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Laura
Registered User
(2/27/01 6:59:40 pm)
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offered to help professor, hope to find some here!
I'm in a psychology and literature course, and today my prof approached me with an interesting idea. Knowing my folklore interest, she asked me for suggestions of stories that deal primarily with "being frightened while entering a strange territory." I quickly guessed The Little Mermaid, but it isn't quite right once I thought it over, and now I've blanked out.
Now, to be clear, her paper deals with capuchin monkeys being moved from an indoor enclosure to an more natural one, and whether or not mothers with infants displayed differing amounts of fear of the "novel space." The fairy tale/folktale/what have you connection is to appear as a brief discussion at the start of her paper, partially to impress stuffy academics who don't read anything but psych journals. :-)
I'd like to give her several suggestions, having not read the paper, and of course I figured this would be the best place to turn! Her editor already vaguely recommended the Wizard of Oz, but not any specific part. Anything that particularly deals with feet staying on the ground would be perfect -- that's what prompted the Little Mermaid connection.
Thanks gang!!
Laura
| Midori
Unregistered User
(2/28/01 5:55:11 am)
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the veld
Laura,
The way I think about it is that most rites of passage narratives have a movement between two poles, the house of birth (which is human, familiar and recognizible) and the house of marriage (a place of reintegration as an adult--for males it is often a return to the house of birth, but as an initiated adult, and for females, it is the home of her husband,--but again both are usually human arenas and familiar). In between these two poles there is the journey across the world of the fantastic--the "veld" in South Africa, the forest in European tales, the desert in North African tales, and for the Little Mermaid, it would be the land above. The fantastic space is always a bit frightening because it is ambiguous...here the hero/heroine is tested, confronts the fantastic head on and so it is always a world filled with possibilities--destruction and creation together. It is how you negotiate the fantastic that determines your success. So in terms of the fairy/folk tale, the realm of the fantastic is always frigthening and requires vigiliance. Think about Baba Yaga--where the young man or sometimes the young woman has to trip very carefully around the ogress or else be eaten, the same for the young woman of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, who works as a scullery maid for the Troll Queen looking for a way to rescue the Prince. Hansel and Gretel wandering the night forest, and one of my favorites, Molly Whuppie who wanders the forest with her sisters, winds up in a Giant's house and has to go through the usual ritual of appearing polite and content and then engaging in trickery so as to survive not being eaten (usually by switching the necklaces of the Giants daughters--so that he eats his own kids and not Molly Whuppie and her sisters) For that matter, Jack and the Beanstalk has the same idea--a human in a giant's house trying to survive being eaten. In South African tales the Veld is truly a frightening place. There one is constantly confronted by monsters--the Zim, cannibals (who are noisy when they are sleeping and quiet when they are awake--something the hero needs to know when he reluctantly agrees to their hospitality) also a cannibal who is one legged (because he was born with sweet and sour sides--his parents ate the sweet side and now he consumes human beings in huge gulps desperately trying to achieve full humanity again). Europe also has those dangerous places to negotiate--fairy worlds where one must not speak, or eat the food, look over ones shoulder, or step off the path. All of those prohibitions heighten the sense of danger and fear of the place at the same time they suggest that the successful traveler can win big if they are careful, smart and pay attention.
| Midori
Unregistered User
(2/28/01 7:47:14 am)
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food chain
Laura,
I had a funny thought--you know I'm sure one of the biggest fears of Capuchin monkeys in the wild isn't finding dinner but being dinner-which has a rather nice analogus fear in those fee-fi-fo-fum narratives where the hero/heroines have to use their wits not to be dinner either. Also in the giant tales, the scale of everything is huge, which is itself frightening to the human beings--maybe to capuchins there is a corresponding anxiety about being small in big bad forest.
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Laura
Registered User
(2/28/01 9:50:48 am)
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brilliant!
As always, Midori, you're right on the money. I passed your ideas along to my professor, and I'll let you know what she says. Thank you so much for you generous thoughts.
Anyone else have any clever thoughts? This seems like an excellent anthology topic to me -- which means it's probably been done. :-)
Laura
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