M³ The Bad Ending

Red playfully—flirtatiously? —calls out the traits and submits to what will happen in the bed. This is a story about a girl wanting to be sexually active, who voluntarily removes her clothes for the experience. However, it is no less an assault as the story becomes violent. It is no longer a willing sexual encounter between two parties, but a rape. The wolf, then, really is two-faced as both a predator under the guise of someone that Red thought she could trust with such an encounter.

M³ Matter of Trust

The disguise of the wolf is almost laughable. So much so that it’s hard to imagine the exchange between Red and the wolf as something to be taken seriously. It’s almost playful, as if Red knew fully well that this was not her grandmother the entire time. So why the deception at all? Why doesn’t the wolf simply eat Red in the forest? That would certainly be the most convenient for the wolf instead of risking Red go somewhere else.

M³ Put to Bed

The story carefully shows a civil conversation with the wolf, who is a known predator of the natural world, and he goes to great lengths to deceive her before devouring her. We have to ask, however, what is Red’s part in this? There is a line within the story in Perrault’s version that is most interesting as the wolf asks Red to “Put the cake and the little pot of butter upon the stool, and come get into bed with me.”

M³ Older than We Think

            Okay, so Grandmother is not related to Red. So what’s the deal here? Why is Red going to see her at all? The butter and cakes are probably legitimate, and most likely a payment for a service that Red wants done. But we need to know a little bit more about Red to figure this out.

M³ Not The Grandma

            Yes, I know, the story calls her Grandmother so she has to be Red’s grandmother. The story is always right about such things. I can’t just say that’s not Red’s grandmother for no good reason. But I have good reasons. Honest.

M³ Over The River And through The Woods

            I’m taking an interlude from both Greek myth and the Bible to revisit the fairy tale that is most on my mind. Little Red Riding Hood. I can’t explain why, but I’ve known there’s much more to this story than meets the eye, and I think I might finally have an answer.

            Grandma.

M3 The Tales and Legends

Drilling down further, we have fairy tales. As these are stories, all fairy tales are essentially myths, though fairy tales appeal to a broader culture instead of a highly-specific one. Fairy tales have been stripped of their specific place and character names to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

Urban legends share a lot in common with fairy tales, though they can reclaim some of the specificity with actual names to be more mythic. The urban part is more of a reference to to the time period. These are modern-day stories. The terms urban legend and urban myth differentiate these stories from ancient cultures, and show that the ancients are not the only ones with culturally relevant stories.

M3 Fairy Tales: Beauty and The Beast

Beauty and the Beast

We come now to Beauty and the Beast. I must confess I have a fondness for the more direct, reconstructed version of the story by Jacobs, but we’ll go with the classical story. Also, I want to point out that none of these stories has Gaston, which is a true tragedy (No one fights like Gaston. No one. . . .)

M3 Fairy Tales: Rapunzel

Theft for Theft

            The story outlines a moral code of eye for an eye very quickly. Though many would question the equality of the rapunzel from the garden for the baby, the story makes the inference by naming the child Rapunzel. The sorceress, at least, believes that these are an exchange of equal worth, possibly because the garden is enchanted in some way. The sorceress further operates under this ideal with casting out both Rapunzel and the prince. It is only through the force plot of the story that the prince and Rapunzel reunite for their happily ever after.

M3 Fairy Tales: The Brave Little Tailor

            This week we tackle the Brave little tailor.

Ascend station

            The fairy tale demonstrates an unusual phenomenon in that it is possible to ascend to a higher station in life. The tailor, a simple commoner, is able to change from a simple commoner to marrying into royalty. The story clearly shows that such change is not natural, as the royalty who finds out about it wants the Tailor removed from their presence for his low station in life. The stratified society is a medieval staple, and one that should not be able to be transcended. Despite the tailor’s ability to make the change, he will never gain true acceptance.

M3 Fairy Tales: Rumplestiltskin

            Since I’m presenting on Fairy tales again, I thought I would take the time to look at some more fairy tales during April, and given the April Fool’s holiday, I thought I might focus on mischief and trickster figures in fairy tales, so we start with Rumpelstiltskin.

M3 Hansel & Gretel

            I can’t very well do fairy tales in October without doing the most popular tale with a witch. For this story, I use the 1857 final edition, but as a special bonus, you can see how the original 1812 version compares to the 1857 version of Hansel & Gretel.

M3 The Little Mermaid

We’re stepping away from the Brothers Grimm to go play with Hans Christian Andersen and his tale of The Little Mermaid.

M3 Snow White

            The fairy tale that Disney started it all with.  I’m using the latest version of Snow White for this little breakdown.

M3 Cinderella

Yay! We’re off to wreck another childhood favorite! The Perrault version is the one Disney based their movie from, and the one most people are familiar with, so we’ll use that.

Modifying Fairy Tales for Fiction

            This is the second half of the information I gave at my conference presentation. I felt weird for not putting it up before, but Mondays are reserved for going over myths, not writing or modifying them. But here’s that info now, forever preserved online. Or at least until the servers lose it.

M3 Little Sleeping Beauty Brier-Rose

            Next on our list of tales to destroy, one of my personal favorites: Sleeping Beauty. First, I have a confession. The reason I really like this story is because of the Disney version. Maleficent rules! Not the later live action version, the original animated version.

And here we go. I am going to look at the Little Brier-Rose version of the story. I generally prefer the Grimms to Perrault (Perrault gets preachy and has to include some kind of moral to the story. I’d rather derive my own from reading the story.).

M3 Little Red Riding Hood Cap

            I chose Red for our first foray because she’s well known, and there have been some recent film interpretations that have left people scratching their heads, especially regarding the sexual under(and over)tones. Each of these analyses will be relatively short since I don’t want to spend one full post on each of the interpretation (though I could do that if asked nicely). So here we go.

Analyzing Fairy Tales

            I need to preface this by talking about analyzing myths (though it applies to lots of different kinds of literature). Most myths have a lot of specific information. The characters are more fleshed out and definite. The setting is established, rooted in the particular culture that created the myth, and so by careful analysis it’s possible to derive specific messages of intent and find patterns that help establish what the myth is to be about and any hidden messages underneath.

M3 Fairy Tales: Overview

     I'm presenting a bit on fairy tales at the CTRWA's Fictionfest conference in September, so I thought I would talk a little bit about it here. This is the first half of the same handout I will be giving out at the conference (the second half is about adapting them to fiction). I will follow-up with more detailed information, and even an examination of some popular tales, presenting some unorthodox (and disturbing) interpretations.