Final blog

Thinking back on this semester and this class, I learned so much about fairy tales that I never would have imagined. What I knew about fairy tales was basically just from Disney movies. And those are completely off from the original versions. There were a few tales I had heard or read before this that weren’t Disney, but the majority of it was Disney. Now when I go back and watch some of the Disney movies it is really fun to see the difference. When I was younger I thought that those were the only versions of those tales. But in this class we looked at a lot of different versions of one fairy tale. And it was really interesting to see how different cultures had the same stories; it was just the small details that were different. And too with that is was the culture, but also the time period that influences these stories hugely. The last movie we watched, Pan’s Labyrinth, I had seen a few times before the class, but when we watched it at the end of the semester there were a bunch of things that I didn’t see earlier that I see now, and I also have a new perspective on some of it. Mostly I didn’t pick up on all of the number things that were going on through out the movie, like the number three. And too how the captain related to the pale man. I didn’t pick up on that until I saw it again at the end of this semester. There are so many things that I have learned in this class, and I have been applying that to my life, and analyzing different things using fairy tales. Overall this was a great semester, and a learned so many new things about fairy tales.

Guest speaker- Martinique and Guadalupe

Dr. Jacqueline Couti came this week to give her talk titled “Folk and Fairy Tales From Martinique and Guadalupe”. Like in the African tales the theme of the trickster was very present. As well as in the African tales animals were a bigger part. In one of her stories animals were being traded, and their wealth was displayed. The young boy played the trickster, and he worked his way up from being very poor, and with literally nothing besides his accra, to being very high up in social status. He did this by visiting a few families and tricking them all until he got what he wanted. This reminded me of the story of pus in boots because the son thought his parent had left them nothing when they died, but it turned out to be the best gift. But to use that gift effectively they also had to be very cunning and witty. In these cultures what color you are is very important. Basically the whiter you are the higher up your status is. So with the boy being the trickster he was very dark, but by tricking a higher family of social status he married one of the daughters. So by doing this he married up in class. This was also a very different theme, because usually it is the women that marry. And basically their only goal in the fairy tales is to get married, but in this it was the boy that wanted to marry. Overall this was one of my favorite talks. These stories also reminded me a lot of the stories from Africa.

Bluebeard

The tale of Bluebeard is by far one of the weirdest that we have read. I remembered Bluebeard as a pirate from my childhood, but when we started to read these stories I was completely off. He is a guy that marries women so he can kill them, or eat them. In all most of the tales there was some forbidden chamber that his wife could not enter under any circumstances. But of course he gave them the key to it, so naturally they were curious and couldn’t resist. This was like the story of Pandora’s Box. The Greek gods gave it to her, and then said that she couldn’t open it. So of course she did, and that’s how evil got released into the world. In bluebeard though, there was usually a clever girl that figured out what he was and got him killed in the end. As in other fairy tales it was the youngest and cleverest daughter that survived, and her sisters that died. Up until the end the heroine didn’t have help from anyone. When she did get help, it was from another woman, or at the very end her brothers. This was very different, because usually the girl is the damsel in distress, and a guy always saves her. Where in this she saves herself. Also like in the other fairy tales the number three was there. There were three sisters, three doors she pasted through etc. Greed also played a big role. Every time that the heroine was going to be found by the evil men, they noticed a piece of jewelry, and just had to have it. Bluebeard was a pretty creepy story. But it was nice to not have the girls so obsessed and being driven to get married.

Guest speaker- Jewish Traditions

This week we had a guest speaker who came to talk about Jewish traditions in folk and fairy tales. His name is Dr. Mani Goldman, and the name of his presentation was “Jewish Folk and Fairy Tales”. The first thing, and really the only thing he talked about was the Torah, which are the five books of Moses. The Torah is very important in Jewish folk tales because it is essentially their law, and so it greatly affects their actions. Another important aspect of that is the Rabi, which is basically a Jewish priest of wise man. In almost all of the stories we read there was a Rabi that had some influence on the main character. He also talked about the Talmud. This has two parts that describe it, the law, and the Aggadam (which means story). That relates back to the Torah because it is their law, and that greatly affects their stories. The one story that he talked about was the wise men of Chelm. That is an actual city in southeaster Poland, and it’s a Jewish town. It is know as the silly town to Jews, because there are multiple stories that come from there that are silly. All in all though I didn’t like his presentation at all. I didn’t learn anything about Jewish folk tales besides the fact that the Torah impacts it. I learned a lot more by just reading the stories on my own. What I learned from reading them on my own was that they use many of the same symbols and motifs, like the numbers three and seven. There is also sometimes a trickster, and an angry or jealous wife. A lot of the folktales too are about overcoming the other religions that were oppressing them. And being clever to not get killed. I learned so much more on my own. The one thing that I got out of the presentation was that the Torah is important, and I do understand that it is a huge part of their culture and stories, but there is a lot more to them than that. And the guest speaker was basically just giving us a Bible lesson.

Guest speaker- Kenya

This week we had a guest speaker come from Kenya, Africa. His name is Dr. Ochieng’ K’ Olewe, and his presentation was Folk and Fairy Tale Tradition from Kenya. One of the first things that we learned that is different in African fairy tales is that they are most always told at night. This is because after a day of work that was when every one was together, and also when they are told in the dark it is easier to use your imagination to picture what is happening. These tales teach not giving up, different attitudes, and values. African fairy tales celebrate being witty. In the north and the east it is usually the hare that is talked about, and in the west it is the spider. These tales teach morality, what is accepted, and what is not, and it is usually what is not accepted that is talked about. So instead of talking about what should be like in most other cultures, they talk about what is bad. Though there are still tales that focus on what is good behavior. These tales are also usually told through song. Songs allow for participation for the audience as well. The main singer can also throw in variations to the song. The language Dr. Ochieng’ K’ Olewe sang to us in was Luo; it is also an ethnic group. Another main difference in African fairy tales and those from other cultures is that a lot of times they are told in riddles. And if some one does not understand the riddle, the answer is not just given; they have to do something for the teller of the riddle to gain the answer. A few reasons why riddles are used is that they provide for entertainment, arouse intellect, and also arouse observation. Another focus of African fairy tales is that they tell why animals are the way they are.

Guest speaker- Bangladesh

This week we had a guest speaker who came to talk about fairy tales from Bangladesh. His name is Dr. Shabbir Mian, and the title of his presentation was Folk Tale Traditions From Bangladesh. In Bengaly, the word for fairy tales is Rupkotha. Most of the fairy tales are passed orally, but some of them are through literature. One of the first things that we looked at was that there are actually no fairies in these tales. Instead there are a lot of different types of ghosts and demons. Many of these are in part human form, but they also generally have many horns. A lot of the heroes in these also wear jewelry, which is natural for this culture. We looked at one story in particular; this was about the Red and Blue Lotus. In this fairy tale, there were two brothers whose father was a king, and there was a jealous wife that wanted to have every thing. The brothers however became best friends and were inseparable. The jealous wife ended up eating both her son and the other son. But they came back to life out of a gold and steal egg. After that they had to destroy all of the evil in their kingdom. This was similar to some of the fairy tales we have read from other cultures in that there was the typical “jealous step mother” who ended up causing a bunch of problems for the heroes. Similar in this too was that the heroes had to over come multiple tasks not just one. It was really interesting to see these similarities from such different cultures.

Beauty and the Beast vs. Cupid and Psyche

In the classic Beauty and the Beast there is a young girl who has to marry/ be the companion of a "beast". In some cases the father sells the daughter away, or is given no choice but to give her up. In other situations Beauty is so good and compassionate as well as beautiful that she gives herself up, or would rather give herself up than have others suffer. Also in the classic Beauty and the Beast, Beauty ends up seeing the good in the beast and falling in love. In the older Greek version of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche did not see the goodness in the beast by herself, she was be-spelled by Cupid out of Venus' jealousy. In this Venus could be seen as the jealous "mother" type, that out of her greed and vanity to look the best and be the most beautiful tries to for revenge on the daughter. Also a similar theme in both is that there are three sisters, and it is always the youngest who is the most beautiful, and the two older sisters that get jealous of their younger sister. Also the same in this version is that the beauty's sister get jealous and they want to find some way to get revenge on her. What is different in this story is that Psyche actually takes the advice that her sisters give her instead of trusting her husband. And instead of the beauty being the one to leave for a time, it is the "beast". What is also different in this is that the "beast" never had a beast form, he was always beautiful, but was only around in the dark so that she could not tell. All in all though the older version of Cupid and Psyche is very similar to the more modern Beauty and the Beast.