, disillusionment on my part.

When the queen cuts off his head "The old man's head rolled away on the floor. But behold! Instead of blood, a key fell from the head. It opened all the chests and doors in the entire castle. There the princess found many, many precious things, and she was rich and free forever."

There is no learning to love a Beast; Beauty's kindness and virtue and fidelity do not shine through. In fact, this character of the youngest daughter is not the heroine who gives herself up willingly to save her father and family.

So why is Beauty's father important? He not only "introduces" her to the Beast, albeit accidently, he is the reason she returns home to care for him when he is sick. The Beast can see Beauty's loyalty to her father, and her sadness at not taking care of her father causes him grief, therefore he allows her to visit home on the condition that she return to his care. In seeing her love for her father, the Beast comes to love Beauty, who in turn learns to love him. In most fairy tales the father figure is absent, and it is refreshing to have a tale where he plays a vital role.

Parents in Beauty and the Beast Stories

2010-02-24T23:40:00.002-06:00

The parental figures in many of the Beauty and Beast type stories are portrayed as honest and loving. They love their children, especially the beautiful daughter, and show it by bringing her an impossible present-a rose in winter or a singing, springing lark. The loving father obtains whatever his child desires with the unfortunate result that he must die at a beast's hands. The fact that the father promises to come back to the beast in order to be killed for his transgression is intriguing. These fathers are so honest that when the beast tells them to leave and come back in a week, they never consider not going. The option to send a daughter in their stead isn't really an option to them either. They usually say they have lived a long life and have few years left anyway. Again this shows their great love for their children. When the most beloved daughter takes her father's place with the beast-out of love and a sense of guilt-the father grieves so much for the daughter that he almost dies. The role of these honest, loving, loyal fathers is to provide an anchor for the beauty's love. Living with the beast and marrying him would not be such a huge sacrifice if the girl's home life was not so wonderful and loving. She must move from the position of cherished daughter of a good man to beloved wife of a monster, which highlights the fear young girls have of leaving home and getting married. If the parents or father were horrible abusive men, the move to marriage with a kind but ugly monster would be no challenge at all. In that case the marriage-anxiety would not be present, but rather happiness at escaping a bad situation would be the predominant emotion.

Parental Roles in Beauty & the Beast

2010-02-24T23:09:00.001-06:00

Tatar points out the theme of filial duty in the Beauty and the Beast stories. This theme reflects the cultural filial ideals of its time being transmitted to its audience (children). These stories also reflect the society’s views on parenthood. Each story emphasizes the importance and value of children. The father in “Hans My Hedgehog” is said to “not be complete”, because he doesn’t have children and is mocked by the townspeople because of it.

The fathers in each story are devoted to their daughters, buying them expensive, hard-to-find gifts. In “The Winter Rose”, the father dies from the grief of losing his daughter. The fathers are also supposed to be honest and willing to give their daughters up if this is agreed upon in a deal. This may have been a culturally relevant issue at the time this story was originally told. The fathers who are dishonest and do not honor the deals, end up being punished.

We also see parental acceptance of deformed or unusual children. In “The Pig King” the parents decide to accept and love their mutant pig-child and treat him as if he were a normal boy. All of the stories transmit lessons on what virtuous parenting is.

Role of Beauty's Father

2010-02-24T23:06:00.003-06:00

It seems to me that the role of the parents is mainly, in the case of Beauty's family, a reminder of a child's duty to care for his or her parents-- an obligation certainly expected of young daughters, especially those who no longer have mothers caring for the family. It is very clear in both Madame de Beaumont's version of La Belle et la Bete and The Pig King that a daughter's priority should always be her family, and it is notably her parents to whom she essentially owes her life. Despite the center of the story being one of transformation and acceptance of those with horrifying outer appearances, the situation in which this lesson is framed does not even come about until after Beauty has done what every dutiful daughter in her position would do: sacrifice herself for her father. Not only out of expectation, Beauty is so moral a character that she genuinely insists out of love. She claims that, should she not give her own life so that her father may continue living his, she would die anyways, and it would certainly be a more painstaking death of despair and grief. This idea that the daughter cannot go on without her father also reinforces the idea of virginity and naivete in the sexual realm of the adult world. Beauty has never before loved another in the way that she does her father, and thus cannot imagine anything worse than living without him, nor anything that could plausibly replace him (or his role in her life). Therefore, the presence of the father in the story allows for the element of self discovery and sexual maturation later on, when Beauty falls in love with Beast and even remarks that she would be much happier living with him than with her own family. The story is thus not only one in transformation of the beast from hideous to pleasant, but that of Beauty from her young, dependent self (although moral and virtuous) to a woman and, accordingly, a wife.

Parents Just Don't Understand

2010-02-24T22:55:00.003-06:00

Parents must play a role in the beauty and the beast stories just as much as any tale about courtship. In the Pig King, the mothers play a larger role in getting their children together than do the fathers or even the children themselves. This speaks a lot for how women were seen as matchmakers when these fairytales were written/ told.
In The Tiger Bride, the woman's gambling father, for all intensive purposes, sells her to the beast. This seems like an unconventional form of the arranged marriage, but weren't most arranged marriages made for some kind of personal or financial gain?
It's interesting to consider how all of these parents had some sort of material gain by allowing their children to be paired with the monstrous beings. Do they truly love their children as much as they claim to or is the siren call of material gain more appealing than guarding their daughters and sons? And would modern parents do the same thing?

Parents' Roles in Beauty and the Beast

2010-02-24T21:17:00.002-06:00

The parents in Beauty and the Beast stories have different roles in affecting the plot. Usually, it is only the father that is present, but his role is either in getting the couple together or in revealing the human nature of the beast.

In de Beaumont's Beauty and the Beast, the Grimms' Frog King and the Frog Princess, the father is responsible for uniting the girl and the Beast. In Beauty and the Beast, the maiden's return home to visit her father results in her realization of her love for Beast. The parents play a similar part in Urashima the Fisherman who goes back to try to find his parents. However, this ends badly for him as he loses both his family and his wife.

In the Pig King, it is actually the mother who does more to find her son a suitable wife by negotiating with the daughters of a poor woman. It is also the mother who advises her son on getting his bride in the swan maiden.

In all of these stories, it appears that the parents play a significant role in bringing the couple together, and sometimes introduce conflict or help them see that they do love each other. When the lover's return to each other, it is then that the beast is transformed to a human.

Parents in the Beauty and Beast week stories

2010-02-24T17:49:00.002-06:00

In the stories we have read for this week, two or several characters who assume roles as beautiful princesses and scary beasts play the key active roles in stories about marriage. By active roles, I mean that these characters are the only to have roles as true agents of action, as the story focuses on them as the purveyors of conflict and resolution, and the other characters in the stories play side roles. In these stories, the parent's always play the part of the main side roles, and although characters with side roles can be of a variety of types, (those who give advice, those who attempt to foil a particular resolution etc.) the parents in the stories always play a particular type of side role.

In these stories, the parents are always involved as part of the setting. What I mean by this is that they are involved in creating the plot that the Beauty and the Beast must resolve, and they do not play an active role in its decision much at all. In Beauty and the Beast specifically, it is the father's mistakes (his failure to maintain his riches and his bad manners towards the beast) that cause the Beauty to have to come in contact with the Beast. From there, the two characters work out their own problems, and the Father has only been involved in the action that set up their coming together.

Similarly, in The Pig King, the pig plays the active role of searching for a bride, while his mother plays the part of setting up princesses to come in contact with the Pig. And in the Frog King, the father plays the role of mediator, as he bridges the ongoing conflict between the princess and frog and ensures their conflict continues and that the princess cannot simply shut him out. He is part of the setting as well. In the Tiger's Bride, the father of course loses his daughter in a bet, and he is of course merely playing the setting part of a character as well, as any other variety of circumstances could have trapped the princess into her conflict with the tiger. And in the Swan Maiden, the mother is a mediator as well, as her imparting to her son the path to resolving his conflict, his need to possess the maiden, is merely part of the setting as well.

These stories reveal how parents can shape the settings that their children have to unravel. The parents conveniently are there to explain why their children must fall in love with strange animals.

Fathers and Daughters

2010-02-24T12:30:00.002-06:00

I think it's important to specify who we're talking about when we say parents/in-laws. In the majority of the stories of this type, the only parent featured is Beauty's father. The mother is hardly, if ever, mentioned. The Beast's parents, as well, presumably a king and queen are only occasionally spoken of and always only at the very end of the story.

There may be a couple reasons for the prominence of the patriarch: 1) it develops Beauty's character and virtue by giving her someone to be obedient and dutiful to, 2) it creates a narrative engine - the father either becomes sick and Beauty must leave the Beast to see him, or, as in Frog Prince stories, the father forces Beauty to do as the frog says (tying back to #1), 3) it infiltrates every aspect of the story with men.

Why might fairy tales want to have men strewn throughout the plot? It seems that the presence of the father and of the beast creates a weird parallel between father-daughter relations and boy-girl relations, as though Beauty is passed on from father to husband... which I presume was fairly common for the time period these stories were told. This parental element, then, provides a sort of didactic training in which young girls are taught, from these stories, how to behave around men, and not too surprisingly, Beauty is meant to behave around both father and romantic interest almost the same way.

Python Parody

2010-02-17T23:36:00.002-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKbWdgW6sD8&feature=fvst

I find this interpretation absolutely hilarious because it doesn't take itself seriously. There's no "seduction" of Red Riding Hood as there are in many versions of the tale; the "wolf" doesn't even look like a threat to anyone, especially a 6 foot- something tall "girl" who's so weak she rips apart turkey legs while stomping through the dark forest and breaks logs over her thigh. Like the clip in class, the narration does not follow the action, except for the bit about NASA and Buzz Aldrin.
Old Granny doesn't die; she's not even in the cottage. The only reason the wolf dies is because "security shot him." This takes the interpretation to a new level because it makes fun of itself. A modern audience doesn't necessarily believe a girl would be as dumb as the traditional story makes Little Red out to be: a wolf looks very different than an old woman, especially one we can assume she's quite familiar with. Instead of simply going with the fairy tale canon, Monty Python makes LRRH a strong "woman" who can definitely take care of a dachsund-like "wolf." It's just ridiculous on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Little Red Riding Hood

2010-02-17T20:49:00.002-06:00

This video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZVBZTS2ntk&feature=related is interesting for several reasons. First, it is a sarcastic interpretation of the classic story that places the girl in a position to mock the wolf. Little Red Riding Hood is portrayed as a modern teenager with an iPod and the "superhuman strength of ten giant retards." When she sees the wolf in her grandmother's bed she mutters, "Give me an effin' break" and proceeds to subdue the wolf with her superstrength. In this story, the girl is heroic and cunning, whereas the wolf is seen as foolish and weak. Secondly, the punishment Little Red Riding Hood inflicts on the wolf reflects a macabre awareness on the girl's part of sexuality and the wolf's potential as a sexual predetor. She has him taken to the village veterinarian and castrated violently. At one point she flicks a piece of his scrotum off of her red hood, which is a very striking image symbolically. Little Red Riding Hood's immediate reaction to her power over the wolf is to take away his sexual potential and render him impotent. He is no longer a threat after being castrated, even though the beginning of the story never shows any signs that he was a sexual threat to begin with.
Finally, the characterization of adults and children in the story shows a lack of respect for adults. The three adult characters: the grandmother, the vet, and the wolf, are all portrayed in a negative light. The grandmother's only role is to get eaten, and at the end of the story the narrator laughs that the story ends happily for everyone except her...beacuse she was eaten. There is no huntsman that comes to rescue her. She is not redeemed in any way and dies having done absolutely nothing note worthy. The wolf can be considered an "adult" character because of his predatorial status. Unfortunately for him, he is easily overpowered by Little Red Riding Hood and visciously neutered. Not only is he portrayed as stupid and arrogant, he has his "manhood" taken away as well. The veterinarian moonlights as the village idiot. The narrator notes after the messy castration that he really is a better village idiot than a vet....poor wolf. The only non-adult character in the story is Little Red Riding Hood. She is portrayed as a teenager who is smarter, stronger, and all around more awesome than any of the other characters. In the Grimms version of the story, she is naive and innocent. She has to be rescued by a strapping male huntsman because she is too young and disobedient to keep herself safe. In the version I found, the child is the hero and the adults are the inadequate ones. This is probably due to the fact that the story is being retold by a teenager, in a time when teens, if not all children, are not quite so looked down upon by adults as naive or stupid.

Little Red Riding Hood

2010-02-17T16:37:00.003-06:00

This rendition of Little Red Riding Hood is certainly a modern one, censored to an extreme degree in order to appease parents in not scaring their young children. One can immediately determine that the story has been modified in learning that the basket that Little Red Riding Hood brings to her grandmother is full of breads and cakes; no wine is to be found, ridding of any ideas of intoxication as well as any later references to bloodshed (or Little Red Riding Hood’s drinking of her grandmother’s blood). When the wolf appears for the first time, he is wearing human clothes, in order to demonstrate to modern children viewing the video why he may be attractive and deceptive. It is suggested that merely his hat and scarf disguise the wolf sufficiently.
During their first encounter in the woods, each time the wolf is shown in the same frame as Little Red Riding Hood, facing her and with his back to the viewer, he is a silhouette; entirely black, he is immediately portrayed as evil through this dark representation. But this is a gentle implication; despite the title the “wicked wolf,” this animal still has a gentle face.
Although the following scenes are more explicitly violent, it is in this latter part of the mini-movie that we see evidence of the creator’s effort to censor the original story. First of all, the wolf does not kill or even eat the grandmother (whole); instead he “bundles” her, connoting gentleness, not even harming her in any suffocating sort of way, and places her in the closet. Upon Little Red Riding Hood’s entering the house, reason is given to her confusion as we are told that the inside is dark; she is barely able to see, thus she is not unintelligent for not recognizing her grandmother. Nearly at the exact moment that the wolf exposes himself, the “wood-cutter” shows up at the door (note that he is not a hunter of any sort). Without any sort of warning, the wood-cutter is next referred to as “her father,” in order to reinforce the idea of familial unity and loyalty. This instantaneous appearance suggests that parents always stand behind their children and in fact have a sort of sixth sense that keeps them constantly in touch with the needs of their offspring and which intuitively triggers something in them whenever their children may be in danger. Thus, this rendition of Little Red Riding Hood is less a tale about the agency of children and their overcoming hardship, but instead one that strengthens the idea of the family unit, especially in times of despair, and reinforces the lesson of necessary obedience.

LRRH Commercial plays up Sexual themes

2010-02-17T15:40:00.003-06:00

Commercial
In class, we discussed the different elements of Perrault's characterization of Little Red Riding Hood and how these elements contributed to the image of Red Cap as a promiscuous, immoral character. We learned in this discussion that during Perrault's age, the color red was associated with these characteristics: that a woman who wore red was somehow not morally upright. Perrault's treatment of Red Cap is as such, he presents Little Red Riding Hood's death at the end as her own fault because of her curiosity and promiscuity. It is suggested that something takes place between Red Cap and the Wolf (while still maintaining that she believes it is "Grandmother" strangely enough) when she gets under the covers in his version.

The commercial I have uploaded certainly borrows from that depiction of Red Cap. The woman in question's hood is a burning-rose red color, which is played up with red lipstick and her short skirt to obviously create a seductive looking character. As Hood approaches the bed and finds her grandmother is really a wolf, it plays into the idea that Hood is initially but merely superficially shocked by the Wolf's appearance, and she quickly transitions to being interested in other things in this given situation. Clearly, only the Perrault version is referenced in this video, as in no other reading of the story is some sort of liaison suggested as in the commercial.

The commercial is for a brand of cologne called "Primal." In this way, the use of Little Red Riding Hood is loosely appropriate because of its involvement of the wolf. The music in the background provides an ironical theme to the whole scene, as it was likely designed for children's enjoyment, but takes on a very different connotation in light of the commercial. Lastly, the wolf taking the dummy head off and revealing a bearded hairy man fits directly with our discussion in class how the "Wolf" in the story fits a dual role as a literal animal and an outcast, uncivilized beast of a man.

LRRH Commercial

2010-02-17T14:58:00.004-06:00

(I don't know how to embed a video so here is the link. It's not very long at all, only about half a minute.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX1MQ9DyuzU&feature=related

There were so many versions of Little Red Riding Hood on YouTube that it was hard to just choose one! However, I did find a pattern after searching around for a while. There were videos made for children, where the wolf doesn't look as scary, he doesn't end up eating the grandmother, he just shoves her in the closet, and where the entire video is just sing-song.

However, more often than not, modern re-interpretations of LRRH depict her as a symbol of seduction. In this video I posted, there is a song about Little Red Riding Hood by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, that is found in a lot of other videos. Usually this song is accompanied by a sexual video. In the commercial for this perfume, LRRH is not a child and she is dressed like a hooker. Or rather like a slutty halloween costume. She enters the cottage and immediately begins to climb onto the bed as if she knows what is waiting. A wolf mask pops out of bed, but instead of being frightened, Little Red smiles at him, she climbs onto bed, and the mask is taken off to reveal a man underneath.

What does this say about our culture, that we continually portray Little Red Riding Hood so sexually? She is no longer an innocent girl who wanders into the forest to her grandmother, but purposefully goes in search of the wolf to fulfill her sexual desires.

The line at the end of the commercial is selling a perfume, and it says "Get Primal."

This is a complete turnaround from any version told of LRRH. The Grimms and Perrault got rid of some of the more erotic elements, but earlier versions were chock-full of sexual innuendos. However, the girl was always a child physically, and her motive for heading into the woods was to go to her grandmother's house, not to have sex with a wolf. I feel like the figure of the grandmother has been discarded so that newer stories focus on the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood, and their primal desires.

Strange Twist on Red Riding Hood

2010-02-16T22:12:00.003-06:00

I thought this was a very interesting spin on the story. The changes take away the moral of the story, and just make it...strange. The wolf uses the "What beautiful eyes you have.." on the Grandma. Then, they both hide and run away from Little Red Riding Hood, who goes back home to tell her mother. So, the mother comes and chases the wolf away.

The focus of the story is shifted away from Red Riding Hood, but it also changes the view of gender roles from other versions of the story, where girls are either disobedient, stupid, or innocent victims of male predators. Here, there's not really a clear stereotype of women... except maybe that they can do whatever they want. And the wolf, instead of being a vicious predator, is enthralled by the young grandmother's beauty.

So, this is a rather strange rendition of the story that changes the plot as well as the gender stereotypes in such a way that it now lacks a coherent message or moral. And it doesn't really end happily either.

Anyone else have thoughts on this one?

Sexualizing Little Red Riding Hood - A Video

2010-02-16T20:38:00.000-06:00

This was one of the first videos I found on YouTube when searching "Little Red Riding Hood". I think it's absolutely bizarre. Created in 2007, this video blatantly sexualizes Little Red Riding Hood. Not only does it portray a vengeful, violent little girl, but it also proposes that the means for her to get her revenge is through selling her body with a striptease.

The strange masquerade is another thing to note. As a lamb, Little Red Riding Hood stays true to some of the fairy tale scholars' beliefs that these stories represent a male vs. female gender dynamic. Lambs are symbols then of the female while wolves are symbols of the male. Yet what makes the sexual relationship between the wolves and the lamb particularly questionable, aside from the fact that she's in reality a little girl who is stripteasing, is that it alludes to interspecies breeding and attraction.

Most of the attention of the video is given to the lamb's initial appearance and striptease. There's no getting lost in the woods. There's only this premeditated revenge plot to rescue the grandmother from the wolf by assuming a different identity (an allusion perhaps to the wolf stealing grandma's identity) and exploiting that identity's sexuality.

Although I'm a bit creeped out by the video, I am, at the same time, supportive that it gives Little Red Riding Hood complete agency and power in her relationship to the wolf and the situation. In this version, there's no hunter to save the day as in the Grimms', but Little Red Riding Hood must save herself.

2010-02-10T22:59:00.002-06:00

The transformation in The Juniper Tree is very different than the other human to animal transformations in the stories we've read. The boy is transformed only after he has already died and the form he is transformed into is not just a bird, but a magical singing bird with more capabilities and intelligence than his human counterpart. In the other stories about human to animal transformations, the "animal" version of the person is either completely animalistic and seemingly without human intelligence, or the animal retained its human faculties and nothing more. The son in Juniper Tree goes from a gullibe boy, easily tricked by his step-mother, to a talented singing bird with the cunning to trick people out of presents. He gains beauty, intelligence, singing talent, and the very un-childlike desire for revenge. He is neither completely animal nor completely human. It is almost as if the juniper tree turned him into a magical bird with extra powers.

All of these attributes distinguish him from the other transformed humans, but one thing is the same. The method of transformation has to be by some magical object. The transformation in The Juniper Tree was brought on by the magic in the juniper tree. The tree performed magic on the boy's mother and again on the boy himself. In stories such as The Six Swans and The Twelve Brothers, a witch or stepmother uses magical shirts or the water in a stream to transform the boys. The transformation from animal back to human is different however. In the other stories, a sister has to undergo some trial or test in order to turn the brothers back into humans. In The Juniper Tree the boy is able to turn himself back into a human throught the use of cunning and the completion of revenge on his evil step-mother. The fact that he comes back from the dead is unique, but not inconcievable considering the tree that initially gave him life is what brings him to life a second time.

Brothers - as humans and birds

2010-02-10T22:04:00.000-06:00

The transformation of the boy into a bird in The Juniper Tree is a very different scenario than those that appear in other bird/human transformations. In other stories, like The Seven Ravens, The Twelve Brothers, and The Six Swans, the brothers are changed into birds by some accident or curse. Then, the sister must perform difficult tasks in order to save the brothers and transform them back into humans.

In The Juniper Tree, though, the boy is not turned into a bird until he is dead and his bones are buried. Then, he goes around singing to acquire what he needs to reward the father and sister and kill the stepmother. Once this is accomplished, he can return to his human form. The fact that he still retains his “human ability” to speak and goes around singing a song about what happened shows that he is still more human than animal. This makes it seem like the bird is merely representative of his ghost. And once he is transformed into a human again, life continues happily as if nothing had happened.

Although he transforms into an animal, he still has more human characteristics than animal characteristics. Then, of course when the cause of his destruction is also destroyed, he comes back to life. While this is not logical or realistic (not that it should be), it just goes to show that he was always a human, but had to transform into something else (i.e. a bird because a ghost just wouldn’t have fit the fairy tale image) because he had died.

The Juniper Tree and Resurrection

2010-02-10T20:09:00.002-06:00

I find the Juniper Tree to be one of the Grimms more darker and disturbing tales, and I think while the movie is very weird and surrealistic, it does capture the bleakness and sinister mood of the story. The boy's bones are buried under the Juniper tree, where his mother is also buried. It evokes the image of the magic tree in Cinderella, where her mother is buried. The dead mother is seen as an image of good, and often helps her child through magic. Since this is a fairy tale, anything can happen, including the transformation from boy to bird, and back to human. The main difference between the Juniper Tree and all of the other transformation stories is that in The Seven Ravens, Twelve Swans, etc etc, the boys are never dead when they are transformed into birds. However, one theory is that the magic of the dead mother helped her dead son to be resurrected in the form of a bird until the spell was "broken," which meant that he would turn human with the death of the evil stepmother. He is not so much transformed into a bird as he is resurrected as one, as seen in this passage:

"At the same time smoke came out of the tree, and in the middle of the smoke there was a flame that seemed to be burning. Then a beautiful bird flew out of the fire and began singing magnificently." (161).

The rising out of the fire is characteristic of the Phoenix, along with the beautiful singing. (And yes, thanks to Harry Potter and Fawkes, I know this.)

Back to the Grimms and the bird's song. It is interesting to see how the words of his song are so tragic, so bizarre, yet everyone who hears them says "Bird, how beautifully you sing!" Through his song he gains a golden chain, red slippers, and a millstone. His song tortures the stepmother to madness, forcing her to step outside to escape it, but when she does, it's her bad luck that the millstone is dropped on her head. Once the source of evil is crushed, from the fire and smoke rises the boy in his human form. Another difference is that he has to transform himself back, he cannot rely on anyone else to change him back. So while it can be read figuratively, as if the bird is a reincarnation of his spirit, I tend to think that his biological mother's magic made it possible for him to take the form of a bird until he used his power of song to tell the truth and kill the evil stepmother. With magic, anything can happen, especially in a fairy tale, no matter how far fetched it may seem.

Juniper Tree interpretation

2010-02-10T17:09:00.002-06:00

In the Juniper Tree, a brother is killed by his wicked stepmother, and when his remains are placed at a sacred site where his mother was buried, he resurrects as a bird. In my view, it was not the brother's physical transformation that took place in this story, but rather his soul's taking of a new form in order to correct and justify a fallen and imperfect situation in the world. When the brother returns as a bird, he ceased to be human altogether and took on the role fully of bird but with that of his human spirit and soul's memory. Thus, he had the knowledge he needed to make the transformation of the world back to perfection.

His song takes on a different form than one would expect as well. Rather than the bird literally somehow singing the words as one might think, the bird's message is somehow carried in normal bird chirps but takes on magical qualities that human's understand. It's similar to how the mother 'sensed' the boy's spirit when she felt "a big storm were on its way." Nature, in this case being bird chirps, somehow transmitted sensations into humans without having to take on human form.

In my view, the boy doesn't necessarily literally come back from the dead, rather the ending is a symbol of a return to spiritual realignment and perfection. The mother, being a wicked character, is excluded from the final scene, but the boy's reappearance shows how the perfect family would have been, with just brother, sister, and father. This transformation is different from others we read in that there was a need for magical properties "smoke, flames, and fire" to appear before the transformation to take place rather than it just happening out of nowhere, such as in "Sweetheart Roland." Also, it is clearly magic taking place here as opposed to human involvement in the transformation such as in Hans the Hedgehog where he is shaved and oiled. Again, I don't think the transformation is so much important as the symbol of a return to order and good spirits.

The Brother as a Bird

2010-02-10T14:20:00.002-06:00

"The Juniper Tree" is rather unusual in that the brother transforms posthumously into another living being and only with the death of the one who made it happen is he able to regain life in his original human form. Unlike the other tales in which multiple brothers (who are alive) change into swans or ravens with only their sister's sacrifices having the ability to bring them back, the transformation in "The Juniper Tree" is akin to reincarnation, and the (step)sister makes very little sacrifice other than giving her dead brother a proper burial.

This raises some troubling concerns when you ask whether he is more of a bird or more of a person, for can he be either if he is dead? His human to animal to human transformation might be, instead, a way of looking at death/afterlife. The very fact that the bird sings a song with uniquely human lyrics (my mother, she slew me / my father, he ate me) and that the bird plots vengeance against his stepmother supports the supposition that the brother remains human in his animal state. The bird, from this reading, becomes a sort of ghost-like presence, haunting his stepmother and rewarding his sister to represent his incompleteness with the people in his former life.

Perhaps I'm stretching this too far, but if we continue along this thread, the death/murder of the stepmother rights the wrong and completes the revenge cycle, enabling the bird to return to his human state... or perhaps move from the world/purgatory and into his heaven which contains his kind stepsister and father. Just a theory, and a bit of a stretch.

The transformation of human to animal

2010-02-03T23:47:00.003-06:00

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.

Disney and the Grimms: Did they have the same intentions?

2010-02-03T23:42:00.005-06:00

What amazes me after reading the Aarne & Thompson and Propp articles in Maria Tatar's The Classic Fairy Tales, are the amount of variations one tale can have. All the tale types, all the sub-categories, the 40,000 motifs classified by Aarne; it makes the history of the fairy tale seem so much larger and infinite. As Propp mentioned in his article Folklore and Literature, "folklore should be likened not to literature but to language, which is invented by no one and which has neither an author nor authors. It arises everywhere and changes in a regular way, independently of people's will..." which gives the fairy tale a sense of timelessness (179).

In Propp's second essay, he says that the sequence of the tale, while several elements may have changed, or are left out, is always the same. I think this can be seen in the readings assigned focusing on the transformations of brothers to birds. In "The Twelve Brothers," the brothers run away to save themselves from being killed after the birth of their sister. The sister finds her long lost brothers, who welcome her with open arms. When the sister plucks 12 lilies her brothers turn into Ravens. An old woman tells her she must make a sacrifice to save her brothers. The king finds her, falls in love with her beauty, she is about to burn at the stake, when the seven years of silence are up and her brothers return to their human form and rescue her. The same pattern appears in "The Seven Ravens" and "The Six Swans," (which is one of my favorite fairy tales of all time.)

Even if the method of how the brothers turn into a bird varies, or even if the bird varies (between ravens and swans), the sequence of the story remains the same. What I think is important to notice is that one does not tire of these different versions--it is very interesting to note the variations in each tale, and wonder why it was changed.

In Zipe's article "What Makes a Repulsive Frog so Appealing," he looks at why humans are so attracted to certain fairy tales, and it is because the tales "become second nature to us...they reveal important factors about our mind, memes and human behavior" (3). Through the make-believe world of the fairy tale, our own world is enhanced, and this is why these tales are so timeless. Why some tales have flourished while others have not is due to the fact that "the power of the tale depends on the human agent's receptivity" (7). And this brings us to the connection between Grimm and Disney, which reflects Zipes' last article, "Breaking the Disney Spell." In that essay, Zipes tears Disney to shreds, leaving me disillusioned about the "magic" of Disney. Those are the movies I grew up on, and now Zipes is telling me it was all about speaking through the animator, (Disney), to change the tales to fit the social structure of the time, that he "violated" the original tales? However, I am going to compare these two quotes from both of Zipes' essays to show that the Grimm Brothers and Disney were not so different after all.

From "Breaking the Disney Spell": "The purpose of the early animated films was to make audiences awestruck and to celebrate the magical talents of the animator as demigod" (342).

From "What Makes....So Appealing?": "The brothers Grimm evidently brought together all the characters, motifs, and the topic of mating in such an efficient and aesthetically pleasing manner that from this written version the tale stuck in the minds of many people" (14).

One of the many repeated themes in all of these essays is the difference between the literary and the oral tradition, and how the tales changed once written down. Didn't the Grimms alter the tales to fit their audience, so that they were efficient and aesthetically pleasing? Basically, they did the same thing Disney does years later in twentieth century America with film--they change the story by creating their own personal additions so as to affect a greater audience. Even though the tales are written down, by no means are they fixated to remain in that "tale type." The tale types continue to be altered, as is seen in the new movie "The Frog Princess." The retellings of fairy/folk tales will retain the same sequence, but they continue to affect the human psyche, and we are attracted to the many variations over and over again because we believe them to be telling a story we recognize as our own.

Disney's Princess and the Frog

2010-02-03T23:21:00.002-06:00

After watching the new Disney movie based on the "Frog Prince" stories, I was confused by how different the Disney version is from the Grimm's story. For example, in the Disney version, the frog prince wants to be kissed not to win the love of the princess, but to be turned back into a human for his own reasons. When she finally kisses him, he isn't transformed. Instead, she turns into a frog too and they have to go on an adventure to find a way to become human again. After reading the Zipes essay I think I can see why these changes were made to the story. Mating, or more applicable, "dating", has changed considerably since the times when marriages were arranged and fathers had the most authority in regards to their daughters' lives. Today, dating is all about choice on the part of both parties involved. The "prince" or man chooses to date a woman based on his attraction and interest in her, not on her status as a "princess". Disney showed this by making the prince indifferent to Tiana's status as a princess. He only wanted her to kiss him because he thought she fulfilled the criteria he needed in order to become human again. Women also choose mates now based on attraction and interest. Tiana didn't care that the frog claimed to be a prince. Even if he had actually turned into one when she first kissed him, she was only interested in his promise to help her obtain her dream restaurant. She was a modern woman focused on achieving something for herself beyond marriage and motherhood. The frog prince was simply a means to an end for her, not a romantic or inevitable love interest. The story does end up with the two frogs being transformed and getting romantically involved, but it is only after they have had the chance to fall in love properly. Each one's status, his as a real prince, and hers as a poor working girl, don't factor in to the relationship they foster over their time together as frogs. Disney took an age old tale and adapted it to fit modern mating ideals.

2010-02-03T21:15:00.003-06:00

What's in a kiss? And why are kisses so important in fairytales? Kissing in a fairytale means serious business because a kiss is a means of rescue. For Snow White and Sleeping Beauty (the Disney versions anyway), true love's kiss is the only way to wake up and break the comatose spell while the frog prince/ king will remain a frog forever unless a beautiful maid/ princess kisses him.
But why a kiss? Why not a hug or a handshake to break these spells? Kate, a character in the film French Kiss, says it best: "I mean, you can disconnect from everything but a kiss. A kiss is so intimate-- two people's lips together, their breath a little bit of their souls..." A kiss is the first step to proving fertility and the first leap into sex. Traditional fairytales attempt to assert family values and gender roles: women exist to marry men with good genes and to birth their babies. This explains why the princess in "The Frog Prince" throws the frog against the wall: "Since women have to consider the possibility of pregnancy and childbirth, their thinking and mating skills have tended to be more selective than those of men" (Zipes, "What Makes a Repulsive Frog So Appealing..."). A frog is disgusting and repulsive and most definitely does not have the kind of genes a beautiful princess would want to have in her future progeny, which is why it's not until she throws him up against a wall and he transforms into a handsome prince that she accepts him as a suitable mate and lover.
Sleeping Beauty and Snow White have the perfect domestic skills to be a good wife and mother, but it's not until they marry that these skills can really be utilized; they need suitable men in order to be truly natural in the traditional world order. Being kissed is the only way they can get suitable men and thus break out of their pastoral roles and fulfill their destinies to end up virtuous wives.

Can a repulsive frog also be appealing to the princess?

2010-02-03T21:06:00.002-06:00

What I found interesting about the Zipes article and the “Frog Prince” stories is the argument from Bettelheim about the meaning behind the story and how Zipes refutes it. Both seem to take narrow-minded perspectives on the category of stories as a whole in that they presume that a few specific motifs that are not present in all versions of the story.

Bettleheim asserts that the princess is dealing with anxiety, anger, and hatred. Whereas, Zipes argues that she is “cunning and furious” because the frog is “inadequate and repulsive,” but there is another force (presumably the father) that makes her “accept the dark side” for which she is inevitably rewarded.

However, in one version in particular, the father is the one that makes a promise to the frog but has no say in forcing her to be with him. Instead, the frog drags her away, kicking and screaming. By the next morning, he’s a prince and they live happily ever after. Ok, so, maybe she’s upset about being taken away by a gross frog, but she doesn’t do anything about it and neither does her father.

And in a couple of other versions, the step-daughter or youngest daughter of three is compliant with the requests of the frog, even against the wishes of a stepmother.

So, I guess the point is that it is difficult to analyze the state of mind of the princess in a “Frog Prince” story if the motifs differ to such a degree that her attitude varies from version to version.

Memetics and "The Frog King"

2010-02-03T01:59:00.000-06:00

In many ways, it seems that all memetic fairy tales are based to some extent on courtship and mating. Cinderella, The Frog King, and Beauty and the Beast, among others, all relate to the idea of one royal marrying an initially less fortunate (in terms of appearance or economic/social stature) person. Perhaps these tales gain their popularity in the ability of the performer/author/scholar/director to tweak and adjust the tales in certain ways to conform to contemporary cultural values.

Disney, in both Cinderella and The Princess and the Frog, assigns a negative value to the idea of a prince playboy. In Cinderella, the king wants his son to start a family because being a handsome youthful playboy does not make him perfect. In The Princess and the Frog, Prince Naveen’s family cuts him off from the family’s funds so that he will give up his frivolous playboy ways and settle down. Both movies, therefore, strive to maintain and support conservative values of the domestic family by ending in the playboy prince marrying.

While I was first surprised by Zipes’ argument in “What Makes A Repulsive Frog So Appealing” because her transgression of slamming the frog against a wall and breaking promises was rewarded with a prince, Zipes makes valid points about the way these frog prince tales are primarily stories of courting and mating practices. They always end in marriage, making the basic function of the story up to this ending be bringing the two together.

Vladimir Propp

2010-02-02T15:48:00.000-06:00

It seems to me that Robert Darnton’s take on the fairy tale would resonate more closely with Vladimir Propp, as he is concerned with what the message of the tale tells about its creator, rather than the moral of the story necessarily being life-changing, as Bettleheim views it. He argues that all folklore (not to be confused with literature) is structured in the same way; every fairy tales has certain standard and unchanging functions carried out by various characters. It is thus not the specific character descriptions and the symbolic elements that are part of the course of the story that are essential to note and analyze, (nor do these specific elements resonate with the listener/reader (a child, for Bettleheim’s argument) or convey messages to them on a subconscious level) but rather the commonalities between similar tales that serve as the very basis of the story and likewise render it meaningful

Thus, I would venture further to guess that Propp would agree with Maria Tatar in that Cinderella and Donkeyskin stories may certainly be read as related; both stories fulfill the function of getting the daughter to run away from home seeking personal morality, although one uses the presence of an evil step-mother and the other, an erotic father figure. Still, it is interesting to question where Propp draws the line between a single function portrayed in various ways versus separate factors that thus render certain stories incomparable (or at least not to be read side-by-side). Further, it seems hard to follow his conviction that whatever is not found in multiple renditions of a single story is to be disregarded entirely, as it seems difficult to determine when “it becomes apparent that the new tales considered present no new functions” (Tatar, 389). If it is true that folklore is unique in its minimal agents (performer and listener), isn’t there something to be said for the creative ways in which individual rendering may vary (and further, accounting for those which resonate with audiences and are perpetuated, such as Cinderella)?

Cinderella and Related Stories

2010-01-28T18:12:00.003-06:00

I totally forgot about this last night, but for what it's worth, here's my post...

I agree with Tatar that Cinderella and Donkeyskin stories should be studied together. They do have some similarities in the plot lines as well as the intricacies of the parent-child relationships. For example, 'Katie Woodencloak' starts out as a story similar to Cinderella, where the father is absent and the evil stepmother tortures her. However, the ending is more like the Donkeyskin stories. After the bull leads her through 3 forests, she becomes a scullery maid at a castle and meets the prince at 3 different balls. With her shoe, he finds her, and they go about their happy lives.

Here the story overlaps somewhat with both tales. Nevertheless, in both Donkeyskin and Cinderella stories, one parent is either dead or absent and the other (including stepmothers and fathers who want to marry their daughters) are abusive, cruel, or otherwise cause the girl to run away where she becomes "Cinderella" and eventually finds her prince. It seems fitting that they be studied together, even if they are kept in separate categories (as they should).

Gold Teeth

2010-01-27T23:51:00.002-06:00

One story on Ashliman's site that stood out in particular to me was "Gold Teeth" from Italy, with Estella Canziani as the source. This particular tale was found on the "Father-Daughter Incest in International Folktales" site, not the Cinderella Ashliman site. The beginning of the story begins with the mother dying, and making her husband promise that he will not marry again unless the woman he marries has all gold teeth like herself. Of course, the only person who seems suitable is the daughter, and then it starts to get interesting. In this story she actually has a godmother who gives her three different dresses, and a fourth gown that was made of flea skins.

This particular "Donkeyskin" type of tale has a godmother in it, just as the Cinderella we are familiar with has a godmother. An outsider grants the daughter/Cinderella her wish.

All hope seems lost and it looks like the daughter is going to have to marry her father, and the godmother tells her to escape to the woods and change her appearance to that of an old woman.

Tatar mentions that the "heroine of Catskin tales is mobile, active, and resourceful" (105).

However, this story shares similarities to the Cinderella tales in that the prince searches for 3 years for the ring of the beautiful girl he dances with at the ball. What shocks me, or maybe I probably shouldn't be shocked, is that the prince kicks, punches and pinches the old lady when she asks to go to the ball, yet he is in love with the beautiful girl he dances with, (who is actually the same person.)

This gives some insight into gender roles, in that the girl in the story goes from one kind of abuse (incest) to another at the end of the story. She still ends up marrying the Prince, and I almost wish that she would leave, or get revenge on him because when she is an old lady, he physically hurts her. It seems like the ending is only made to fit the stereotypical "happily ever after," but it doesn't go with the story.

It is obvious that Cinderella and Donkeyskin overlap, however, I wouldn't read a story about incest to my little sister, if only the first reason being that she wouldn't understand why the father wants to marry the daughter, and I don't think she would understand the prince hurting the princess either. A child cannot make sense of these adult themes, and I think that is the main reason that Donkeyskin tales have fallen out of favor.

Cinderella/Donkeyskin

2010-01-27T23:43:00.003-06:00

Maria Tatar proposes that Cinderella and Donkeyskin stories are the same because they both "produce an intrigue that corresponds to the oedipal fantasies of girls." Cinderella stories involve wicked step-mothers that the girl hates because she takes the father from the girl. Donkeyskin stories involve fathers who innapropriately act out the oedipal desire a girl has to sleep with her father. Both of these types of stories are related in terms of Freudian psychoanalysis, however they do not coincide beyond that one interpretation. In the Danish fairy tale, "The Green Knight", there are elements of both the Cinderella and Donkeyskin stories. There is a dying mother who asks her husband one last request, that he grant their daughter anything she ever asks of him. Out of love for his daughter and love for his dead wife, he gives his daughter everything she wants, including a new step-mother. In this case, the father is not engaged in incestuous desire for his daughter, and the evil step-mother is introduced at the daughter's own behest. There are no oedipal desires being played out in the story because the evil step-mother was not the result of either the mother or the father, but of the daughter herself. The girl wanted the new mother figure, and it was only after she got her wish that the wish turned sour and the woman revealed her true evil nature. This story is unquestionably of the Cinderella/Donkeyskin type, but it does not fit the oedipal label that those stories generally fall under according to Tatar. Because the story follows both story lines yet does not fall under the "unifying" category that Tatar attributes to the stories, it follows that the story types do not have to be related. Only when considered from a Freudian perspective do Cinderella and Donkeyskin fall under the same story category. Neither story type, however, necesarilly has to contain oedipal elements in order to BE a Cinderella or Donkeyskin story, as "The Green Knight" clearly shows.

Tatar's Cinderella & Donkeyskin

2010-01-27T23:12:00.000-06:00

Tatar argues that the female character is almost always villainized in the fairy tale. The stepmother is often made especially evil; however, this problem of having a stepmother can ultimately be traced back to the biological mother’s death and the widower’s remarriage. Should he not remarry, still the mother is leaving her daughter with an incompetent or harmful husband when she dies, such as the case in the stories of incest. In reading these tales, Tatar notes that the male character remains victim, as he is still carrying out the wishes of his dead wife and thus fulfilling his rightful duty— even if this means pursuing his own daughter.
In the Italian tale Gold Teeth by Estella Canziani, the mother passes, but she is not at all portrayed as evil in a direct manner; neither does the father seem benevolent. Rather, the position of the parents merely sets up the story which is focused primarily on the daughter’s escape, her refuge in the prince’s palace, and his eventual realization that his love has long been living with him. This story provides no evidence to refute Tatar’s argument, but is instead a minimal, objective recounting of the tale, and in fact does well to support her point that Donkeyskin style stories should be read alongside Cinderella stories. They are essentially the same, though in one the peasant princess lives in a distant home and is the servant of her own family; in the other she lives and works as a servant in the castle. Further, the ball-room encounters of Cinderella are much more dramatic and make for a much more glamorous visual depiction of the tale (hence Disney’s rendition).

Donkeyskin vs. Cinderella

2010-01-27T23:01:00.002-06:00

Tatar's thesis that Cinderella and Donkeyskin resemble one another rests on her sociological perspective on the two tales. Both deal with young women who transform from rags, or worse in the case of Donkeyskin, to beautiful maidens with beautiful clothing, both have parental problems that cause them to rebel, and both end up marrying in the end to a mystified prince or king who falls in love with them to everyone's shock. Although these similarities are agreeable to everyone, not much else is obvious, but Tatar sees more to it. She claims that even in Donkeyskin, an tyrannical mother is really being blamed for the unnatural situation because she made Donkeyskin's father not to marry anyone not as good as her. I don't agree with this assessment. I think the promise between the Queen and King would be seen as a basic condition of the story. It would be interpreted by audiences as an act of fate that is plain and simply unchangeable. The Germans fairytales were anti-psychological in nature, and they would not have read malice into it unless it was explicitly stated that the queen was evil.

On the other hand, I do find the dissimilarities between Cinderella and Donkeyskin interesting and worth a closer look. Cinderella succeeds by deus ex machina, as the tools to her success are granted by animals and the fairy god mother, which come to her because of her virtuous disposition. On the other hand, Donkeyskin succeeds in marrying through rebellion against her father, good wits, and even trickery. Also interesting to compare is the fate of Cinderella's father, who does not return, and her sisters, who are sometimes forgiven but other times blinded to Donkeyskin's father. In several versions of that tale, Donkeyskin's father is able to remarry and is easily forgiven of his past sins against the natural order. It is odd that he is not punished nor needing of penance.

Tatar's argument that fatherly figures cannot be seen as evil or needing of punishment but female figures can be unmotherly and wicked seems to add up here. Even when the father is wicked, he seems to be forgiven rather easily while a wicked female adult seems to be unforgivable. In other tales though, such as The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs, a greedy king is punished, but this is when dealing with a son-in-law as opposed to a direct daughter. Perhaps this comments on the nature of the relationship between father and daughter more than anything. Father's seem more likely to banish or fight with young men, but the father-daughter relationship seems to be treated with more care. I think by putting these cases of possible incest in the tales, folks were not intending to shutter at the horror of the situation, rather they were showing a situation where natural morality could be so strongly violated, and demonstrating one of the few situations where child rebellion was appropriate.

For my online tale, I chose to read the Scottish version of Cinderella. This tale was much different than one's I have been familiar with. In it, Cinderella's whole family is wicked, and Cinderella commits a brutal act of murder, chopping the head off of her "ugly sister," forcing her to flee her family. Also, although a prince falls in love with her and finds her shoe, there is no scene with a ball. Perhaps the Scottish, living under the yolk of the British, had little reason for tales about fancy dances and balls since they had no royal family to look up to for these things. In relation to Tatar's argument, since there is little of a disturbed relationship between the young girl with any family member in particular, it is difficult to fit into Tatar's argument. What is interesting though is that the Scottish Cinderella takes on characteristics like that of Donkeyskin, as the Scot must deceive, such as by killing her sister instead of her calf, and she isn't so much help by fate but instead marries by her own grace and virtue, as the prince can see through her rags and dirt that she is actually beautiful.

Cinderella + Incest= Donkeyskin

2010-01-27T22:57:00.003-06:00

I'm going to stray away from last week's argument and say that Cinderella stories could benefit from being taught alongside Donkeyskin tales because of Bettelheim's belief in the didacticism of fairytales. Granted, most literary Cinderellas contain some elements that could frighten children and off-put parents (e.g. the stepsisters cutting off parts of their feet or their eyes getting gouged out), Donkeyskin has a truer, more real application. Like it or not, incest does occur; it isn't just a problem that people many years ago had to face.
Both tales lift up the beautiful, virtuous girl, but both have very different circumstances. Both are without mothers. Both have fathers who don't necessarily fulfill their familial duties. Both would benefit from being taught together because they bring together different aspects of the young virgin's reasons for rising above their state and leaving their families, whether that is an abusive homelife with no reprieve or a father that loves her just a little too much. Each has its own place in today's fairytale canon. Sadly, there will always be children who aren't appreciate, just as there will always be occurrences of incestuous behavior. If told side by side, perhaps a child (or parent) would see the problems in each and try their best not to repeat these behaviors or not allow themselves to be victims of these behaviors.

Cinderella and Donkeyskin

2010-01-27T21:25:00.001-06:00

Cinderella and Donkeyskin stories have a few important similarities, all duly noted by Tatar: there’s the occasional “perfect fit” episode, the unnatural parent (lustful father or evil stepmother), and the beautiful, young heroine who must engage in domestic chores. And yet these likenesses pale in comparison to the endless array of differences that serve to wholly separate the tales from one another.

In Cinderella stories, Cinderella is usually from a family of middle to upper class stature. These stories polarize the women of the stories into two separate categories: young, beautiful, good, virtuous Cinderella vs. old, sexualized, conniving, evil stepmother. Her father is generally dominated by the stepmother or non-existent. A godmother, a bird, or some other fantastical creature that grants wishes aids Cinderella. The prince wants to marry her for her grace and beauty.

In Donkeyskin, the girl is almost always a princess, and thus comes from royal standing. That in mind, her story is not rags-to-riches but rather riches-to-rags-to-riches. Her father has incestuous desires, driving the girl from her home with his sexually deviant behavior. The girl is usually aided in her escape by some sort of household servant, but is given more agency, more choice than the girl of Cinderella stories. In other words, the girl senses danger and makes the decision to leave her father, instead of tolerating “danger” (the stepmother’s cruel designs) and wanting to attend the ball simply for fun or as a reward for hard work. There is a true threat in Donkeyskin stories, that the girl must escape in order to retain her pure innocence. Furthermore, in Donkeyskin tales, the prince takes notice of her for both her beauty and her domestic skills (she usually must cook him something or perform some other household duty for him). Thus, chores in this type are a driving force in why the prince wants to marry her, rather than being the activity hindering her from her chance of so much as meeting the prince.

To take a specific example, “The She-Bear”, Giambattista Basile’s version of Donkeyskin, eliminates the common element of the three dresses and instead focuses only on the animal-esque costume. The girl does not ask her father for unusual attire, and he does her no pre-wedding favors, but rather the girl escapes by transforming into a bear by placing wood in her mouth. In bear form, she is favored by a prince for her docile, tame behavior. He sees her as a maiden when no one else is looking and then, while ill, asks the mother to have the bear attend to him, cook for him, etc. The girl is never shown in exquisite finery (as she would be in one of the three unique dresses), but is herself instead – beautiful, tender, obedient, and domestically talented. Their wedding essentially restores her to the princess status that she gave up at the start of the story.

While I agree with Tatar’s belief (p.103) that it’s necessary to engage in multiple variants of both Cinderella and Donkeyskin stories in order to understand all of their similarities, I don’t see that studying these two AT types together is any more beneficial than comparing any two other mildly related AT types. In fact, I believe that initially looking at both tale types at once can cause the reader to lose sight of the myriad nuances prevalent within the same tale type.

2010-01-20T23:26:00.001-06:00

(so apparently internet explorer sucks, I was able to paste when I got on Firefox! just in case anyone else has the same issue)

Between Bettelheim and Darnton’s articles, I found Darnton’s to be more convincing, mostly because I disagree with much of the psychology in Bettelheim’s argument. Darnton’s article approaches fairy tales from a historical perspective, questioning their relevance in the historical and cultural context in which they were created. He criticizes Bettelheim, and rightly so, for looking for symbolism and psychoanalytical tools that are not present in the original versions of the tales. The example that Darnton uses of Little Red Riding Hood shows that Bettelheim suits the tales to his own purposes, rather than reading them in an anthropological way and appreciating them for what they meant to the people who were telling them. Beyond the way Bettelheim disregards the historical and anthropological significance of the tales, the use he puts the fairy tales to is flawed as well.

Bettelheim argues that fairy tales give children a release for the pressures from their “id” or subconscious mind that their parents deny them by hiding the fact that there is darkness in man. Children who are not exposed to the darkness in others end up feeling like “a monster in their own eyes” due to the dark desires they feel. I disagree with this assessment of the benefit of fairy tales on the child’s subconscious. Bettelheim bases his entire argument on a Freudian model of child psychology in which every child has suppressed sexual desires and violent urges towards a parent. The very fact that these urges are “unconscious” contradicts Bettelheim’s idea that children feel like monsters for having dark thoughts. How can one feel monstrous for a thought one has never consciously had? The darkness present in many fairy tales, if a child even picked up on it, would likely only serve to scare the child and introduce new fears about the world into the child’s imagination. It seems counter-productive to introduce more fear of the world and stress into an already disturbed child’s imagination.

Bettelheim v Darnton

2010-01-20T23:18:00.002-06:00

So...I wrote my blog response in Word and tried to copy and paste it onto this blog post...but it won't let me. Did anyone else have this problem? Is there a way to enable pasting? The copying is working fine because I can paste what I copied back onto another Word document...I'm so confused! Any help would be muchly appreciated!

Bettelheim vs Darnton

2010-01-20T23:17:00.002-06:00

I believe that Bettelheim's argument has some validity to it, even though I don't quite agree with his attempts to "restore meaning" to disturbed children, as though as a result of being "disturbed," they have no meaning in their life. Bettelheim says that there are two important methods that help a child evolve so that he can understand reality. The first is the impact that the child's parent has on him, and the second is transmitting cultural heritage through literature. I have to agree with his statement that "when children are young, it is literature that carries such information best" (269), and I have to add that even when a person is no longer young, he is still drawn to the fairy tale. Bettelheim argues that literary fairy tales help people find meaning in their lives because it has the power to enhance reality, it allows the reader to see his own life in a different light. I think Bettelheim realizes that people, young and old, are drawn to the fairy tale because they see that in fairy tales, struggles and hardships are overcome, and so they are given hope to overcome struggles in their own lives.

A point where I see Bettelheim and Darnton overlapping ideas is that the "dominant culture wishes to pretend...that the dark side of man does not exist" (272). While Bettelheim argues that this is unhealthy for children to only be exposed to "happily ever after" endings, Darnton focuses more on the evolution of fairy tales, and he does not really look at how it affects the human being as Bettelheim does. Darnton shows that a supposedly familiar fairy tale has a twisting and ever-changing past in the oral tradition.

Essentially though, Darnton asks the same question as Bettelheim, by asking "How can the historian make sense of this world?" Lo and behold, one of the elements is folklore, or the fairy tale. Both Bettelheim and Darnton appear to be looking for meaning through fairy tales. Bettelheim focuses on the "meaning" in life that humans, (specifically children), extract from fairy tales, while Darnton looks at "meaning" in a cultural sense, and how the changes fairy tales have undergone are specific to a region. An example would be that the German tales differ from the French in that they have a "tone of terror and fantasy," whereas the French have more "humor and domesticity" (290). These aspects help to define what kind of effect the story had on the people in that particular region.

Darnton's strongest argument is that the fairy tale has lost a historical aspect by turning into a literary genre, and that originally, it was meant to be told aloud. This is a crucial point that Bettelheim seems to skip over, as he only examines how literary, recorded fairy tales affect children. Wouldn't they have a greater effect on children, and on people in general, if they were told with facial expressions, hand gestures, scary voices, etc.? Darnton makes a good point that the oral devices used in story telling helped to shape a historical meaning that is now lost in modern day recorded literature. Does this mean that now, we accept the fairy tales as they are recorded? Will they stop evolving because they are written down?

I come to the conclusion that Bettelheim and Darnton complement each other through their differences of opinion because they analyze different aspects of the fairy tale, so one argument cannot be more "right" than the other, they can only help to enhance the meaning of the fairy tale.

Bettleheim and Darnton

2010-01-20T22:01:00.001-06:00

I found both articles to be equally convincing in and of themselves. However, I’m not sure that they were really arguing on the same topic. Bettelheim’s article seems to assert that fairy tales are more beneficial to children in that they “confront the child squarely with the basic human predicaments,” unlike other types of stories. He is arguing that they teach the child something about real life problems and how to approach them, but maybe not in an entirely literal sense.

Darnton’s article seems more focused on the fact that fairy tales have changed over the years, and this makes it difficult to evaluate the state of mind of people at the time the stories began circulating. Darnton points out one of Bettleheim’s analyses of “The Little Red Riding Hood” in which he relates the story to the working out and resolution of the girl’s Oedipal fantasies. Darnton mentions that Bettleheim is using a more current version of the tale, which in my opinion is irrelevant. I don’t think that Bettleheim’s point was to use the analysis in a historical context, but rather, discuss what it says to readers now. While it does seem a bit of a stretch to say that the story relates to her Oedipal complex, I don’t feel that Darnton and Bettleheim are really arguing against each other. Darnton is focused on maintaining the historical integrity of the tales, and Bettleheim is concerned with the tales’ current relevance in teaching children.

Darnton vs. Bettelheim: Let's Get Ready to Rumble.

2010-01-20T21:06:00.003-06:00

Darnton most definitely makes the more convincing argument of the two. Instead of giving broad generalizations on how children behave and respond to certain stimuli (like the fairytale), Darnton gives concrete examples of the way these "original" fairytales would have been told: "Bettelheim reads 'Little Red Riding Hood' and the other tales as if they had no history. He treats them, so to speak, flattened out, like patients on a couch, in a timeless contemporaneity. He does not question their origins or worry over other meanings that they might have had in other contexts because he knows how the soul works and how it has always worked. In fact, however, folktales are historical documents" (Darnton, 283 The Classic Fairy Tales). Instead of constructing the tale he wants to fulfill his own agenda, in Bettelheim's case this is Freudian psychoanalysis, Darnton stays true to the folklore and anthropology of the tales; the French "Red Riding Hood," for example, would never have been told to a child simply because of its explicit sex and violence.

Darnton's theory that the simplicity of these tales were how they'd originally have been done makes a lot of sense. They came from an oral tradition, one where the storyteller could embellish the minor details and keep the main points of the story: "...the dramatic pauses, the sly glances, the use of gestures to set scenes--a Snow White at a spinning wheel, a Cinderella delousing a stepsister--and the use of sounds to punctuate actions-- a knock on the door (often done by rapping on a listener's forehead) or cudgeling or a fart" (287, The Classic Fairy Tales). This oral tradition is how so many different deviations of the same tale came to be throughout different towns and countries; the details might be different, but the story remains the same.

It's pretty impossible to think that both of these theories could coexist side by side: one's based on concrete facts and the other's based on subjective interpretation.

2010-01-20T19:47:00.001-06:00

Hello, I'm Justin. I'm a Sociology major who is fascinated by different cultures. I'm taking this course to further my knowledge on German/European beliefs and influences.

Bettelheim's Generalizations

2010-01-20T17:57:00.002-06:00

“This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence – but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious” (Bettelheim 272 in The Classic Fairy Tales).

Bettleheim’s approach to tales is too narrow not only in the tales he chooses to analyze, as Darnton points out, but also in the way that he groups children into a single identity.

While I understand Bettelheim’s belief that overcoming obstacles on account of the hero or heroine’s virtue is a helpful message for children to learn, it seems that Bettelheim fails to acknowledge other types of tales, those in which the hero or heroine does not triumph (as in the Little Red Riding Hood version mentioned by Darnton) or those in which the hero or heroine got their wishes based on lies and luck (as in The Brave Little Tailor). If Darnton looks at a wide range of different tellings and sources in order to propose some connection to cultural history, Bettelheim should be expected to do the same in order to propose that some symbol has universal psychological meaning.

Moreover, Bettelheim seems to believe that every child has the same unconscious urges and needs and thus every child will respond to and gain from the tales in the same way. With this assumption, he fails to recognize individuality. Would a disturbed child from an abusive family respond to “A Tale About the Boy Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was” just as a child living in a nurturing environment or an autistic child would? Would specifying the type of child even be feasible since all children have different personalities, beliefs, moral values, interests, etc.? Is there then any way to assess the results that the reading of fairy tales would have on “all” children? It seems to me that answering this in the affirmative would enable all sorts of gross generalizations.

Intro

2010-01-20T01:57:00.003-06:00

Hellooo!!! Sorry that I'm lame and am just now introducing myself; feel free to blame VUT auditions and callbacks. ;)
I'm a senior from Dickson, TN (home of Anson Mount, Craig Morgan, and Luke Perry) with a double major in Theatre and Film and a minor in Studio Art. I'm a self-proclaimed gnome and 50s housewife in training simply because I'm short and stout (yes, like a little teapot) and have an obsession with yarn.
So yeah. That's me.

Darnton vs. Bettelheim

2010-01-20T01:13:00.000-06:00

Of the fairy tales introduced this week, the one I enjoyed most was “Faithful Johannes” because the story affirms the sacred bonds of loyalty, trust, and fair lordship that belonged to hierarchies of the past. Johannes is without a doubt an exemplary character, and the idea that one’s loyalty could lead to one’s demise, and even be mistaken for disloyalty, is not completely absent from other genres and always makes for something to think about. By sacrificing his own children, the young king affirms the kingly quality of justice, which completes the bond between him and Johannes, which allows for their immortalization in the stories end.

Many of the stories have people falling into riches or great luck for little reason at all. Some are rotten characters such as the one who wanted to learn about “the creeps,” and others gave away all they had, such as the character in “the Star Coins.” There is little to suggest of a “morality” in this tales as Bruno Bettelheim suggests. While the tales occasionally suggest good behavior for readers, there never appears any sort of “moral imperative” for characters in their actions, rather, their goodness or badness manifests itself genuinely and naturally. There is no “searching for meaning” in these tales either. Rather, the institutions and ways of life such as marriage and work provide the characters their “meaning.” Completely absent is any sort of theoretical construct that Bettelheim suggests readers can find in these texts. By contrasting the emptiness and pointlessness of modern mass society to that of the one found in the Grimm tales, Bettelheim does make a good point though. In their world, as “primitive” as it was, society at least had firm structures and roles that gave individuals natural and fulfilling lives that made sense and served higher purpose. Bettelheim’s anxieties are justified due to modern life’s lack of sense, but his solutions are illusory. The “daydreams” he describes were real life for the people who created these oral tales, and Freud’s “courageous struggles” weren’t some sort of “inner tussle,” but rather describing real world struggles that allowed for one’s maturity and initiation into higher life through official institutions like marriage.

(I wrote this before reading the prompt)

Darnton’s article is more convincing. He rejects the application of Freudian theory to these tales by blatantly explaining that violence and sex were embedded into them explicitly, they didn’t have to live in the Bourgeois vacuum of the Freudian writers. His claim that it is possible to reconstruct close to the exact copies of stories of unwritten peasant oral tradition seems conceivable. It is very interesting how the same tales could appear in different cultures, yet maintain their own sort of details and effects that would remain unique to that particular culture. His pointing out that the texts never give much detail into a specific setting seems natural to me, as these stories were meant to provide advice and explanations that could apply universally and help the young who would hear these stories make good decisions and judgments. By attempting to fill in specificities, it would have clouded this purpose.

The two are mutually exclusive because Bettelheim takes Freudian theory at face value and reads its significance into the stories, while Darnton seeks more natural meaning in the tales.

2010-01-20T01:03:00.003-06:00

Hi I am Trevor, a junior History/Philosophy major.
I hope to learn much about Old European culture from this class.

Intro

2010-01-18T00:07:00.003-06:00

Hey y'all! I'm Candace. I'm a senior, psychology major. I'm from Atlanta. I'm taking this class because I love fairy tales, especially if they're kinda grim(no pun intended).

I don't know what else to say, so here's a picture of an otter!

Cute!

Hello!

2010-01-16T11:38:00.000-06:00

Hi blogging group!

My name is Clara Martin, and I'm a freshman from Jackson, Mississippi. My major changes about every few weeks, and right now I think I will be an English major, possibly with a Spanish double major.

I actually signed up for this course because I did a research paper on the beauty of fairy tales 2nd semester of my senior year in high school, and I ended up having a sort of fascination for fairy tales of all types ever since.

Anyways, research led to reading a lot of fairy tales (including the Grimms), and when I saw the course description for this class, I signed up, and here I am now.

Following the trend I've seen from the posts above this one...I have no idea how to blog, but it doesn't look too hard, and I think we'll have fun!

Can't wait to meet all of you!

Clara

Intro

2010-01-16T00:19:00.000-06:00

Hi, I'm Caroline Srygley!

I'm a senior English Lit major from Fayetteville Arkansas (Go Hogs!). I don't know much about German fairy tales in particular, but love the classics that I grew up with-- the Disney versions of course! I've never blogged...and that's about it!

(Also, please ignore the big turtle to the right...I just wanted to play around with the post format and whatnot)

Introduction

2010-01-16T00:00:00.000-06:00

Hey Guys!

My name's Nicole Harkinson. I'm a senior majoring in English and minoring in film studies and Italian. I've read several Italian folk tales so I'm excited to see how the German fairy tales compare.

By the way, I've never really used a blog before so bear with me. I look forward to meeting y'all or at least discussing the readings together!

Nicole

Introduction

2010-01-15T21:41:00.000-06:00

Hi Everyone!

I'm Katie. I'm a sophomore in CAS and a neuroscience major. I'm from New Orleans/Atlanta.

I guess that's all. Looking forward to meeting everyone!

-Katie