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.

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.