Into the Woods and Fables: what about the narrator?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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?