Bluebeards Wife and Eve

Bluebeard's wife in this story goes through a huge temptation. She is told not to do something and can't resist the temptation to find out why it is so forbidden. This temptation is close in relation with the story of Adam and Eve. Eve was instructed not to touch any of the fruits that were on the forbidden tree. Eve had a hard time resisting this temptation and she paid for it and so did Adam who she managed to convince. The difference between these stories is that Bluebeard's wife consequence was altered by her brothers. Instead Bluebeard was punished and killed. He died exactly the same way he killed his other wives. His wife was lucky and instead of really being punished due to her curiosity she was rewarded at the end of the tale with all of Bluebeard's estate and assets. So although she was tempted like Eve, Bluebeard's wife punishment was not severe as Eve's was. Eve pleaded for forgiveness and she was not forgiven unlike Bluebeard's wife where she was not forgiven by Bluebeard but she was still rescued. She falls under the category of all the other tales where the women are rescued and their fate ends better then they thought. This story follows the same plan that is set out for the other stories. The villain eventually falls and the damsel in distress is always saved by either a prince or simply just a man.

Bluebeard

The story of Bluebeard was very interesting and provided a you a view of the evil that some men carry towards women. He was a cold hearted man who killed his wives if they betrayed him in any way. He was described as a very intimidating and ugly man. Which leads me to believe that he was described that way to show that he was the villain of the tale.The women in this story did not stand a chance on their own and this story presents that in the end of the tale. His last wife is mesmerized by the fact that he is rich and has all these material things that she disregards his looks and personality. In Perrault's version of Bluebeard he describes how he takes the mother and her three daughters and shows them a great time so that he can somewhat convince one of the daughters to marry him. Bluebeard already knew how he was gonna trap one of them he just wasn't sure which one was gonna fall for this trap.



Once he does this he goes on to the biggest test ever. He gives his wives access to the entire home and keys to all the rooms including the forbidden room. This is to test if they are obedient wives because obedience was very important to Bluebeard and trust was another very important trait his wife had to have. But like all creatures of nature she became curious and like they say curiosity killed the cat. She betrays his trust and takes the bait. She finds all of his previous wives dead in the forbidden room. He ends up coming home early and finding out that she disobeyed him and wants to kill her. Here comes the characteristics of most of the women in fairytales. She becomes a damsel in distress and needs to be rescued from the fate that she brought onto herself do to her curiosity. Her brothers (males) have to come to her rescue. This story does not present any signs of a woman who is willing to fight for herself and get out of this terrible situation which she provokes herself.

Hansel and Gretel

In Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm, the portrayal of women is portrayed in two different ways. Gretel is your typical young girl who is dependent of the males in her life. She is seen in the story has a helpless female who needs the help or reassure of Hansel in order to feel safe. She is your typical damsel in distress at the beginning and middle of the story. She is afraid and is constantly crying due to the fear of starving and being abandoned. By the end of the story she becomes strong and is the savior of her brother and shows great signs of courage. The other women of that are in the story which are the mother/stepmother and the witch. They are presented as evil women of the story. The mother/stepmother is selfish and shows no signs of remorse when she abandons the children in the woods. She is not even happy when the children return the first time she and the children's father leave them in the woods. The evil witch is a carnivore she eats children who come to her house or find their way there. She is blind but has a great sense of smell.I believe that it is due to these features Gretel was able to trick her and push her into the oven.



This story's biggest dilemma was that food was scarce which was what decided the fate of Hansel and Gretel. The fact that they were poor is what led the parents to take drastic measures and the lack of food made the children fall into the dangerous hands of the witch.
 

A Change Red Riding Hood

In Angela Carters "The Company of Wolves", she describes a new Red Riding Hood. Red Riding is valiant and confident. She knows what lies in the woods and yet she is determined to go through it no matter what she encounters. Unfortunately, she is not aware of the danger of man because she still has some innocence left in her that she doesn't see the evil that man has. She does not know who easy it was to be charmed by a wolf that is also a man. Yet without all of this knowledge she is able to seduce her presume to be attacker. She showed no fear when she knew the wolf-man wanted to kill her. She submitted to his animal desire and took off her clothes but she made him do the same and for some reason I think that she knew that without his clothes he will always be condemned to be a wolf. She had him toss his clothes too in the fire and she laid in bed with him without any fear. That takes lots of guts because if it were me I would have been dead. This makes this Red Riding Hood tougher than the other versions of the story. The other versions had the Red Riding Hood has a naive little girl or young lady who was in need of being rescued. She didn't carry a weapon and she knew that it wasn't her grandmother and yet she stayed in the house. This story by Angela Carter is similar like the versions of  Roald Dahls and James Thurber she is not easily deceived by the wolf. These versions give you a young woman ready to fight for her life and make sure that she shows that she has the strength to do it on her own. She seductress and she is strong willed.




Reference:
 Carter, A. "The Company of Wolves" Published in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979)

The Wolf

This weeks reading was really interesting because we got a better look at the wolf and his interaction with Little Red Riding Hood. In the reading of the "The Wolf as Symbol" Carter's telling of the story changes the way LRRH is seen. It seems that while she was seen to be innocent she was also a seductress. She was depicted as being less of a damsel in distress.She has a knife in her basket and is ready to defend herself.  In the video lecture by the scholar Catherine Orenstein on the evolution of the wolf "Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked" they describe the different view and interpretations of the story. They also discuss the different behaviors of the wolf and Red. My favorite reading though from this week was Marie de France "Bisclavret". The way the women was depicted to be malicious and sneaky was out of the ordinary because it was not the norm or the usual way beautiful women would act. Her husband was a wolf and had the ability to transform from beast to man. When she finds out the reason why he constantly is leaving her alone she betrays him. She forces him to be a wolf for a long time and even remarries. This story makes you think about the possibility that the wolf in LRRH could have been a man and a wolf. Which makes you look at the story in a different light. It made me think that the wolf lusted for LRRH and planned the whole thing to not only eat her but to devour her in a sexual beastly manner. The different versions of the stories again have LRRH climbing into bed with the wolf knowing that it isn't the grandmother. Which also makes me think that she was longing for him just the same. I tell you this much I am really looking at this story with new eyes and it is amazing the different angles that this story has.


Marie France "Bisclavret". translated by Judith P. Shoaf. (1996)
Franz's Marie-Louise "The Feminine in Fairy Tales: The Wolf as Symbol"
Orenstein Catherine. The evolution of the wolf "Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked"

Little Red Riding Hood Has Changed

I have always loved this story and I always thought as a child that if I disobeyed my mother that when I left home the wolf would get me. The funny thing is that the Little Red Riding Hood stories I read this week were a little different. The way she was described by the Brothers Grimm and Perrault makes her to be weak and meek. They describe her as being a gentle and naive girl. Perrault version states that the moral of the story was for young girls especially those that are pretty,well-bred, and gentle are wrong not to listen to anyone who speaks to them (13). Which makes me think what if they were ugly, poor and not as gentle would it be okay if they listened to anyone. Beauty is still a big thing in fairytales and it is what decides your fate. In the Brothers Grimm "Little Red Cap" Little Red Riding Hood gets rescued by the huntsman. She gets a second chance to live and is rescued just like in the other fairytales. The damsel in distress gets rescued. The moral is different here, the moral is to learn to stay on the path instead of getting off or bad things can happen (16). She learned her lesson because when another wolf approached her she stood on her path and was able to kill that wolf with the help of her grandmother. This shows that she learned her lesson and that she smarten up making her less of a damsel in distress. Unlike the Brothers Grimm tale, James Thurber's changes Red Riding Hoods whole character. She is not at all innocent and she is ready for the wolf. She is not deceived by the wolf and does not question why the wolf doesn't look like the grandmother. She knows that the wolf is in her grandmothers bed and she doesn't entertain the wolf. This shows you how women, young girls, and even little girls cannot be deceived. It shows the transformation of the story from fragile and defenseless to strong and a fighter. The girl described in Dahl's version shows an even more evolved Red Riding Hood. She follows the same story line but she is the deceiver. She makes the wolf think that she is helpless and naive but she is neither of these things. The best part of the story is the end of the story where she it says that she has changed. She doesn't wear the red cape any longer but wears the skin of the wolf as her coat (22). This shows and tells how she has evolved as the times have as well. This also shows that she is a force not to be wrecked with.


References:

Brothers Grimm " Little Red Cap"
James Thurber "The Little Girl and the Wolf"
Roald Dahl "The Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf"
Charles Perrault "Little Red Riding Hood"

Women in Walt Disney Fairy Tales

Disney changed a lot of things in fairy tale's. He took the fairy tales and brought them to life by putting them on the big screen. He took the stories and gave them a voice and a look. Disney took these tales that were full of sex, violence and horror and turned them into stories for children. According to Jack Zipes article. " Breaking the Disney Spell," Disney ruined these fairy tales. Zipes believed that he took them and changed the oral traditions that came with these stories. They were traditional stories that many used to teach a lesson to people. But through his changes to make the fairy tales his own he did keep the view of women the same in every story. He kept the classic sexist view of women. All the women in the films like the stories were domesticated. They were all waiting for their prince charming to come and rescue them from their horrible situations. 

Snow White and Cinderella were a great example. Snow White got to the Dwarfs home and became their maid to pay them for letting stay in their home. Disney kept that in his film and he also kept the competitive view that women had in these stories as well. The wicked witch being vain in the mirror and the beautiful helpless young girls damsels in distress.Just like Lieberman's article "Some Day my Prince will Come", women are portrayed according to their looks. If you are beautiful then you are good and you will get rewarded. On the other hand, if you are ugly you are mean and evil. This is what you still find in the fairy tales that Disney presents in his films. This formula has not changed and although there are some Disney films that have strong women in it the formula of a man's interference still remains. The prince will always come and save the princess, marry her and live happily ever after.

Did Disney ruin fairy tales? No, not really the only thing I believe he is guilty of is keeping women in the same category instead of providing young girls a different view of women. 

References:

Zipes, Jack. " Breaking the Disney Spell"

Lieberman, Marcia. " Some Day My Prince Will Come"

 

Female roles in Snow White

The image of the female gender is seen as to be nurturers with warm hearts and gentle in every describable way. They were the ones who took care of the home and the family. They were fragile flowers and did as they were told by the men in their lives or better yet they were not selfish. In Marcia Lieberman article "Some Day My Prince Will Come" she describes the different characteristic of how women are seen depending on their look. Women who were beautiful start out being the outcast by the women who envy them. The ugly women or the women who were considered ugly were evil and cruel.Yet in the Snow White fairytale the Queen is just as beautiful as Snow White but she is evil and that takes away the fact that she is in fact beautiful. The Queen does fall under the facts that she was vain and malicious with no care for anyone except herself. She is as Lieberman describes ill-tempered and that is what makes her ugly and evil (385). She was obsessed with the power that her beauty had given her. The moment that was taken away from her she felt powerless and mad sure that she did whatever she needed to do in order to get it back. The men did as she told them to do which was the opposite normal trait for a man. The men obeyed and feared her raft. Snow White on the other hand fulfills the above description she was gentle and fragile. She wanted to be rescued and used her beauty along with her desperate tears in order to get away from the huntsman. It is all of her actions that make the men that come in contact with her mesmerized by her beauty and gentleness. She takes care of the dwarf's and their home in exchange for shelter.  She portrays what was said to be the normal traits of a female. Women are represented in two different ways in the fairytale of Snow White, the strong woman who is fearless and the damsel in distress who meek and weak.

Reference:

Lieberman, Marcia R. “Some Day My Prince Will Come”: Female Acculturation through the

            Fairy Tale. College English, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Dec., 1972), pp. 383-395. National Council

            of Teachers of English. http://www.jstor.org/stable/375142

The beautiful powerful witch that represents a woman who is strong and fearless.

This is the damsel in distress who is meek and weak

The domesticate woman who takes care of her home

Folktales and Fairytales

It is amazing how people view folktales and how they interpret them. I always thought they were just tales that taught you some kind of lesson or gave you an idea of someone's culture. I now realize that there is more to it than that. Not to mention that you must be careful because some tales have changed based on time and the person telling the tale. It is going to be very interesting to see how the tales we read are not exactly what they originally were when they were told or read to us. Especially the way the women in these tales were described and their actual characteristics. I am curious to see the way they really were treated and the way they reacted to the treatments that they receive. It will be very interesting to see how much these tales were edited.