Fairy Tales: Looking Back... Beginning to End.

I've always been a reader, since I was a little girl.  I'd sit in a comfy chair and drift into all kinds of worlds, any that would take me far away from chores, school, parents and to flying carpets, handsome princes and talking animals.
I feel like a lot of fairy tales have been created to create another world to fall into, and come back to the real world prepared and full of knowledge.  From this class I have learned meaning behinds the objects in fairy tales and analyzed the main parts of the story.  I have learned about the origin of tales and the ideas behind the stories.  Cultures fit into each of the stories and thus we can find out the most important values in each culture.  I learned a lot from all the different guest speakers about their cultures and how they tell their fairy tales.  There is a big difference for all the fairy tales in different cultures and their meanings to us. For example to the bangladesh culture, it is a belief for them unlike us and how we find it almost adorable to see little fairy tale motifs in movies, or even combined all together.

However there are other ways to use fairy tales other than as means of entertainment or teaching small children our values.  We can find our hurt selves in our favorite fairy tales.  Through psychological means we can sort out a mental or hidden problem by discussing fairy tales.  This is very interesting to me especially since it's hard enough to fix some mentally disturbing problems with some therapy.
From the many lessons and discussions in class i'd say some of my favorite activities would be drawing a favorite scene and giving an oral presentation on a small reading about a view point of fairy tales.  I loved watching pans labyrinth and talking about the hidden motifs.  I believe we should talk more about the modern fairy tales happening now a days. Such as in shrek, or the new red riding hood.
Overall I thoroughly  enjoyed this class because of the discussion and all the new things we learned.  I know a lot more about fairy tales then I started off with.

Fairy Tales: Dr. Mian's Lecture

This lecture was a very interesting one because of the cultures these folktales were told in.  It is very different from our way of seeing folktales.  This was very interesting to me because, many people see fairytales as a means of entertainment and small stories made for children to learn rules.  In this culture it's different, they see it as a strong belief for all generations. An example if this strong belief is the Taj Mahal, built out of a story, the tomb proves it real.  The word for fairy tales is "Ropkoth" meaning "beautiful words."   I find this very interesting because that is what fairy tales, it is necessary to inspire us and make us believe in something, because those words are beautiful.  In general, the story-line is based on good vs. evil and greed vs. generosity, vice vs. virtue.  However, in a lot of stories virtue is rewarded, like normal, but evil instead of being turned around and taught is punished and harshly.  Characters in these stories are generally demons and monsters as well as royalty.  This is somewhat normal, as well as talking animals which is very constant in some our cultures stories.  Magic is highly believed in, as well as animal-plant-monster transformations.  For example, a widely known talking animal is the "wise parrot" which appears on several occasions in the Bangladesh stories.  We also reviewed the story of Neelkamal and Lalkamal.  This was a story very similar to some of our culture's fairy tales.  There was a demon queen which is similar to the evil stepmother.  Overall these stories are somewhat similar, the difference is that they believe in their stories more than we do, they have respect for the stories and their origins.

Fairy Tales: Professor Zaru's Lecture

The thing that makes arabic folk tales and fairy tales is how many different types of fairy tales there are.  Because of the diversity in he arab world such as difference in dialects, customs, dress and food, the morals can be rather different and some virtues more important than others.  Folklore can also be told in many different ways like, dance, music and poetry.  There is an oral tradition though, and a necessary storyteller. There are 5 categories of Arab folk-tales, Kalila, Joha, Sirats, Fables of Luqman, and A thousand and one nights.  The interesting thing about A thousand and one nights, is that there are stories inside the main story.

Fairy Tales: jewish Folk tale Tradition

I find that Jewish folk tale tradition is mainly focused on religious aspects of normal life.  It compares the jewish religion to the christian and claims that jewish religion outdoes other religions.  Many of the tales had to point out the necessity of the hero being jewish.  Possibly because in older times the jewish people were disliked and oppressed by other people of different religions.  They, like the sign language community, had to create stories to make them feel better and that they had hope even though they were being oppressed.  Also like the african folk tales brings in wit and smarts to win the hero's tale.  They outdo their villains by being patient, smart, and clever.  Such as in" The Rabbi Who Was Turned into a Werewolf" which was a very great story which played on smarts and patience being the key to being the hero and ending the story rightfully.  However this story also laid out the moral not to trust women for they are truly greedy.  In other stories by jewish folk tale tradition it was clearly a tale to prove that the jewish people were stronger and smarter than the other religions.

Fairy Tales: Bluebeard

I believe my favorite Bluebeard story is "Fitcher's Bird".  The only reason I look it so much above the rest is because unlike the other stories the younger bride thinks of a way out and a way to change her future and the fate of her sisters.  She outsmarts the villain and I believe that is the thing you need the most in story.  Instead of waiting for someone to save you, you can definitely figure a way out yourself.  She thought about the situation and "put the egg aside, and then examined the house..." she found out another way to be curious and just dealt with the situation with pure thought and cleverness.  The other stories more or less let the young girl be rescued by pure chance and stalling.  The Fitcher's Bird I believe provided more of a moral to the story of Bluebeard, that there is hope.

Fairy Tales: Midterm Exam Story

Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Flower.  Flower was a beautiful kind soul with three older brothers.  One day she went into the forest to find roses for her mother.  Her brothers warned her not to go too close to the river, for it would catch her in it's waves and take her to the sea.  They told her to cross the wooden bridge and give the river some of her bread to satisfy it's hunger.  Flower went onto the bridge and threw a piece of bread into the river.  She quickly  crossed and went to find the roses her mother wanted.  When she came back she had no more bread to give, the river asked her to be with him always, craving the small child's youth and energy.  When he reached for her she threw in a rose and the thorns hurt him.  She quickly ran across and back to her home.  One day her eldest brother went walking across the bridge to cut down some wood for the fire, he gave a piece of bread to the river but the river ignored the bread and grabbed the brother within his waves.  The brother cried out for help.  His two younger brothers came running and tried to grab their brother.  Flower came running and threw a rose into the water.  The river yelled in pain and threw the brother from his waves.  The river cried, "It is so beautiful but hurts me so!"  Flower gently approached the water, "What makes you so hungry river?" The river replied, "I only wish to feel the energy I once had as a young stream, these banks are too small for me now."  Flower asked her brothers to dig deeper banks for the river.  Finally the river was peace and no longer hungered for Flower or her brothers.  Flower traveled many times to the forest enjoying the soft fall of water the river made.
The End

Fairy Tales: Cinderella "rags to riches"

"Rags to riches" is a classic tale in modern stories and movies.  It is an important part of stories perhaps because it is a common problem among all people.  Everyone dreams to be in a higher position.  People are always hoping for something bigger and better.  In the case of Cinderella, it is the hope that there is something better than being held back by a wicked stepmother and stepsisters.  The wicked stepmother, represents the actual mother ignoring a child and focusing more on her other children.  In this story the father is absent.  In the Disney's "Cinderella", Cinderella is a young girl, her father and mother are dead and she and her stepmother and stepsisters are in debt.  Due to this debt they are not able to hire servants and use Cinderella as a their own personal servant since she is not really family and the youngest.  She works so hard and is kind and patient and only hopes for her stepmother to let her become part of the family and go to the ball.  Even after she works so hard, the stepmother says no and ruins her entire evening, it is only when she has finally reached her wit's end when her fairy godmother appears.  However in other stories she achieves her happy ending solely through magic and complaint.  Many dislike this type of story, even if it inspires hope and imagination, they think it's better that children learn that they can achieve things through hard work but only when they get to the end will they get some help.  This part of the concept of "rags to riches" must not be ignored especially with children, they need to learn that it's not so easy to work your way from the bottom all the way to the top.