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.

Fairy Tales: Lecture by Vivian Deitz

Fairy Tales represent many different meanings to people and to Vivian Deitz they represent a connection to the soul essence as well as a connection to the Inner Child.  She believes that in everyone's lives there is a "genie" or transformation awaiting to happen that will heal oneself as well as bring them peace in their life. Without imagination there is no will to hope or dream, and fairy tales give us the creative edge as well as the hope that there is something better in our lives. Albert Einstein also had the some viewpoint, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Carl Jung spoke of the conscious mind and unconscious mind and how it is connected throughout the world.  Deitz then spoke of how our brains work.  There is a left and right side, and the left side is more logical and analytical while the right side is the initiation of creativity.  She spoke of how most people these days are left brained and hardly use their right brain as much as children.

Deitz also spoke of magic and how it is a metaphor for the power of the human mind overcoming all obstacles.  Fairy tales amuse us with magic and all the events that occur in a fairy tale because there are so many unlike in our normal lives of, waking up, going to work/school, eating dinner, going to bed.  Through fairy tales we hear a wild story that captures our attentions as well as with magic which amazes us because it is unusual in our world. She then went on to talk of our personal genies.  Our personal genies represent our talents possessed but not used.  When we don't acknowledge our personal genies we ignore our authentic self.  We all need to acknowledge our personal genies so we can free ourselves and  follow our feelings.  She then went on to talk about Aladdin the velveteen rabbit fairy tales.  Aladding was all about how children act out their depression and are given the chance to start over, it also acknowledges his imagination and ability to use the talents he secretly possessed but never used. The velveteen rabbit was about the transformation of anxiety to optimism.  How after a transformation the child is well and grown up, and the use of his genie or transformation initiator also got a pat on the back and became real.  Deitz then talked about the different stages and conflicts that children deal with at certain ages, which makes it difficult for them to get along in life but it also gives them certain stories to read to help them get through their conflicts.  Overall I enjoyed the lecture very much, especially hearing about the velveteen rabbit because it was one of my favorite childhood stories.  I am fully ready to open up to my own personal genie.

Fairy Tales: ASL and folktales

I learned a lot of interesting things from Mr. Ricky Rose and Dr. Mark Rust about the ASL community as well as how they tell stories of many varieties.  Literature itself is generally composed for the eyes and not the ears.  Dr. Mark Rust composed a comparison of traditional literature and visual literature.  Traditional literature  the poetry creates images through the words, and how the poem is supposed to be read.  Prose in traditional literature also creates images through words in the paragraphs.  In visual literature, poetry is all about hand motions and emotions on faces as well as whole body movement.  Prose is also about motion, or how they are making videos from books, and movement of body for papers.
Literature has not made it easy for the ASL community to get involved.  In 1996 they removed ASL from "invented languages" to the Indo-european languages.  It goes against everything people have believed for such a long time, so it has been hard to accept their language as important as others.  Many believed that because people couldn't understand or because they didn't speak back, they were unintelligent.  However, thanks to the technology developments they are able to get more involved and communicate with each other.  The way that the ASL community tell stories is very interesting.  For example, how they tell narratives is just to inform each other and to be funny.
How the ASL community tells folktales is very interesting.  They change the stories around to make fun of the hearing community, which is very interesting but also reflects the oppression against them from so long ago.

I believe that the way the ASL community tells other from their community stories or their children stories is very interesting.  They put a lot more of themselves into it rather than just reading to them from a book.  It is almost a performance and stories form their community can be passed around as jokes about the hearing community, but it makes everything interesting and clever.  The stories that both Dr. Rust and Mr. Rose told us where very impressive and interesting.  It was more entertaining than any other story i've heard because it was a performance that was really impressive with emotion and passion put into every word.  Also the fact that in stories they do different perspectives.  It's very clear to tell which person is talking or moving.  It's like watching a movie, and there is a lot of build up.  There are perspectives as well as slow motion, close up, pan out, and many other different perspectives that can be told through sign language.  If only all stories were so moving and exciting to watch as well  as feel.

Fairy Tales: "Sonne" by Rammstein

Sonne by Rammstein

In this video there are many similarities to the fairy tale of Snow White.  For example the men who perform in the Rammstein's music video, are smaller then the girl who turns up at their door.  She looks like the classic disney snow white.  The men resemble miners, which in the disney movie is the job of the dwarves.  They give her jewels and all they work for and she gives them their fantasy in this music video.  The resemble, the sun to their Snow White.  They also show a brush and apples in the music video which are supposed to represent poison.  They also show her in front of a mirror, perhaps already her step mother.  The miners treat their Snow White as gold, the sun and their jewel which they will gladly work for.  They also show a very different scene of her snorting or taking a line of gold.  In the end, the show her getting a drug overdose of gold, perhaps overdoing her beauty and vanity is what kills her.  This music video in their own way represent the cycle of Snow White and her step mother.  She is caring and beautiful, but then gets so involved with her beauty it becomes like a poison and kills her in the end.  The "dwarves" bury her in a  glass coffin surrounded by apples, representing purity and life through its many seeds which grow into trees.  Finally one apple breaks the coffin and lands in her hands, this representing another start on life.  Or perhaps the falling from the "sky" to the ground is one's grip on reality.  Either way at the end, she comes back to life which is what happens in the story.  I liked the modern take of this music video on Snow White.  It is interesting to see a woman take so much from the dwarves, and be their shining sun and yet die because of her own need for beauty, however it portrays the real cycle of Snow White perfectly.

Fairy Tales: Poem of the Butterfly Lovers

She hid behind a boys smile
but felt a girl's flutter
the boys smile hid her hearts desire
when once he knew
he loved and asked to be only hers
but fate would not permit him to
he died without her by his side
on her wedding day she cried
as she neared his grave
in robes of white
she begged him, please
to take her with him
their love so strong
gave them both wings
butterflies flying away on the wind.

Fairy Tales: Beauty and the Beast and Cupid and Psyche

The Greek tale has a lot in common with different variations of Beauty and the Beast. A couple of things they shared with some tales would be the constant throughout most of the stories, such as the fear of being with someone who you do not know fully.  There seems to be a fear of being with a beast or a monster.  It was rumored that Psyche's destined husband was a cruel monster. She was also the youngest and most beautiful of her sisters.  Her parents were also punished and lost their daughter, and fearing for her.  The sisters were cruel and made her doubt the beast as well as dared her to doubt her love for her husband and break a bond with him.  This was also the case in the french version of Beauty and the Beast.  However her curiosity makes her sneak a look at her husband without his consent and she loses him.  This was also in the story of Urashima the Fisherman. Beauty and the Beast carried a lot of little things from Cupid and Psyche with curiosity and the plot by the sisters as well as the overall idea of learning to love.  I feel that what Cupid was really trying to teach Psyche was that falling in love doesn't mean basing it off looks but the inside, and that just because she saw him she might only love him for looks.

On the other with Beauty and the Beast is being afraid of what the beast really is but just by telling from the outside.  As with Cupid it is perhaps the idea that you might be fooled by his voice and must judge him by looks.  It is all a question of uncertainty among women who are forced into a relationship with a strange man, who are deeply curious and yet disturbed by what they see/hear.