Please jot down a few words/sentences/paragraphs about what felt most significant/important, most striking for you about the tales. What did you learn? Even those who already spoke of it class, all please share with the class your insights here. Remember, this is informal and can be chatty.
As for me, I am most struck by the way our complex struggles, emotional and others, are told as stories that are easily accessible and at the same time highly symbolic, like a symbolic language, and like dreams, they feel like speaking in code.
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I find the recurring motif of children relying on their own virtues including knowledge, insight, courage, and honesty to be the most striking. I think it is very noteworthy that, in their most formative years, children are listening to tales that encourage them to depend less upon their parents, who are weak or cruel in some cases, and more upon their own strengths.
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me through the exploration of fairy tales is the insight into the world of childhood and their pure innocence and naivety. Children have a unique way of losing their innocence through their journeys and yet always somehow find it after they are saved from the evils they encounter. They are thrown into this world of danger, completely unaware of what awaits them just as most children usually are. The characters in these tales are ones to be admired. They enter dangerous forests, speak with strangers, and find the strenght and courage to attempt to save themselves, something many adults cannot comprehend to do; we simply avoid all these things at all costs. The one thing that I learned from re-reading many of these tales as an adult is the child's amazing ability to overcome any situation and their easy manner in the way they move through these situations with ease.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I learned from fairy tales is that civilization is a failure. When looking at these tales in close-context, one begins to notice that the hero/heroine has to overcome their difficulties by going against their prior beliefs and knowledge. Basically, their civil duties as human beings are lost as soon as they confront their enemy (witch, giant, stepmother,etc). The loss of normalcy at the price of victory is not what should be attainable and should definitely not be the goal of these malcontents in the tales. Unfortunately, the hero/heroine overcome their oppressors and usually systematically exterminate them in ways that glorify the hero/heroine as conquerors (Jack cutting the beanstalk, Gretel pushing the witch into the oven). If there is any merit or truth to fairy tales, it is that civilization and its concepts are completely thrown out the window in favor of survival, and that in itself, is a failure.
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me the most about the fairy tales is the portrayal of children as the heroic figures. In most stories we read, the children are usually seen as a burden, naive, dependent, or helpless. However, in fairy tales, the children are portrayed as fearless and independent. In some of the fairy tales, the children/adolescents might have seemed naive or dependent in the beginning, but they eventually mature and overcome obstacles and villains. I also noticed the importance of nature in fairy tales as well. Even though forests are often used as a place of danger and darkness, fairy tales emphasize that there is a whole different habitat in there. That habitat is mysterious and magical, a place we want to preserve. "Talk" and "The Indian Cinderella" definitely emphasized the importance and beauty of nature. I thought this was very good because we should definitely endorse the appreciation of nature starting from childhood, especially considering how polluted our earth is becoming.
ReplyDeleteAs we read more and more of these Fairy Tales I'm beginning to see a unique pattern of good and evil; good always prevailing. It's interesting because every story contains good, evil, or something in between-as well as some sort of battle (emotional/physical). Not only am I noticing the juxtaposition of Dark and Light, but I'm also enjoying these stories, simply tapping into my old self when I was young. The dangers I felt were similar to the ones in the stories, which makes both fears surprisingly real. Reading between the lines and diving deeper into the stories I can see the lessons and symbols, yet I still find Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk as not a "good" character. Although being that the Giant eats humans, perhaps its a good thing he killed him, but maybe Jacks just part of the foodchain. Either way that was a tangent, each of this story retells the story of growing up and learning; I feel that re-reading these "children's stories" opens me up more to understand myself and others.
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me the most about fairy tales is the bravery of the children. The journeys these children had to embark upon are things that most children and even adults in the real world wouldn't dare.
ReplyDeleteThe two cinderella stories have really stuck with me. Throughout the french version, cinderella never feels anything bad towards her sisters, no matter how cruel they are to her. and in the end of the story she marries them off to royalty and invites them to live in the palace with her. In the Indian Cinderella version there is an idea of punishment of wickedness in the end. "Using his great power, he changed them both to aspen trees and rooted them in the earth. And since that day the leaves of the aspen have always trembled, and they shiver in fear at the approach of Strong wind..."
ReplyDeleteThis same unsettling contrast is apparent in Hansel and Gretel and in The Deserted Children as well. Both are stories of abandonment and empowerment of children. Yet at the end of Hansel and Gretel the children return to their father bringing riches and jewels after he left them to die in the woods. Whereas, in The Deserted Children version, they kill their own tribe who deserted them, bringing only a few back to life and changing their character. For myself, I don't think i believe in revenge, but when someone is so cruel, how can you lavish them in jewels? Are either versions good lessons for children? Can you decide?
After reading these fairy-tales I felt that they opened a window into my own childhood. In every single one of them I was able to find something I can relate to.
ReplyDeleteThe tales reveal that imagination plays a crucial role throughout our lives, starting from childhood and, perhaps, until our last moments. I believe that it is important to cherish and continue this wonderful tradition to tell stories, because they show us how to find hope and power within ourselves or our community. The tale "People Who Could Fly" serves as an excellent example of that. It tells us explicitly that, since hope is centered on the word and all stories are made up of words, these tales will contain the vision for hope.
What strikes me most is how these children were able to triumph over there obstacles. Before doing a close reading on these fairy tales, I had no idea how much meaning could be found in them. The thing that strikes me is the influence these fairy tales have on our development as children.
ReplyDeleteWhat I took away from the fairy tales was the sense of hope that they bring. All the children in the tales are in such dark and desperate situations where there seems to be very little hope, but these children some how do have hope. Through their own wit and ingenuity these children were able to overcome their present situations and to work their way out of them. They all had hope in the face of adversity and their hope and dedication to themselves allowed them to succeed in the end. These tales show us that no matter how desperate a situation can be, if we trust ourselves there is hope that it will get better.
ReplyDeleteI've always found fairy tales unrealistic, even when I was a little girl. I could never understand how the princesses could always be so very nice. I have always liked when characters have real emotional repsonses. In fairy tales that rarely happens. I do like the hopeful nauture of the tales. I think it is good for children to belive that no matter how bad a situation may be it will get better.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me the most about these fairy tales were the psychosocial and sexual motifs prevalent through out. These stories, which we are studying in class, are read to children as bed-time story. Perhaps the subtle hints to sexuality in these stories are meant to inform children about their impeding adolescence. What I liked was the idea of a forest. The forest is a scary dark place where you discover things in these fairy tales, and I feel as if this relates well to the concept of adolescence.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jacqueline that we may not be teaching children "good" and "moral" lessons when reading these fairy tales (when reading "Jack and the Beanstalk, I thought, do we want to teach children that stealing is something rewarding?). But at the same time, I understand that these stories teach children, through the idea of "fantasy," that not always are things perfect and rosy. And you do what you have to do to get by. These stories teach children that to live in this world perhaps you have to imagine a better one.
What struck me the most in these fairytale were the reoccurring themes and archetypes that encompassed the tales—and how even more specific traits (example: nature themes, no mercy—Native American) were more prevalent depending on the society. Archetypal characters, such as the wolf, the hunter, the distant parent, the evil stepparent, the prince, all appeared in the stories in some manner of fashion. I was also impressed by the almost musical cadence of the stories—how they all flowed so perfectly, possessed a tempo, and events and scenes always appeared in series of numbers (threes, usually) which give the stories a musical grace that is present in amazing works of art.
ReplyDelete**spoiler alert**
ReplyDeleteIt seems like (not only in Pans Labyrinth but in a lot of other 'children stories') whenever a character is specifically told to "do/not do" something a sudden urge infects them. It spreads and takes total control.
In Pan's Labyrinth, Ofelia is hardly ever portrayed as a ravenous kid. There's an instance where she is sent to bed without dinner...and she doesn't seem to mind so much...
However when the Faun gives her the "do not take a single bite from the feast or you will die" instruction the foreshadowing is eminent...
This seems like such an important theme when it comes to food. Its a representation of temptation, which stems all the way back to the story of Adam and Eve. Food is a temptation in every way for every character.
Ofelia will undoubtedly be taking a bite of food from the forbidden feast and Mercedes is clearly tempted to steal food/supplies for the bettering of her brother and the rest of the Guerilla resistance.
Im thinking this is a representation of the choices we make in our own lives...those instances when you do exactly what you ought not to do...
i really like the juxtaposition of the temptation between Ofelia and Mercedes...both will make seemingly foolish choice but it is the reasons behind why you make foolish choices that create the 'moral of the story'...
...thoughts?
Some people say that the Faun is like the Captain when he is commanding Ofelia what to do and how he expects Ofelia to shed the blood of the innocent. However I think that the Faun parallels the Captain in a different way. Ofelia's mother looks to the Captain for protection while Ofelia looks to the Faun. The Captain is a real, tangible being who turns out to be a false protector, while the Faun is an intangible being from the other world, but he turns out to be truly protecting Ofelia. Even though he seems to be bossing Ofelia around, at the end we see that he was just testing her and pushing her on the path of being able to return to her home.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting observation is that when Mercedes is captured, the Captain dismisses his soldier, saying Mercedes is only a woman. However she turns things around on him Mercedes cuts the Captain and is mocking him by cutting half of his face. The Captain ends up running out of there almost killed, looking like the clown that he really is.