Instructions/Fairytales

dismissive phrases like that's nothing but a fairy tale ignore just how powerfully the world of make believe is implicated in

the making of beliefs

if fairy tales have a high quotient of weirdness, it is because they

recruit the extraordinary to help us understand the ordinary and what lies beneath it.

riddles wrapped in mysteries challenge us to

make sense of nonsense

fairy tales may present us with counterfactuals but they may also transmit

higher truths that help us navigate reality

fairy tales, more importantly, hold forth the promise of

escape to a better and more colorful elsewhere

are their fairys in fairy tales?

no. although there may be enchantresses and fairy godmothers, they bear no resemblance to the woodland creatures found frequently in british and celtic lore.

it was the French, more specifically Mme d' Aulnoy, author of many literary fairy tales, who gave us the term

contes de fees, leading us to frame the stories as if they turned on the lives of diminutive folk

there is magic in fairy tales. What is perhaps the defining feature of the genre?

the presence of enchantment

again and again, we witness transformations that create a crisis, breaking down the divide between

life and death, nature and culture, animal and human, or self and other

magic implies

metamorphosis

fairy tales take up deep cultural contradictions, creating what claude levi strauss called

miniature models- stories that dispense with extraneous details to give us primal anxieties and desires. they use magic and move us to imagine what if or wonder why

fairy tales require readers to

fill in gaps, to think more and think harder about what moves the figures in them

fairy tales, like myths, capitalize on the

kaleidoscopic with its multifaceted meanings.

fairy tales once told around the fireside or at the hearth, the captured the play of

light and shadow in their environment

literature, vladimir nabokov tells us, was born on the day when

a boy came crying wolf. conversation started about that wolf and began adding, embellishing, exaggerating, and doing all the things that make for lively entertainments. each new telling recharges the narrative

fairy tales moved gradually from oral storytelling cultures into

pamphlets, broadsheets, and books

there is no original when it comes to

fairy tales because they are circulated in multiple versions, reconfigured by each teller to form a uniquely new tale with distinctly different effects

the tales themselves derive largely from

collective efforts.

Angela Carts reminded us that no one person can claim to be an

authoritative source for a fairy tale; who first invented meatballs and in what country/

the story of little red riding home varies radically in

texture and flavor from one culture to the next

virtually every motif, trope, and image in a fairy tale are subject to

change

while there is no original or standard version of cinderella, there is a

basic plot structure (what folklorists refer to as a "tale type").

tale type index

1. the monster as husband

2. disenchantment of the monster

3. loss of the husband

4. search for the husband

5. recovery of the husband

the stable core offers a useful tool for

comparative analysis, bringing together tales that exhibit spirited variation, with beasts

improvisational energy has always kept the fairy tales

alive

the myth of fairy tales as some kind of holy scripture was energetically propagated by

Charles Dickens, who brought to what he considered the literature of childhood

W. H Auden said to drive home the point about fairy tales as sacred texts, the tales rank next to

the bible in importance

the reverence brought by some readers to fairy tales mystifies these stories, making them appear to be

a source of transcendent spiritual truth and authority

derided as simple stories and childrens tales, fairy tales has long been considered a

domestic art, at least since plato in the gorgias referred to the old wives tales told by nurses to amuse and to frighten children

many of the most expansive informants consulted by the grimms were

women

the association of fairy tales with the domestic arts and with old wives tales has not done much to

enhance their cultural status

Marina Warner stresses mere old wives tales carry connotations of

error, of false counsel, ignorance, prejudice

fairy tale implies

fantasy, escape, recovery, and consolation- these are the quartet of terms Tolkien defined as the key positive components of fairy stories

today, our portal to fairy tales is

disney plus, and films have real cultural traction because of those feature length animated films.

what was once folk culture became

mass culture

more important, by animating fairy tales with cartoon technologies, disney decisively moved fairy tales back to

the nursery

disney's nostalgic appropriations form a stark contrast with many of the

critically reflective adaptations

disney studios also continually reinvents the

fairy tales, most recently with live action versions

film viewers are anything but

passive recipients. they actively engage in critique, reenactment, and recasting

it was the feminist critique of fairy tales, beginning in the 1970s, which brought fairy tales

back, restoring them to the canon and making them culturally relevant by pointing to the obligation to reinvent them

fairy tales had the power to

calm the cauldron of seething emotions that is the mind of the child, with its narcissistic disappointments, oedipal dilemmas, sibling rivalries

the uses of enchantment put fairy tales squarely back in the canon of

childrens literature, and at the same time the volume legitimized the academic study of fairy tales

make it new was never a piece of advice you had to give

storytellers because they were always making it new- shamelessly cutting and pasting but always improvising as well- so that their stories would tick and whirr just as smoothly as the ones told the night before

the most skillful raconteurs, then as now, were the

iconoclasts. they were able to preserve the raw energy of the tales and keep them alive precisely because they were cosntantly trying to undo them.

in the 1980s, anne sexton took up the role of

iconoclast, undermining the history and wisdom of the past encoded in fairy tales and reimangining the grimms fairy tales through parody and critique

the poems in sextons volume stake a claim to producing fairy tales by

declaring the poet herself to be the new source of folk wisdom and of oracular authority. she positions herself as speaker

sexton models how to create new stories that stage

very wry and cruel and sadistic and funny psychic battles

the intertextual dialogue may not always be as pronounced as is the case with

sexton's poetry

in some cases, the fairy tale inspiration will not be announced in the title, and readers will have to

make their own connections, as is the case in many cinematic productions

making it her business to demytify fairy tales, carter aimed to mount

a critique of current relations between the sexes

we can break their magic spellers and that social change is possible once we become aware of

how the tales have guided our social, moral, and personal development

atwood questions the seemingly timeless and universal truths of our cultural stories by reflecting on their

assumptions and exploring how they can be unsettled through rewriting

two authors who give us literary fairy tales that are neither restorative nor critical but something of a

hybrid of the two.

both hans christian andersen and oscar wilde were deeply familiar with

oral traditions

over the years, however, it dawned on andersen that he could

write his own fairy tales rather than just reproduce the ones he remembered from childhood

oscar wilde, was steeped in folkloric traditions as a child as well as in his adult life. the fairy tales he wrote share much with stories from

oral storytelling traditions, he added his own creative twists

these literary re creations replaced what the critic andre jolles referred to as the

naive morality of fairy tales with a belief in redemption through suffering as well as a heightened sense of social justice

fairy tales seem to have a built in

refresh button, inviting us to adapt and repurpose them as they migrate into new scenes of story telling and make themselves at home in new media

the marvelous messiness of fairy tale networks defies the

systematic classification systems

the constant in these stories is less character than

abstract concepts, always reshuffled and reinvigorated by the values of the next generation of tellers

on the surface, an intelliglbe lie; underneath, an unintelligable truth. these words tell us something about the

illusory surfaces in all fairy tales and about the challenging complexities of what lies beneath

fairy tales deliver not only the shock of beauty, but also jolts of

horror, rewiring our brains and also charging them up, challenging us to make sense of the harsh realities exposed in them

jack zipes tells us that fairy tales are informed by a

human disposition to action- to transform the world and make it more adaptable to human needs

as the philosopher ernst bloch put it, fairy tales hold forth the utopian promise of

something better or a more colorful and easier somewhere else

fairy tales were not invented in europe or great britain. they have flourished in

every time and place since humans began telling stories to each other.

storytelling is a cultural building activity, one that makes

the human world and make the world human

bill willingham explains exactly why he used fairy tale plots, characters and tropes to

construct his series of graphic novel; its a group of characters and stories that we all own. we are all born with an inheritance that we can take advantage of

neil gaiman instructions

say please before you open the latch. do not touch the knocker for it will bite. dont take anything from the house. feed, clean, and heal a creature if it is in need of it. give the old woman under the oak tree something. do not trust the youngest of the three princesses. trust the wolves but do not tell them where you are going. the river can be crossed by the ferry and the ferryman will take you. if he hands the oar to you, he will be free to leave the boat. if an eagle gives you a feather, keep it safe. do not be jealous of your sister. know that diamons and roses are as uncomfortable when the tumble from one's lips. colder and sharper they cut. remember your name. do not lose hope. trust ghosts. trust dreams. do not forget your manners and dont look back. there is a worm at the heart of the tower. that is why it will not stand.

neil gaimain instructions; when you reach the little house, the place your journey started, you will

recognize it, although it will seem much smaller than you remember. walk up the path and through the garden gate. then go home or make home

charles dickens knew little red riding hood as

the innocent child in stories collected by charles perrault and the brothers grimm.

in the little red riding hood stories by charles perrault and the brothers grimm, what happens is

a villainous predator squares off against a sweet, trusting child and earns a bad name for himself as a ruthless, gluttonness beast

we often think of little red riding hood as a story with a whiff of

archaic, but it is in fact alive and present in our own culture.

so ubiquitious is the little red riding hood tale that it sometimes dissappears from sight precisely because

it is so familiar

a source of adult entertainment, little red riding hood is also very much at home in the

nursery, telling us not only about encounters between predator and prey but also about human interactions that foreground innocence and seduction.

little red riding hood is a story about

appetite from hunger to sexual desire.

we are as much in the realm of myth as of fairy tale, with stories that provide a platform for staging the

consequences of desires, sinister, and benign

little red riding hood most likely emerged as part of a

story telling culture that took up the theme of predatory animals roaming the countryside in search of food

the earliest versions of little red riding hood features

wolves on the prowl looking for nothing more than a tasty meal

little red riding hood story migrated directly into the nursery to become a story with a

disciplinary edge and all kinds of behavioral directives diesgnd to teach the child outside the story lessons

fairy tales have their roots in a

peasant culture relatively uninhibited in its expressive energy.

for centuries, agricultural laborers and domestic workers relied on the telling of tales to

shorten the hours devoted to repetitive tasks

pual delarue

a french folklorist who published a version of little red riding hood that was recorded in brittany in 1885.

the story of grandmother

as paul delarue called the tale, recounts a girls trip to her grandmothers house and her encounter with a wolf. this gallic heroine escapes falling victim to the wolf and instead joins the ranks of trickster figures. after arriving at grandmother's house and unwittingly eating meat and drinking wine, flesh and blood of granny, the girl removes her articles of clothing and climbs into bed with the beast, but it soon dawns on her that she is in danger. she escapes by pleading the wolf for the chance to go outdoors and relive herself, and once released, she races back home

after perrault wrote down his story of little red riding hood, it is persumably more faithful to

oral traditions than perraults little red cap

the heorine in the story of grandmother is as jack zipes pionts out

forthwright, brave, and shrewd. she is an expert at summoning courage and using her wits to escape danger. perrault changed all that. no more references to bodilu functions, the racy double entendres and the gaps in narrative logic

as delarue points out, perrault removed elements that would have shocked and startled pontential buyers of a volume. these include scenes of

barbaric bheavior and deep impropriety no doubt discouraged parents from reading these tales from times past to their children, even when they included morals

perrault rescripted the events to accomodate a more

rational moral economy

little red riding hoods failure to fight back or to resist in any led led the psychoanalhstically oriented bruno bettelheim to declare the girl must be

stupid or wants to be seduced. in his view, perrault transformed a naive attractive young girl, who is induced to neglect mothers warnings and enjoy herself in what she conscious believes to be innocent ways, into nothing but a fallen woman

instead of succumbing to a rapacious beast in the woods, little red riding hood falls victim to

one of those tame wovles who are the most dangerous of all

the grimms little red cap erased all traces of

the raw energy found in the story of grandmother and placed the action in the service of teaching lessons to the child inside and outside the story.

the grimms narrative begins by

framing a prohibition. little red caps mother hands her daughter cakes and wine for grandmother and proceeds to instruct her in the art of good behavior. walk properly and dont stray from the path. otherwise you will fall and break the glass, then there will be nothing to give grandma. when you enter her room, dont forget to say morning and dont go peeping in all the corners of the room

the grimms efforts to encode the story with lessons could hardlyb e called

successful as it misfires in its lack of logic

as neil gaimin writes in the ocean of the end of the lane, children use back ways and hidden paths while adults

take roads and official paths. straying from the path is actually a good thing today

the cautionary version of little red riding hood inevitably gives us a tableau of violence intended to

drive home a lesson about the consequences of disobedience and transgression

berne performs a kind of protodeconstructive analysis that challenges the notion of a

straightforward message in little red riding hood.

both the tales of perrault and the brothers grimm make the heroine responsible for

the violence inflicted on her. by speaking to strangers and disobeying her mother and strayign from the math, the girl in red courts her own downfall