John's Fairy and Folk Tale X-perience

Well, this is it. My final blog post. Over the past several weeks, I have learned a lot of interesting things about fairy tales and was exposed to a variety that I had no idea existed. At the beginning of the semester, I mentioned that I was excited to read tales from other cultures and was very happy that this is exactly what we ended up doing. Of the atlas of tales that we read, I think that my favorite were probably the Native American and Arabic ones for their beauty and humor.  I also really enjoyed the modern short stories, films, and cartoons that we analyzed for their relationships to the classic fairy tales. It was fascinating to see how these tales continue to permeate our culture and I even found my favorite tale of the ones we have read this semester in Oscar Wilde’s “The Nightingale and the Rose.” The critical theories articulated by von Franz and Bettelheim were very interesting too. I especially liked Bettelheim’s notion of fairy tales as something that children ca...

This week, McDaniel Arabic Professor Carol Zaru came in to tale to our class about Arabic folktales. Much like in the other cultures that we have looked so far, the Arabic tales were told both for entertainment and to pass on certain moral lessons. Arabic tales for entertainment include the stories of the Thousand and One Nights and the stories of Joha, a simpleton or trickster character who has spread and been adapted by cultures throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. Stories about him are often short and humorous, reminding me a little of some of the Jewish stories we have read, such as "A Dispute in Sign Language" or "Chelm Justice." Another kind of Arabic story features two jackals named Kalila and Dimna. These tales originated in the court of an Indian king, but spread across the Middle East as tales which provide the hearer with wisdom and moral knowledge. One feature of Arabic tales I found to be particularly interesting is the rol...