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TALE: The Little Mermaid (Hans Christian Andersen)

Sarah Rauers

            I chose this tale because I think most people have forgotten (or never knew) the way this story actually ended.  I had a volume of Andersen stories as a child, and I grew up reading this version of “The Little Mermaid” – the Disney adaptation never seemed like the same story to me.

            I would bring a feminist critical approach to this story.  The way I interpret this story now (and, in a more basic way, the way I interpreted it as a child) was that the blind devotion and reliance of a woman on a man would be fatal.  The subject of the story is the youngest sister, perpetuating the idea that women are really just glorified children – that is, they’ve never been allowed to attain full adulthood.  The archetypical characterization of the witch is predictable – the only woman with power in the story is grotesque and evil.  To ascend to the “real” world, the mermaid must have her tongue cut out, which is a literal representation of the limitations of women’s voices.  Finally, we realize that by devoting herself so wholly to a man she didn’t really know – obviously, she didn’t know him well enough to realize that he’d be too dense to know that she was the woman who saved his life – she forfeits her life and family.   Additionally, this story puts women in competition with each other at almost every turn – competition between the sisters (beauty and voice quality), the desire of the sea witch to have the little mermaid’s voice, and the obvious competition between the mermaid and the bride, which is not an overt plot device but rather an implied tension.

Follow-up Responses:

Alex Atkinson
Reader Response/ Biographical criticism 

Hans Christian Anderson was not an ordinary boy. He was “different”, and being different is a recurring theme in his work. In “The Little Mermaid” the youngest daughter discovers that she wants to be a part of a world that is not her own. She wants to live on land. She wants to see the sky. And she falls in love with a fellow who, if he saw her in her true form, would probably flee in fear at the mere sight of her. It seems to me like this story might be very closely related to Anderson’s own situation, his own love life. Anderson is described as being either asexual, or bisexual; and critics have speculated that Anderson wrote “The Little Mermaid” in response to his unrequited love for a young man named Edvard Collin. Looking at it from that context, the story ceases to be about how “the blind devotion and reliance of a woman on a man would be fatal”; and it becomes one about the sacrifice of individuality in order to fit in with “normal” people. This is a theme that any lonely child should be able to identify with immediately, when they think about all of the little things they’d have to give up in order to fit in with their peers. In the end these sacrifices cause the little mermaid pain, but are not enough to buy her a place by the prince’s side. This does not kill her, however, and she once again becomes a mythic creature of grace and beauty (this time one that can eventually attain an immortal soul, a daughter of the air). So the story leaves us with a question: is it better to fit in, accepting the sacrifices to your personality as a matter of course? Or is it better to be what you are, however outcast that might cause you to be?

Sarah Jakway 
Christian and other 

    There are so many interesting points in the story that it would be hard to choose just one.As I read through the story I find the language, particular descriptions, to be interesting. The imagery when the author talks about the blue sand, the red flowers, the white marble, the purple shadow, etc. At a second glance I wonder if the colors are symbols for that particular object. What do the red flowers around the statue mean? Is it a symbol for blood? The statue being white, does it represent innocence? What do green and blue represent? Do all the colors have a hidden symbolism or meaning? Red, blue, white, green, and yellow seem to be talked about a lot in describing things. I just wonder if there is a hidden meaning or is it just there. Why those colors? Do they mean the same thing under the water as they do on land? Maybe I'm just crazy, but it's definitely something to think about.
Sorry, I just thought that you could also look at The Little Mermaid through a Christian perspective as well. When the grandmother talks to the youngest daughter about how she can't earn a soul, and her speech about a man loving her more than his mother and father could be seen as a parallel to the sacrifice of Jesus' love for mankind so much so that he sacrifices the connection with his father in order to save mankind because of his infinite love for them._________________________________

Little Red Riding Hood

ANNOTATIONS

When Little Red Had Street Cred
. . . Modern fairy tales with strong heroines have abounded since the 1970s, when second-wave feminists such as Simone de Beauvoir, Andrea Dworkin and Susan Brownmiller pointed out how the classic fairy tales of Perrault and the brothers Grimm showcase passive, helpless, beauty-queen femininity. Such tales, they argued, made little girls long to become “glamorous victims.”  Since then, men and women alike have rewritten many of the classic tales to reflect more modern ideas about women. But few outside the field of folklore know that some of our most popular stories have oral roots that are strikingly different from the literary tradition and feature heroines who are far from passive. Little Red Riding Hood is such a case.

Folklorists trace the origins of tales the same way paleontologists study the origins of species: by collecting, dating and comparing samples, noting common traits that suggest common ancestry, and attempting to construct a lineage. In the mid-20th century, scholars and collectors found a substantial body of stories from France . All were remarkably similar in plot and many shared an abundance of details, including cannibalism, defecation, a striptease, and a bedroom encounter with a beast.  They lacked, however, the usual fairy tale moral scolding the heroine. And most of them shared one more remarkable element: a clever heroine who escapes by her own wits. One memorable version of the story genre ends like this: Lying in bed with the villain — this time, a bzou, or werewolf — the heroine pretends she has to relieve herself. The bzou tells her to do it in the bed, but she refuses —“Oh no, that will smell bad!” she says in another variation —so the bzou ties a cord around the heroine’s ankle and lets her out on the leash, tugging periodically to ensure she does not get away.

Once outside, however, the girl unknots the cord and ties it around a tree. With the bzou in belated pursuit, she escapes. Folklorists are now reasonably certain that this is how Little Red Riding Hood’s adventure was told many years ago, around the fire or in the fields, long before she found her way to print.

What to make of this plot? Rather than the tales of female folly and punishment presented by Perrault and the brothers Grimm — and canonized by the popular psychologist Bruno Bettelheim as reflective of timeless, deeprooted truths — this story contains many of the same elements that distinguish folktales and myths about male heroes. Like most fairy tales, it follows a “rite of passage” structure, associated with coming of age (indeed, many fairy tales end in marriage, the symbolic recognition of adulthood). But rather than featuring a passive heroine who awaits rescue by a prince or woodcutter, this oral folktale features a heroine triumphant. It is not she but her adversary who is duped.

As is typical of tales about male heroes, the plot revolves around a test of self-reliance that some scholars call a “wisdom journey.” Perhaps it should not be surprising that we don’t often find such female characters in our classic literary fairy tales, which were penned by men in centuries when an unwed woman remained conceptually a child well into middle age.   But oral fairy tales were often told by women, to the repetitive rhythms of work, until spinning a yarn and telling a tale were one and the same. Spinning and sewing terms often appear in fairy tales — Rumplestiltskin spins straw into gold, Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger on a spindle, and in the oral ancestor of Red Riding Hood, the heroine meets her adversary at “the path of pins and needles.”

Such terms, symbolic of women’s work and skills, serve to remind us that these stories were once wives’ tales — that is, stories told by women — before that term came to mean a lie. Should it be surprising that a woman storyteller would cast her heroine as more clever than her adversary? Or represent female maturity in different terms from male authors of history? If these stories came only from one city or country, perhaps one would begin by searching for a particular explanation in that particular locale. But as it turns out, Red Riding Hood’s empowered sisters have been found all around the globe — not only in France but throughout Europe and in lands as far away as China — which ought to make us broadly question our so-called timeless and universal stories about women, and our very notion of a heroine.(from Dances With Wolves Social and Sexual Messages of Fairy Tales, Ms Magazine, Summer 2004)

Adaptations & Variations
In the 1984 movie The Company of Wolves, inspired by British novelist Angela Carter, the heroine claims a libido equal to that of her lascivious stalker and becomes a wolf herself. The 1996 movie Freeway cast Reese Witherspoon as a tough runaway in a red leather jacket who is more than a match for the serial killer she meets while hitching her way to grandma’s trailer park.  See also "Modern Interpretations of Little Red Riding Hood."___________________________________

TALE: Little Snow White (Brothers Grimm)

Meaghan Williams
Critical Approach: Feminist
 
This fairy tale is quite different than the Disney version that many of us have grown up listening to and watching. Grimm's "Snow White" is a morbid tale of cannibalism, attempted homicide, and feminine exploitation. The latter will be the focus of this critique. Snow White, a young lady acclaimed not for her intelligence or virtues, but rather only for her physical beauty, is repeatedly referred to by the magic mirror owned by her step mother as being more fair than her evil step mother. Even the dwarves that Snow White encounters exclaim over her beauty. It is interesting that while in the well-known Disney version of this tale, the wicked stepmother only offers Snow White a poison apple, the things she sells to Snow White in Grimm's tale are things that are meant to enhance beauty, thus proliferating the idea of vanity in females. First the step mother offers beautiful, multi-colored stay laces, then a poisonous comb for her hair, then, finally, the well-known poisonous apple. However, the wicked step-mother got her just desserts, and was forced at Snow White's wedding to dance about in hot iron shoes until she fell down dead. If there is a moral to take from this story, it is that women's vanity will always lead them to trouble. Snow White's vanity kept her from doing as she was told by the dwarves and staying in the house, speaking to no one, thus almost dying, and the Wicked step-mother's vanity, always wanting the mirror to tell her she was the most beautiful, lead to her eventual death.

LITTLE SNOW WHITE AND FEMINISM (Wendy Howard)

            As a folktale, Little Snow White easily lends itself to feminist criticism since archetypes are a concern in that field. Feminism studies the portrayal of women in literature and the mainstream ideology behind it. To critique this familiar tale, one must take an overview and then pinpoint issues in the story. Three practical messages are safety and strangers, love and marriage, and beauty and vanity. From the old woman in the forest, a child might learn to be wary of strangers or even those who seem safe.  From the rescuing prince, a young woman could discover that happiness depends on the love of a man, or that relationships should be saved until marriage. Finally, after Snow White’s release from the huntsman, acceptance by the dwarfs, and admiration by the prince, all due to her physical appearance, a girl might believe that beauty is the only important female attribute. However, the vanity and vengeance of the queen warn that a girl should not be aware of her dangerous beauty or use its power in any way. This message, to be beautiful but not use beauty, to be powerless, and to be an object of men’s admiration, is confining. Such ideology, hidden safely at home, fulfilled only by marriage, and bound by beautiful powerlessness, is the target of feminists. They wish to change this attitude, yet as an unconscious archetype, which part is irrelevant today?
Follow-up Responses:
Elizabeth Larrimore
Marxist/New Historicist Criticisms (Old Historicism, maybe? Some variant of historicism, definitely) 

The Grimm Brothers did not write Snow White; they edited the tale. Though editors do not create material, they certainly have the freedom to omit and emphasize that which already exists. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm edited this tale in the great class divider known as the Industrial Revolution, and keeping that in mind while reading--well, I think the brothers took a few intentional liberties. The villain is a queen, and the text emphasizes the point that she has power. Also, this powerful monarch eats a heart she believes to be human. Therein lies a graphic testament to the ruling individual's level of evil. The "heroes" are ore miners. In the context of the industrial revolution, miners (coal, mostly) are the base of the economy. The leisurely rich of the early 19th century are surely comparable to the wicked queen. In a Marxist study of the Grimms' version of this tale, I would put the economic situation of each of  the characters under the microscope. I do believe the goodness associated with the working class would reflect the time in which this particular version of the story comes into existence.

Lorna Balser, Psychoanalytic Criticism

Possible Psychoanalytic Critiques for “Snow White”

            The Brothers Grimm version of the tale “Snow White” is indeed different than Walt Disney provided the youth of the twentieth century.  Feminism, although a fine method to critique folk tales, is not the only critique that works well.  Examine the psychoanalytic approach. Two opposing critiques are offered.  First look closely at the Kings new wife.  What is happening in her unconscious that drives her behavior?  What has she repressed?  She projects all of her negativity onto sweet Snow White.  Second, perhaps the opposite is true.  The tale may be the display of a dream.  The new Queen may not be evil at all.  Snow White is in fact working out an Electra complex.  She has difficulty coping with her father’s new and loving relationship.   Desiring her father, Snow White uses projection to create an evil fantasy.  She dreams of ways in which her father might turn away from his new bride.  The mirror symbolizes this by portraying the Queen’s beauty first.  After a time the mirror favors Snow White.  Snow White’s overpowering beauty is desired to complete the fantasy provided by the Electra complex.  The seven dwarfs relationships with Snow White and the attention from the prince indicates acceptance.  The wedding shows the reader that Snow White wants to mature and move away from the Electra complex.  Furthermore the red-hot slippers which the Queen dances in until death are another symbol.  They represent the final removal of the new Queen desired by Snow White’s Electra complex.
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TALE: Pretty Headed Forehead (folk tale from the Sioux Nation)

Elements for criticism: Feminist (Robert Rockett)

Culturally, many Native American tribes used women as a domestic servant while the men would hunt and gather, this myth may have been a tool to teach that role and maintain it. The hard work the mother puts into creation of the tent, the bag and blankets adds to the subservient role placed on women in his tribe. Why didn’t Pretty-Feathered-Forehead prepare his blankets etc to woo his victim?  The next questionable part of the tale is the buffalo nation, the personification of his first wife as a buffalo may be a form of displacement of inherent aggressive control or hostility on the woman. The male character sees his wife-to-be as some sort of livestock to be conquered and controlled, perhaps resultant from his own inability to identify with women due to the long term forced separation from hunting expeditions.    When his son gets to the age of one, the husband prepares to leave to woo a second wife from the elk nation.  This saddens the first wife and the husband reassures her saying the new wife will, “do all the heavy work for you.”  A clear perpetuation of domestic control, the husband has dictated a servile role to a woman he has not even met.   Another point is how the second woman is also portrayed as an animal.  The symbol of a passive frightened elk helps to further subjugate the concept of a woman beneath the powerful aggressive hunter. 

Follow-up Responses:

Sarah Rauers
Marxist Criticism 

            To approach this story from the perspective of Marxist criticism, I would first recognize that each of the wives represent classes.  The Elk wife is presented as the one who “will do all the heavy work” – in other words, she comes from the working class.  The Buffalo wife is of the upper class.  The conflict between the Buffalo and Elk wives parallels traditional Marxist class conflict.  The first spark of conflict occurs when the Buffalo son runs across the white robe that the Elk wife has been working on; in this we can begin to see the idea that the production of the lower class generally goes unappreciated by the upper class.  The Elk wife’s scolding of the Buffalo boy is what ultimately sets off the conflict of the story; the Buffalo wife’s anger is representative of the idea that lower classes are not “supposed” to speak out against the upper classes.  Near the end of the story, the Elk wife succeeds in saving Pretty Feathered Forehead; the Buffalo get so angry that they try to kill them both.  This represents the inherent fear that the upper class has that the lower, working classes might revolt.  This fairy tale really supports the lower class, as it paints the Elk wife as being clever enough to outwit the Buffalo.  

Marxist and Psychoanalytic analysis
Rober Rockett

This tale raises some very interesting questions in the schools of Marxism and Psychoanalytic criticism.  What is the significance of the feathers on his forehead? Do they represent some inherent birthright like a monarchy or are they an extension of the penis?   Note how the boy had the respect of the whole tribe; did the feathers that grew from his face give him some sort of unspoken dominance, representative of most aristocracies?  The boy covers himself with the trappings of the buffalo nation and pulls one of its members out into his own family to live amongst his tribe.  Could this be a displacement of the inherent dominance the boy feels within his own tribe to be asserted elsewhere as a means of supporting a narcissistic nature?   Does this action indicate a sort of bourgeois class of the boy’s tribe presiding over the buffalo tribe? The feathered man has a son making his father proud, in this did he seek to reach the status of his father or best his father by having a son? The boy reaches the age of one and Pretty Feathered Forehead runs off to get another wife from the elk nation.  Why? What cultural issues can be drawn from his action? What do the Elk and Buffalo Nations represent in this story?  Are they metaphors for a culturally ingrained superiority? What does the dominance of the husband in both marriages suggest? Is it a form of castration anxiety that he asserts himself so directly? What do the tests of the buffalo tribe represent? What significance is the death of the husband and his resurrection? Does it show us that even though another tribe may rebel against his control that they are still powerless over his life or death?   What significance does the elk wife doing this resurrection have, does she show the acceptance of a passive servile woman in the story?
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TALE: The Princess and the Pea (Hans Christian Andersen) 

A Feminist Look at “The Princess and the Pea”  (Lorna Balser)  

            “The Princess and the Pea” is an excellent folk tale in which to apply Feminist Criticism.  Hans Christian Andersen pens this tale in the year 1835 which is well before the importance of women’s rights becomes a social issue.  This typical male centered tale of its time is an androtext.  This is true because the main character, the prince, is focused on satisfying his desires.   He desires a real princess which symbolizes the virgin bride.  His problem is that there are many imposters.  The princess appears disheveled and therefore gives the impression of a likely phony.  To help her son with his goal the queen devises a test.  This act of satisfying men’s desires is particularly fitting for the time period in which this tale is written.  The princess passes this trial and proves herself worthy of marriage.  Symbolizing the value placed on a woman’s virginity at the time of marriage during this moment in history, the testing object is place in a museum.  In this tale a man’s power is easily seen.  The young woman is indeed powerless.  She has no freedom to choose and her future is predestined.  These events are evidence that social construction is involved in masculinity and femininity.  This is especially accurate as this tale and others like it are read to young boys and girls to this day.    _____________________________________
TALE: THE SIX SWANS (Brothers Grimm)

Feminist Approach (Elizabeth Larrimore)

     The seventh sibling of the six swans is a sister. Reading the story with a feminist eye, I would focus my efforts on this young woman. Most especially, I would center my criticism on her silence and slightness, despite her being the central character of the story. The young princess is something of a silent figure all along, as she is overlooked by her wicked stepmother when the boys are turned to swans. Shortly thereafter, it is revealed to her that the only way they can be returned to their true form is if she does not make a sound for six years and sews shirts for them. Silent and sewing: isn’t that just the way a young lady should always be? Ultimately, her refusal to speak under grave circumstances pays off, and her brothers are saved and all is well and wonderful. I do believe this silence and the good things that result from it are meant to be a lesson to the young ladies.  
     However, perhaps it is also a bad thing; she is framed for murdering her children and cannot speak in her own defense. Certainly, I would further explore the pros and cons of the voluntary muteness. 

Follow-up Responses:

Wendy Howard
Deconstruction
                                                                   THE SIX SWANS AND DECONSTRUCTION

            Although The Six Swans has several textual contradictions, it is not easy to deconstruct. One must first read the tale, find its central message, and then discover marginal issues that imply the opposite, revealing a new understanding of the story. The themes of this tale could be good comportment, diligence, and loyalty. In other words, behaving in a certain manner has its rewards. The boys ran out like a gaggle of geese and became swans. The girl stayed indoors and remained human. The message requires a quiet, caring and maternal attitude from a woman, despite adversity. Yet several parts of the story do not ring true. How did the sister consent to marry the king if she could not communicate? She found a way. How did she bear three children without making a sound? She was strong. How did the sleeping wife know the wicked mother-in-law had taken the children? She was smart. Lastly, why where her brothers more important than her children? She chose to protect her brothers instead of herself. Why? She found a way to save her brothers, her children, and herself. Perhaps beginning as a wives’ tale, the message implies that women must use their heads to survive. Under scrutiny, the sister did not quite behave as was expected. She did not climb down from the tree; she took off most of her clothes; she did not speak when asked. To some, this story appears to say a woman should be quiet, diligent, and loyal. However, to a daughter at her mother’s knee, it means she has choices and, if she uses her brain, she can be anything she wants to be.  

Heather Benton
Marxist Criticism

Malaya Kight
Post-structuralism

	First let me start by saying this is my first time reading this fairytale.  If I understand correctly, the King married his daughter; reading the story
from a post-structuralist view, I would focus on this aspect of the story the most. What is the subconscious meaning of the King marrying his
daughter? Not to mention, having children with his child.  In addition, how is it possible for the two of them not to recognize each other? Is the story
subconsciously saying that little girls want to marry their fathers? Another aspect of the story I would focus on is the repetition of the number six.
Moreover, I would also focus on the silence of the girl. Is silence innocence? Lastly this is the first, if not only fairytale I have read that
the female saves the male. Are men subconsciously waiting on a beautiful, dedicated, silent woman to rescue them? After reading the fairytale, I had a
few questions other than the few asked previously which may also identify some fault-lines. For example, what happen to the King's first wife/ the
children's mother? What happen to the step-mother? Why swans?

Danielle Doiron
Deconstruction