Fairy Tales and Myths - Lecture notes 1 PDF

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Fairy Tales and Myths...

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Fairytales and Myths Fairytales and myths are related in a few ways. It has been suggested that myths reveal the fundamental nature of the human mind. Psychologists like Freud and Jung, who are interested in dreams, find that similar elements occur in their patients’ dreams and in myths and fairy tales. If fairy tales are related to dreams, these stories may, like myths, represent something that is essential to what it is to be human. Fairy tales share other characteristics with myths, as well. Like myths, they are often related orally as stories, rather than being written down as literary works. This means that they change and evolve in the telling the way that myths do; folklorists have often been able to trace versions of a story and note how it is told differently in various regions. Even in one location, one person’s telling of a fairy tale will be somewhat different from another’s although people hearing the two different versions will for the most part agree that they are the same story. In addition, because fairy tales are handed down or transmitted orally, they can be paratactic in the same way as myths. Paratactic storytelling is when you string together ideas without showing the temporal or logical connections between them. In paratactic composition, the audience does not expect the author to provide logical connectives. The audience also is not bothered by logical inconsistencies. When a story is not written down, the listeners do not have written versions to put next to each other and compare word for word, the way we would. So the audience just does not think that way, and they are not interested in contradictions in the story. They are listening to the story for the main point, not checking for the consistency of incidental details. An example would be a child saying “I was in the park and I saw a bird and I chased it and it flew away”! It has been suggested that fairy tales, like myths, are related to rituals, and that they are stories that give meaning to patterns of action practiced in the society that tells them. Think of a child going to sleep at night, listening to different fairy tales, commenting on them and discussing them with a parent. The stories become an informal means of education for the child, giving meaning to the practices described in them. The stories also become part of role-playing games that allow children to deal with the conflicts and tensions inherent in their society. Fairy tales also foster psychological growth and development. In our society, many of the stories from the Brothers Grimm are cleaned up to eliminate some of the violent parts of the story. For example, according to the Grimm version, Cinderella’s stepsisters are punished by being blinded. In versions you may be familiar with, the sisters are not

punished at all, or their punishment is simply that they continue to be their own unlovely selves. However, psychologist Bruno Bettelheim has argued that the stories should not be “toned down” in this fashion, since they give children an outlet for dealing with their negative and cruel feelings. His study of the tales by the Brothers Grimm suggests that fairy tales serve an important function, and that children will, at different points in their lives, have favorite tales that deal with unconscious problems and conflicts they are dealing with at the time. Although myths and fairy tales are similar in some ways, they are different in others. Some of the main differences are: 1.

In myths, the heroes tend to be specific figures with specific talents. In fairy tales, the hero is often unnamed, or else his name is generic. “Heracles” as a hero is a particular individual with specific talents, strengths, and weaknesses, whereas “Jack” or “the prince” could be anybody. 2. In myths, the required feats of strength or the power of intellect are directly accomplished by the hero, while in fairy tales, the tasks to be done are usually performed through magic. II. Fairy Tales and Psychology In his book The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales the Freudian psychologist Bruno Bettelheim discusses his theories. The following excerpt is from his introduction to the book. In order to master the psychological problems of growing up – overcoming narcissistic disappointments, oedipal dilemmas, sibling rivalries; becoming able to relinquish childhood dependencies; gaining a feeling of selfhood and of self-worth, and a sense of moral obligation – a child needs to understand what is going on within his conscious. He can achieve this understanding, and with it the ability to cope, not through rational comprehension of the nature and content of his unconscious, but by becoming familiar with it through spinning out daydreams – ruminating, rearranging, and fantasizing about suitable story elements in response to unconscious pressures. By doing this, the child fits unconscious content into conscious fantasies, which then enable him to deal with that content. It is here that fairy tales have unequaled value, because they offer new dimensions to the child’s imagination which would be impossible for him to discover as truly on his own. Even more important, the form and structure of fairy tales suggest images to the child by which he can structure his daydreams and with them give better direction to his life. This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in

manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence – but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters al obstacles and at the end emerges victorious. Modern stories written for young children mainly avoid these existential problems, although they are crucial issues for all of us. The child needs most particularly to be given suggestions in symbolic form about how he may deal with these issues and grow safely into maturity. “Safe” stories mention neither death nor aging, the limits to our existence, nor the wish for eternal life. The fairy tale, by contrast, confronts the child squarely with the basic human predicaments.It is characteristic of fairy tales to state an existential dilemma briefly and pointedly. This permits the child to come to grips with the problem in its most essential form, where a more complex plot would confuse matters for him. The fairy tale simplifies all situations. Its figures are clearly drawn and details, unless very important, are eliminated. All characters are typical rather than unique. Contrary to what takes place in many modern children’s stories, in fairy tales evil is an omnipresent as virtue. In practically every fairy tale good and evil are given body in the form of some figures and their actions, as good and evil are omnipresent in life and the propensities for both are present in every man. It is this duality which poses the moral problem, and requires the struggle to solve it. In fairy tales, as in life, punishment or fear of it is only a limited deterrent to crime. The conviction that crime does not pay is a much more effective deterrent, and that is why in fairy tales the bad person always loses out. The child identifies with the hero in all his struggles. The juxtaposition of opposite characters is not for the purpose of stressing right behavior, as would be true for cautionary tales. Presenting the polarities of character permits the child to comprehend easily the difference between the two, which he could not do as readily were the figures drawn more true to life, with all the complexities that characterize real people. The fairy tale, by contrast, takes these existential anxieties and dilemmas very seriously and addresses itself directly to them: the need to be loved and fear that one is thought worthless; the love of life, and the fear of death. Further, the fairy tale offers solutions in ways that the child can grasp on his level of understanding. For example, fairy tales pose the dilemma of wishing to live eternally by occasionally concluding: “If they have not died, they are still alive.”

The Brothers Grimm

Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, philologists from a strong religious tradition, collected tales, edited them, and published revisions of their collections between 1812 and 1857. Their collection entitled Children’s and Household Stories published nearly 200 years ago is perhaps the most famous collection of folk and fairy tales in the modern Western tradition. Their dual purposes – to preserve living artifacts from ancient times and to illustrate moral values and demonstrate the necessity for pious, moral behavior – is evident in most of the tales they published. Like many other learned people of their time, called Germany’s Romantic period, the Grimms felt that collecting and publishing native works of literature and folk poetry was important for preserving their national spirit. The Grimms saw fairy tales as a genre closely related to the epic poetry of the Middle Ages and earlier, and they were eager to bring to the forefront what they considered the most important reason for collecting and publishing their firm beliefs concerning the spiritual life of their readers. Education was one of the main reasons that fairy tales were collected, edited, and published: like earlier European collectors, the Grimm brothers wished to provide their readership with models of the moral values of society. However, unlike their predecessors, the Grimms were very much influenced by the ideal of Romanticism. In fact, we might say that Romanticism is the critical environment for the tales. The philosophy of this movement looked back to what people considered a less complicated life, highlighted by more basic – or natural – human qualities. These fundamental values are what the Grimms’ villains repeatedly violate. As one studies the tales, one sees that growth in charity is an integral part of the characters’ development: improving oneself means being natural, displaying the kind of caring and love that arises from one’s internal spiritual well-being. Examples of this include parents sacrificing for their children, as well as characters helping those in need and striving to improve their own willingness to care about others. Household Stories has become a worldwide success and has influenced collectors in many other cultures to preserve the artistic folk heritage as part of their people’s intellectual culture. The Grimm’s stories are familiar to most of us from versions found in animated Disney films and illustrated books for children. We might even say that the brothers created genuine classics that continue to provide a connection with the interior life as well as to “awaken the thoughts of the heart.” How do we study fairy tales effectively? Fairy tales are not stories about fairies, nor is having a fairy in a story a requirement. Fairy tales are stories that are about places and people

conjured up by the imagination. In these stories animals are able to speak and think intelligently, witches plot evil, fantastic beasts like dragons and unicorns exist, there are princesses that often need to be rescued and princes who must fight against beings of great power. There are some storytelling conventions used in fairy tales that establish a recognizable pattern. The beginning usually starts with “Once upon a time.” There is often a young boy or girl whose mother has died. The father has remarried a woman who hates the child, considers him or her a burden or has children of her own whom she favors. She may send her stepchildren off into the woods or force them to work. They are often deprived of food and sunshine and are kept isolated while the stepmother’s own children are pampered. If the story introduces a princess, she is inevitably young and beautiful and has incited the jealousy of a witch and is placed under a spell. A prince (also young and handsome) will need to rescue her. Other common fairy tale patterns are the use of repetition and phrases like “And they lived happily ever after.” These conventions serve several purposes. The phrase “Once upon a time” enables the listener or reader to open his/her imagination and set the story in whatever far away time and place he/she desires. It also avoids giving a specific historical context to the story. It also creates a pattern for the story that makes the story easier to follow and to remember. Think about how little children join in when the wolf in “The Three Little Pigs” says, “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in.” “Happily ever after” endings give closure to the story and enable the audience to cease to worry about the characters knowing that, having survived their tails, they will be all right. From a child’s point of view, it reassures that good wins and everything will come round right in the end. The appeal of the fairy tale is not restricted to children. Parents introduce their children to these stories by reading their favorite tales from childhood. It is the adults who become fascinated with the subtext of these tales, which often leads them to analyze the possible psychological insights. Propp’s Analytical Model Scholars have been interested in why fairy tales have appealed to so many people, both children and grown-ups, for so long. It is true that people will sometimes say that fairy tales all seem the same to them. For some, this is viewed as a drawback, and they think of fairy tales as monotonous and childish. Other people find the simplicity of fairy tales delightful; they enjoy encountering the same elements over and over in stories that nonetheless manage to surprise and delight with their ingenuity. For a long time, scholars noticed the similarities among fairy tales and wanted to understand more about how they worked. As part of understanding the nature and meaning of fairy tales,

scholars have developed systems of classification for them, in some cases relying on similarities of themes found in the stories. For example, is “Hansel and Gretel” similar to or different from “Aladdin”? Are the stories similar because each of them has a supernatural creature (witch, genie)? Are they different because one of them involves seeking treasure, while the other one involves trying to escape an evil captor? If we retold “Hansel and Gretel” and made the witch an evil genie that captured the children, would it be a different story or just modified slightly? The Morphology of the Folktale Vladamir Propp provides a useful framework for comparing stories, and although he concentrates on Russian tales, you can apply his techniques to those in other traditions as well. Basically, he classifies the characters according to their actions, and he analyzes each tale into a series of plot elements called functions to determine the structure of the story. Propp’s System of Analysis The system of classification developed by Propp is very simple and easy to learn, since it is based, with some modification, on the sequence of letters in the alphabet. According to Propp, every fairy tale is made up of a series of plot elements, which he calls functions. The main part of a tale will start with one or more lacks or harms, the solving of which directs the action. The lack or harm is designated by the letters “a” (lack) or “A” (harm). Thus, the plot of a fairy tale will go from the lack or harm to its resolution, “K.” Other elements can be encountered along the way, including meetings with donors, villains, and false heroes, and solving different tasks. Often the story will end in a wedding, “W.” A story will not always contain all of these functions, but for the most part, the functions it does contain will be in order. That is, the basic structure of a story will go from “A” to “W,” with omissions. Each of the functions or plot elements is designated by a letter or group of letters. For the most part, these letters are designed to help you remember what they stand for: for example, “D” is for Donor, and “L” (which can remind you of “lies”) stands for the actions of the false hero.

Parts of a Fairy Tale

A tale usually begins with some sort of initial situation. Although this situation is not nevertheless is an important morphological elements. This is represented by the sy

Function

Description

Letter

I.

Absentation

One of the members of a family absents himself/herself from home. (i.e. going to work to the forest, to war, etc)

β

II.

Interdiction

An interdiction is addressed to the hero. Some advice is given to the hero (i.e. “You dare not look into this closet”)

γ

III.

Violation

The interdiction is violated. A villain usually enters the tale at this point. II and III often form a paired element.

δ

IV.

Reconnaissan ce

The villain makes an attempt at reconnaissance. It has the aim of finding out the location of children, or sometimes of precious objects, etc.

ε

V.

Delivery

The villain directly receives an answer to his question.

ζ

VI.

Trickery

The villain attempts to deceive his victim in order to take possession of him or of his belongings. The villain is usually disguised.

η

VII .

Complicity

The victim submits to deception and thereby unwittingly helps his enemy.

θ

VII I.

Villainy

The villain causes harm or injury to a member of a family. This function is exceptionally important, since by means of it the actual movement of the tale is created. The forms of villainy are exceedingly varied.

A

VII Ia.

Lack

One member of a family either lacks something or desires to have something

a

IX.

Mediation

Misfortune or lack is made known; the Hero is approached with a request or command; He is allowed t go or he is dispatched. This function brings the hero into the tale.

B

X.

Beginning Counteraction

The seeker agrees to or decides upon counteraction.

C

XI.

Departure

The hero leaves home.

↑

XII .

First Function of the Donor

The hero is tested, interrogated, attached, tc., which prepares the way for his receiving either a magical agent or helper.

D

XII I.

The Hero’s Reaction

The hero reacts t the actions of the future donor.

E

XI V.

Provision or receipt of a

The hero acquires the use of a magical agent.

F

magical agent.

XV .

Spatial Transference between two kingdoms, guidance

The hero is transferred, delivered, or led to the whereabouts of an object of search. Generally, the object of search is located in “another” or “different” kingdom.

G

XV I.

Struggle

The hero and the villain join in direct combat. If the hero obtains an agent, for the purpose of further searching, as the result of an unfriendly encounter, this would be element D. If, on the other hand, the hero receives through victory the very object of his quest, we have situation H.

H

XV II.

Branding marking

The hero is branded. A brand is applied to the body.

J

XV III.

Victory

The villain is defeated.

I

XI X.

__________

The initial misfortune or lack is liquidated.

K

XX .

Return

The hero returns.

↓

XX I.

Pursuit/Chase

The hero is pursued.

Pr.

XX II.

Rescue

Rescue of the hero from pursuit.

Rs.

XX III.

Unrecognized

The hero, unrec...