Copenhagen
Copenhagen
A cultural issue that has led to many controversial topics is the stature of good versus evil. In other words, the argument suggests that novels and history itself demonstrates the blurred lines of good versus evil. In my opinion, good versus evil can never just be “good” or “evil”, but instead should be determined on the effect that the situation causes as a whole. Throughout society and in literature, the evidence to support my viewpoint is pervasive.…
The scene from the story that I remember most vividly is when Papa comes home and yells at Mr. Andersen for cutting down his trees. I remember this scene because it was very important. It showed that no matter what race you are, you cannot take advantage of others. Everyone has a right to what they own and even if you think you are superior to that person you cannot take it away. After…
A words connotation affects greatly the way a reader feels. Orenstein claims that “we first learned from fairy tales: castles and fortunes, true love and romantic destiny, and above all that most perfect storybook union, the “fairy tale wedding”” (284). By using words such as “we,” Orenstein is able to personally appeal to readers. Readers are able to see the issue as not only their own, but it groups them with other people who apparently feel this way too. This technique does not allow readers to see the flip side of the issue because they feel as if everyone is on Orenstein’s side. Tatar uses the same technique of language when she rhetorically asks, “What do we ever get nowadays from reading to equal the excitement and the revelation in those first fourteen years?’ (306). Statements and questions like these leave the audience with a feeling of unity with the author, which provide the illusion that the writer’s views are identical to the readers’…
“We can begin to explore the lineage of women as tale-tellers in a history that stretches from Philomela and Scheherazade to the raconteurs of French veillees and salons, to English peasants, governesses, and novelists, and to the German Spinnerinnen and the Brother’s Grimm.” (53-54) In the chapter “To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tale” from Fairy Tales and Society: Illusion and Paradigm, Karen E. Rowe explores the depth and history of voicelessness of women and how the combination of spinning and tale-telling was their way of speaking in a society that would not let them. She takes the reader on a tale of a complex history that starts in ancient history with the Greeks, goes to the French, the English, German and ends with folk tale writers such as Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. The history that is exhibited displays that as long as spinning has existed, women and storytelling has existed. Women have forever used spinning or weaving as a way of having a voice in a time when they could not have their own.…
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, more famously known as the Brothers’ Grimm storytellers, took the image of the witch as presented by the MM and extended it, exploiting society’s prejudices and folklore tales. Jacob Grimm specifically, like Kramer and Sprenger, also believed that “women in general [were] to be predestined for clandestine magic because they, as opposed…
• The purpose of this essay was to convey to the reader that tales of the old are all feminist. The author uses three main points throughout the essay: Eve's apples, Pandora's Box, and Bluebeard's wives. • The target audience of this essay was somebody who understood the tales, because the author doesn't retell them throughout the essay. • This essay is written in a first person point of view, evident by Mary Meigs's multiple uses of the word I, and its variations (I'm, etc).…
Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” published in 1862, illustrates her attempt at combating certain problems she identifies within English literature’s canon social norm, specifically the lack of a proper heroine. In Rossetti’s present time period, there are no noteworthy female heroes in English literature. They may make an appearance every once in a while, but none have an outlet for heroic action. Women seem forever bound by their gender-roles in a male-dominated society. In “Goblin Market,” we enter a sort of parallel universe wherein instead of men dominating society, or marketplace, goblins hold the authority and power, while women are still constrained to the same role. Enter Laura and Lizzie, two sisters who are launched into a “complex representation of the religious themes of temptation and sin, and of redemption by vicarious suffering (1489).” Rossetti intertwines these themes with religious beliefs to promote a proper, moral heroine.…
Fairy tales are often significant for enhancing imagination and different perspectives in the readers. Fairy tales are symbolic in our history and may currently still be present in our society. Fairy Tales also allow us to analyze the emotion of the characters and compare that to our culture as well as our own daily life. In “Snow White and her Wicked Stepmother” and the classic “Snow White” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm both focus intently on how envy, competition, hard-work, and mother daughter relationships and how that is still applied in our world today. The classic “Snow White” allows the reader to focus specifically on how the dwarves are emblematic toward the American dream and toward the common working man…
Diversity plays an important part in traditional tales. I deeply understand that culture background can shape everything in traditional tales because multiculturalism has affected my thinking incessantly. I grew up in an era with the company of a unique mix of culture from China, Japan, and other western countries. Although Huck (2014) stress the reason of why do some people create traditional tales by saying “they created stories that helped explain the world” (p.103), the world can be explained differently via diverse culture.…
Fairy tales, driven by contextual discourse, subvert archetypal patterns to undermine traditional values and beliefs, in turn evolving their traditional didactic nature. Driven by her contextual influence from second wave feminism, Angela Carter’s 1979 postmodern appropriation, The Company Of Wolves, supplants traditional archetypes in order to promote a challenge of gender roles and newfound perception of sexuality as natural and positive. Catherine Orenstein seconds this evolving appropriation in “Storytellers from the women’s perspective and beyond reclaimed the heroine… Recasting the women as brace and resourceful.” Carter begins to undermine the general perception of men as sexual predators during the opening anecdotes, evident in the…
In the article “A Feminist’s View of ‘Cinderella’” Madonna Kolbenschlag, a noted feminist theologian, author, social philosopher, and psychotherapist, approaches the well-known fairytale “Cinderella” from a feminist’s point of view. She presents many examples to support the argument that women are degraded throughout society and the story. While some compelling evidence can be found that agrees with the degradation of women claim, Kolbenschlag makes compelling arguments that women allow these burdens to be placed upon themselves.…
Everything was quiet, too quiet. As the two opposing sides face one another in the battle field, you can hear the wind howling in agony. This war has gone on for centuries and nobody knows when it will end. For as long as the truth isn’t revealed, no one is willing to back out. This is the scene that comes into my mind as I try to personify the two opposing sides of the Shakespeare controversy. For years now, the Stratfordians and Anti-Stratfordians fought. And their reason of fighting, the identity of William Shakespeare.…
Intro: Fairy tales are things we know to be true. We are believed that if we have a hard life to grow into, a "prince" one day will come and give us a kiss and make it all better. "bring us back to life" if you will, as we grow up we open our eyes to the possibility of landing flat on our face and throwing up a poisonous apple and dealing with life on our own before our "prince" comes to save us.…
In today’s society women are always looked down upon, vulnerable, or expected to dependent. Fairy tales show how the gender roles in fairy tales are damaging to young women in society. In the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, the female character is put in danger and cannot save herself. She must rely on the male character in the tale to save her. “She shall fall into sleep that will last a hundred years. At the end of that time, a king’s son will find her and awaken her by a kiss.” This fairy tale is just one example of the many that portray similar stereotypes. This influences women in society that relying on men is okay and they have no power to be…
When you think of a fairytale you initially might think of a damsel in distress and a great knight ready to battle the wicked witch to save her. However, there is more to each story than pure amusement. Each in their own way I waiting to mold young minds by teaching simple morals in a way that they can understand. Yet, by reading a politically correct version of Cinderella, it removes the simple educational values that the original portrays. For being a politically correct story it portrays humans is nothing but animals unable to control their actions. We will address couple of stereotypes that this story reinforces.…