John's Fairy and Folk Tale X-perience

This week, our class' readings focused on the different variations of the "the tale as old and time" - Beauty and the Beast. One particularly interesting version of the story that we read was "The Tiger's Bride," a short story by Angela Carter which is based heavily on the traditional Beauty and the Beast narrative, but with a few key differences. Not only is the story written in lush, descriptive prose (making it a fairy tale as appose to a folk tale according to our earlier definition ), but it also succeeds in subverting at least two of the central themes of the more well-known version of the story written by Jeanne-Marie de Beaumont. The first of these themes is gender. In de Beaumont's older telling of the story, this theme is a bit more subliminal, but in Carter's retelling, it takes center stage. One way that this is done is by focusing more on the lack of agency that Beauty seems to have in whether or not she is handed over to the Beast. In...

One of the most interesting and commonly discussed features of fairy and folk tales are their universality and the extent to which they are a part of our shared culture. On an unconscious level, phycologist Carol Jung argued that fairy tales represent collections of archetypal images which speak to the most basic and universal aspects of the human experience, from growing up to falling in love. The popularity of some fairy tales in particular have also made them into cultural touch stones, which allows their images and famous plot points be used quite consciously to make political or social points through a shared understanding of the source material between artist and viewer/reader. In the case of this cartoon by Andy Marlette, a famous scene from the story of "Little Red Riding Hood" is used to make a point about U.S. government surveillance, an issue decidedly removed from the original context of the story. Our knowledge of the story, however, allows us to nonetheles...

If we are going to be spending the next several weeks discussing folk and fairy tales, I think that it will be useful to try and first define what exactly we mean by these two terms. Based on what we've read so far and the discussions we've had in class, it seems that there are at least two main features of folk and fairy tales which we might examine in order to help us to get at what they are and how they relate to each other and to other pieces of literature.  The most important feature of both a folk tale and a fairy tale is the presence of magic or other fantastical elements in the story. A folk or fairy tale might, for example, involve characters such as witches or fairy godmothers who can perform magic and make impossible things happen, or it might include strange creatures such as ogres or talking animals. Typically, the story will also involve a regular person (often a young person) interacting with the magical elements of the world. Bettelheim argues that these ma...

My name is John McEachern and I am writing this blog as a part of Dr. Esa's class on folk and fairy tales at McDaniel college. Although I am taking this class mainly to fulfill an honors elective requirement, I chose this class specifically because I have always had an interest in myths, legends, and folk tales. When I was younger, I had a particular fascination with stories of mythical creatures and I have a lot of great memories looking for them in the woods during by older brother's baseball games. I don't really believe in these kinds things anymore, but I still love to read stories about ghosts, magic, and monsters and think that their is an inherent value in the sense of thrill, mystery, and wonder at the world that such stories impart. In this class, I am looking forward (first of all) to reading fairy and folk tales every week and feeling these emotions as I do so. I am also looking forward to learning how to view fairy tales from a literary perspective and lea...