The stories this week are definitely
not like the familiar fairy tales of last week. These stories were dark and
seemed to lack a lesson for kids. I’ve never heard of any these stories or any derivative
of them. I struggled to see how they fit in with the tales that have stayed
popular to this day. The others seem to have purpose, but these just seem to
tales or legends with no real point. After reading them all, I saw that they
are a lot of similar elements and stock characters. We have evil step-mothers,
beautiful ladies and princesses, infertile couples, magic and lots of
strangeness. I found some humor in the strangeness, like the sausage that can
cook and apparently walk or something. I also thought the it was humorous how
the King in “The Shoes that were Danced to Pieces” didn’t know where his
daughters were going at night and instead of watching over them himself he had
to bribe young men with the chance of marrying one of the girls to do it.
Although there weren’t any obvious
lessons in some of the stories, there was definitely common theme of good
beating out evil. What I got from the tales was that as long as you’re a kind
person and you put your faith in God, everything will work out for you in the
end. And justice will be served to the evil people. It’s unclear to me if these
stories are supposed to be religious because they have a lot of magical and
impossible things happening in them, but I guess it is the magic of God
perhaps.
The two extra stories I read were “The
Girl with No Hands” and “The Three Little Men in the Woods.” These story were
similar to all the rest and I found none of it really surprising. There was an
evil jealous step-mother and a beautiful, kind girls and one who magically
grows her cut off hands back. Oh and of course in both stories the beautiful
girls face hardships, but end up living happily ever after married to a king.
I also noticed the convenient, archetypal, "stock" characters that are reused in each fairy tale. Since these stories were written for children, these archetypes are helpful in their simplicity, and lack of depth.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed the theme of good's triumph over evil, yet it was definitely lacking in a few of the stories. For instance, "The Cat and Mouse Set up House" did not have that kind of ending, but a mere "stick to the status quo by not trusting your mortal enemy" message. The story literally asks the reader what kind of ending they expected. Sigh. :(
I also noticed the increased amount of religion in these stories, especially in the "Two Travelling Companions,' with the tailor's endless faith in God, which eventually worked out for him despite all the trials he faced. On the flip side, in "The Juniper Tree," I noticed the first mention (I think?) of the Devil and his influence on pushing someone to commit evil. That was interesting.