The Final Blog: A Bittersweet Goodbye

One of my favorite fairy tales: The Swan Maiden

Hi, guys! I can’t believe it’s already been fourteen weeks. We’ve grown so much in a short period of time, and, while I can’t say I’m not excited about the prospect of summer, this ending is bittersweet: it’s sad to say goodbye. I have enjoyed my time in this class, reading and analyzing these stories. But I think I’m also ready to move on. At the beginning of class (the first blog), I said I hoped to learn more about different versions of fairy tales and different cultures from different perspectives. I’d say I have successfully accomplished these goals. I have read countless stories, and I can honestly say that I spent enough time with them - I read them thoroughly. I know so much more about stories in general, more than just their plot structures and similar patterns of events. I know more about different cultures through their stories, including Kenyan, Jewish, Native American, Indian, Arabian stories and more. My knowledge-base has grown exponentially, in many different ways.

Arabian Tales: Stories Full of Suspense and Intrigue

One of the aspects of Arabian tales that I found to be unique is the tradition of having a frame story, where one story spins off into a web of tales (“stories within a story”). This can be seen through one of the most popular group of tales: 1,001 Arabian Nights. In this book the frame story is the tales of the women-killing sultan, his brother, and Shahrazad, an amazing storyteller who outsmarts the king by telling suspenseful and mystical stories every night. The stories blend into each other which is part of the girl’s wit - ending the stories at the perfect time so that the king would be compelled to not kill her in order to hear the rest of the story. The movie version transitions between tales and Shahrazad telling them, only to reveal that the entire movie is her telling the stories to her children. Another aspect of the frame story is the idea of repeating characters like Joha/Djuha and Bablul which keep different tales linked together.

The Stories of Oscar Wilde: Fairy Tales Dripping with Figurative Language and Satiric Wit

Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales differ from other European tales because of their incredible artfulness. His stories are definitely more of Kunstmarchen, art tales, than the typical Volksmarchen, people tales. Wilde employs beautiful metaphors and imagery, quite unlike most of the other tales we have read (except for, as John noted, Angela Carter’s tales). For example, in “The Selfish Giant,” Wilde describes the decay of the garden as an extended personification of the seasons/weather. “The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver” (Wilde 332). There are similar extended metaphors and forms of imagery in all of Wilde’s stories. Furthermore, the main characters in Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales are not one-dimensional - they all change and develop or transform: the giant learns from his selfishness, the happy prince gives away all of his accessories, becoming dull and drab and eventually destroyed, and the Nightingale sacrifices herself, dying for the “lover.” This is quite unlike heroes in the stereotypical European fairy tales, like Snow White, who does not change much throughout her tale.

Native American Stories: Folktales Full of Spirituality and Free of Misogynism

This week we looked at both Jewish Folktales and traditional Native American tales. I found the Native American tales to be interesting; different from the traditional fairytales we have been reading in many ways. One element that was found in almost all the tales was the archetype/character of the Old Man. In the first story, “How Men and Women Got Together,” the Old Man is the god-figure. It is particularly unique because in that tale, the Old Man (god-figure) is human - he is a man capable of making mistakes because the premise of the story is that he regrets making the men and the women live apart. The Old Man (or sometimes, Old Woman, as in the case of “ The End of the World”) figure shows the respect for old-age in their culture as well as their spiritual elements (belief in god/gods).

Jenna Warren's Blogs: Blogs In An Actual Blog Format

This week we were partnered up and given the task to reflect on someone else’s blogs. So first I want to start out by apologizing profusely. I know my blogs are long, they are really long, but I stop myself; the English-nerd inside of me can’t help but writing an essay every time. So I’m very sorry, Jenna, and I hope that reading my blogs wasn’t too annoying.

Giving Kids Relatable Heroes: The Role of Tricksters

This week we looked children heroes - tricksters who made up for their lack of size and brawn with brains and deceptions. To me, these characters’ main purpose is to provide relatability to small children, showing them how even when things seem hopeless, they can make their situations better. The heroes in these stories are children, but they still have power, and this is something that kids can connect to. From a psychological prospect, the tales highlight the importance of leaving home, leaving a place of safety in order to flourish, succeed, and create an individual identity. They allow the children to project their frustrations with their parents onto “evil” parent figures, allowing them to vent this angry in a safe and healthy way (through stories). Furthermore, the fantastical settings of the tales prove a sense of escapism, giving children a glimpse of a potential wonderful future in their lives especially since according the Tatar, the tales were written/told during times of “harsh realities.”

Kenyan Folktales: Storytelling that is Alive

I don’t know about anybody else, but I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture we experienced on Tuesday. Dr. K’Olewe was friendly, engaging, and interactive, and it was clear he was passionate about his culture and the tales that rise out of that culture. He was able to tell nine different stories in a short amount of time and connect them to the points he was trying to make about the storytelling tradition in Kenya.

What Dr.K'Olewe said his favorite tale was

So what made these stories so entertaining? What set them apart from other tales?

I think part of the reason the stories were so entertaining is because I’d never heard them before. This makes them quite unlike the stories we’ve read in class, all of which I have encountered in some form or another, and some of which I am very familiar with. When I was reading these stories, I was pretty sure how they were going to end. Sometimes the ending differed from my expectation which was surprising and refreshing, but that occurred rarely. But because I’d never heard of the Kenyan stories before, I waited with anticipation to know how all of them ended. I had no idea what the ending was going to be or how the beginning and the end would tie together into a message. This factor combined with the heart the tales were told with made hearing them fun and captivating.