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Author
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Comment
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cpe
Unregistered User
(11/29/02 10:06:58 am)
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The hunchback, being crippled, redemption, not monsters
Hello everyone: I hope your work is going well for you today…
I am writing on crippledness for men and women at the VA (Veteran's Hospitals) an anthology. So far, I write about Haephestus, the lamed God (whose father threw him off Olympus presumably for taking his mother's side in an argument between herself and the philandering Zeus), and The Hunchback of Victor Hugo's novel. Too, I have writ about the protagonist in Mannon of the Spring, who is also a hunchback, the Tiny Tim of Dicken's work and an east Indian Hindu story one of my teachers told me about the wounded Brahmin.
Do you know of any other persons/(or animals who have deeply human characteristics) in film, myth, tales who are hunchbacked and/ or crippled, (there is the famous image of the she-lion with arrows in her flank which have paralyzed her haunches). The hunchback incidentally, at least in the old countryside where my family is from, is often associated with tailors and seamstresses--can there really be that many s's in that last word?)? But not a monster, you know, in other words, a 'ser humano,' a real human being.
I am interested in those who have been physically crippled (If' we're going to do mentally crippled, we will be here all century long--grin) and may or may not be redemptive. "Not redemptive" sort of/kind of, might be Phantom of the Opera, Man in The Iron Mask, and so on? Redemptive to me means to take back or free something from wrongful captivity, something of value in some small or large way. But, it can mean however you might see it too.
I was just thinking about Disney, having been an advisor to them on an ethnic theme park (don’t' do this, Don’t do that, I semi-screeched to the nice startled executives; they really were intelligent people who listened), having known some of the, now late, animators who were FABULOUS artists for Disney in the 1940s, 50s. ALL of us at Surlalune have seen DRAMATIC changes at Disney over the years. We all know they now call Walt, “turning-over” or “spinning Walt”)
SO, I was wondering too how you all related to The Hunchback of Notre Dame a la Disney treatment. I did not see this Disney film yet. (A leeeetle behind). But I did see the trailers and was wondering if any of the horrification and smell of humus was still able to cling to what now looks like a kind of cute hunchback character who hops around and sings and dances (do I have that right?)
I don't fear the loss of horror in the world if some people occasionally insist on 'cleaning up' the tragic, horrific images and ideas in tales--there has always been plenty of “real time, real world” horror to go around, (but contained in tales, they DO have a immense value to display certain ideas with perspective that often is impossible in the larger rush of horror in the outer world, and I loathe to see subversiveness subverted--if I could put it that way---grin) --but in the case of Victor Hugo's work, Disney's Hunchback seemed a good deal like painting a neon Pokemon over the dark “La Guerre” by Picasso.
Just my two cent's worth,
con cariño,
cpe
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Helen
Registered User
(11/29/02 12:07:21 pm)
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Connection between infirmity and labor ...
Dear cpe:
This project sounds fascinating ... have you thought of using the tale of "The Three Spinners?"
It's one of the Grimms stories, somewhat similar to "Rumpelstiltskin.," with some key differences. As in "Rumplestiltskin," a rather unindustrious young woman is forced to deal with the consequences of her mother's overcompensation for her lack of work ethic when the resident royalty decide that her vaunted talents must be put to use; as in "Rumpelstiltskin," her reward is to be the hand of the heir, and her reaction is one of unmitigated horror at the magnitude of the task that she is faced with, and her inadequacy in the face of it. Here, however, rather than being rescued by a single male "helper" (which, as Jack Zipes has pointed out, is a terrific misnomer, as he really is more of a nemisis than he is an assistant), the heroine is aided by three women, one with "a broad flat foot," one with "a lower lip [so large that it] hung down over her chin," and one who "had an immense thumb," who ask only that she invite them to her wedding in return. They spin three rooms worth of flax into the finest thread that the kingdom has ever seen, and the date for the wedding is set. This young woman, unlike her counterpart from "Rumpelstiltskin," happily fulfills her end of the bargain, considering the "stigma" of claiming these odd women as relations only a fair price for the boon that they have done her. They tell her that her actions in this matter will determine her future. In fact, the three assist her once again at the wedding, for upon being introduced to his bride's "cousins," the prince inquires as the the source of their infirmity, to be told that their conditions stem from the various tasks of weaving, upon which he promptly expresses the desire that his wife never go near a spindle again.
The tale has a number of interesting reprecussions, starting with the fact that the main figure of power in the tale who sets the girl to weaving is the queen, who doesn't want to profit by the encounter, unlike the king in "Rumplestiltskin." Rather, she simply admires what she perceives as industriousness. The three women help the girl, apparently, out of the kindness of their hearts (and perhaps a bit of tricksterishness). They test her system of values - will she place honesty over pride? She does, though her groom is somewhat more superficial; though he marries her for her skill, he sacrifices it for the pleasure that she will give to hem, implying that she is no longer an independent figure supporting herself, but that her new "job" is solely to please him. The spinners power stems from their command of their craft, as does their weakness (as they do, still, wish to be accepted and acknowledged). The story seems to imply that either one can be independent, and thus accept the consequences of ones' work (physical hardship, societal disapproval), or one can be dependent and carefree. Personally, I'd choose the former ... but, then again, I'm a grad. student courting carpal tunnel syndrome. Sorry if this seems a bit scattered...
Best,
Helen
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jessica
Unregistered User
(11/29/02 6:44:07 pm)
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A Figure of Myth...
Kokopelli is the first (and only, right now) who springs to mind. I don't know too much about him, though I've (like most of the south western world) seen little kokopelli motifs at art festivals.
From Encyclopedia Mythica:
Kokopelli, the hump-back flute player, is a symbol seen all over the southwest. Evidence from canyon walls and ancient pottery indicate that he was a popular symbol to many Indian tribes. To the Hopi, Kokopelli actually represents one who brings the burden of babies and also one who carries sacks of buckskins for the women to make moccasins. In the springtime he is part of ceremonies depicting certain mating rituals. In Zuni culture, Kokopelli is known to be an important rain priest who brings in the rain. Known as Ololowishkya, he is shown with a festive hairstyle, displaying a large phallus and is always seen with flute playing Paiyatamu as part of corn grinding ceremonies. In the Winnebago version of Kokopelli, he has a penis which he could detach and send down the river to "have his way" with the young maidens bathing in the stream.
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cpe
Unregistered User
(11/29/02 10:18:34 pm)
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your good images
Dear Jessica and Helen
those were great images. Thank you for saying them.
Jessica, that was a good call; out here Kokopelli is thought to carry 'seed' in his hump, and is said to fertilize the new mothers every spring....that's how it was put by Hopi friends a jilion years ago, okay, not really a jillion, only let's see about 45 years ago when we used to go to the snake dances up on the mesa.
And Helen, that was a good call also. It is a REALLY long story in our family called Las Tres Osas, The Three Bears about three women weavers with special [hysical characteristics whom the groom-to-be finds repulsive. There is our family version of it in this book I have at publishers as we speak. You did a good job telling the story a la Grimms. Did you tell us you are studying formally?
I thought of another figure for this motif; it is the crippled white snake (Ea. Eu as I heard it) who cannot wriggle any longer and must be carried about if it is to survive the great raptors, and not one will pick the snake up, but then a hunchabck takes it up on his back and says even though the snake may bite, the hump on his back 'cannot feel' and it will be alright.
And another is a really truly horrible one and I do not know if it is African or Indian in its modern dress anyway, but it was given by a Hindu friend, of the wounded elephant who survives having its tusks cut off by ivory hunters, and has open wounds and can no longer defend itself and is in need of a human protector who will have mercy on it. No one except the hunchback knows to have mercy.
Too, in Women Who Run... there is a story about Philoctates who is lamed in the foot and the wound is so great and so infected, it stinketh for miles around and no one will come near him except the most compassionate soul... (It reminds me of the motif in Lazarus story)
and there is also am Egyptian story about the camel's hump one of which was cut off to feed a starving family. Somehow the camel survives and now is asked to sacrifice its last hump in order to feed the same famly and the conundrum goes on from there...
con cariño,
cpe
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(11/30/02 3:41:38 am)
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Three more
Two other humpback stories: a Japanese/Irish one about a man with a wen (in the Japanese) and a hump (the Irish) who overhears the fairies singing the days of the week. "Monday. ..Tuesday. . .Wednesday . . ." and then they get stuck. So he offers them the rest of the days, and they reward him by taking away his wen/hump. His neighbor--a voracious, greedy type--asks about what happened and then decides to get the fairies to give him a fortune. He interrupts them, requests as a reward some gold, and they give him the wen/hump.
Of course, that posits the wen/hump as something disgusting and a reward for bad behaviour.
There is also an Italian/Euoropean/Indian tale about murder and sly manipulation called "The Three Humpbacks."
I have a story in my book DREAM WEAVER, an art fairy tale, called "Princess Heart of Stone" in which the beautiful young woodcutter saves the princess by taking her the stone from her heart and carrying it on his heretofore beautiful and strong back. He and the princess are married and when he is king, it is said he carries his heart in his hump so that all the people in the kingdom might touch it.
Jane
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bielie
Unregistered User
(11/30/02 3:56:12 am)
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Deformity and alienaton
I am intrigued by facial deformity and the resulting alienation from society. I knew a lady who had cancer of her maxillary sinus, and the plastic surgery that was done after excision of the tumor failed. She ended up without the right side of her face: A big empty cavity where the eye and the sinus were, and her tongue and floor of mouth exposed to the outside.
There was a movie by Mel Gibson, "The Man without a face," that deals with this topic. the protagonists are a man who lost his face in a fire, and an alienated boy.
"Cyrano de Bergerac" also springs to mind, and of course CS Lewis's brilliant "Till we have faces" the story of the ugly sister of the beautiful Psyche.
You mentioned Jean de Floret, the hunchback of the prequel to Manon of the Spring. His role was played, if I remember correctly, by Gerard Depardieu, who also played the role of Cyrano in a recent movie version.
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Helen
Registered User
(11/30/02 8:37:03 am)
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Greek sources ...
Oedipus! (Which will never take off as the next "eureka," but, still ...) Crippled by his parents in order to negate the threat that they feel he poses, his character - even his name, as "Oedipus" translates roughly as "Swollen-Foot" - develops as the result of his circumstances; his aggression and hostility stem from his overcompensation for his condition (or so I remember ... though I can't name the source. Pindar? I'll look it up...). It's his aggression that sends him off to the Delphic Oracle (after a friend taunts him for his difference from his mild-mannered father), and it's his aggression that prompts him to react in such an exaggerated fashion on the road to Thebes. It's an unfortunate cycle, which Laius and Jocasta set in motion by literally attempting to hamstring him. It's also a theme popular in Greek myth ... the consequences of ones actions (Philoctates et al.). Hmm, there's a paper somewhere in there ...
Thanks, cpe! I'm currently enrolled in Columbia's doctoral program
in English and Comparative Literature, focusing on fairy tales,
folklore, and the fantastic. I love being able to say that, both
because of the content and because I'm just an alliterative kinda
gal...
Best,
Helen
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bathilda
Unregistered User
(11/30/02 7:00:45 pm)
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hunchback, redemption
Hans Christian Anderson's tin soldier with one leg might be included on the list.
In "Maiden With No Hands," a demon or evil magic user insists that her father cut off her hands. She has silver hands for awhile before they are magically replaced.
Odin sacrifices one of his eyes for wisdom.
I can't remember the name of the tale about the woman traveling with her baby to find her husband. She builds a ladder of chicken bones to reach his window. When she runs out,she cuts off her littlest finger to complete it.
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swood
Unregistered User
(12/2/02 8:35:12 am)
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The Secret Garden
Cpe,
Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden features a interesting relationship with physical deformity.
Mary's guardian is a hunchback, who has eschewed a relationship with his son Colin because Colin reminds him of his departed wife.
Colin lives his entire life as an invalid because the doctors fear he will also become a hunchback. As a result, he is so weak he cannot even walk.
Mary is an orphan who grew up in India, and needs the influence of the English countryside and the working class to heal. She in turn helps Colin, and they are both able to reach their guardian.
Lucy Simon wrote a beautiful musical adaptation of the novel, which highlights the relationships between the characters and includes (among other things not in the book) the spirits of loved ones that guide the living towards whole lifes.
Sarah
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(12/2/02 11:27:13 am)
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crippled heroes, etc.
Two heroes in recent *written* science fiction spring immediately to mind -- Miles Vorkosigan, the crippled hero of Bujold's very popular series, and the other the protagonist of Richard Paul Russo's SHIP OF FOOLS (this year's Philip K. Dick Award winner).
I don't know if the tragically flawed Marvel superheroes would qualify here -- like the Hulk and X-Men -- where their super powers are often the result of a terrible accident, e.g., radiation exposure of one kind or another, that damage or cripple them as human beings.
The long or detachable trickster penis is a widespread NAm motif. In one Plateau version, Coyote sees beautiful girls on the far side of the Columbia and wants to copulate with them. He meets an old man with a penis so long it wraps many times around his waist. Coyote asks the old man if he can borrow it. The old man initially says no, it will get damaged, I don't trust you with it, but Coyote promises and promises... (the original Chinookan uses augmentative (old man's penis) and diminutive (Coyote's) suffixes). Coyote puts on the long penis and sends it swimming across the river to the beautiful girls, who see it coming and, as I seem to remember, pound it with rocks. What I don't remember is how this is all involved with the origin of salmon runs...
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(12/2/02 12:25:42 pm)
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Differ
Sarah--I beg to differ with you on the Secret Garden Broadway show. Bruce Coville and I went to see it and we were both mammothly disappointed.
I am a great fan of Mandy Patenkin and a great fan of The Secret Garden book. But for me, it is the story of a child who has always been alone.
In India her mother and father basically ignored her, leaving her to servants who take care of her but ignore her. When her parents die, they desert her. In the great house on the moors, she is ignored as well, until first Dickon's sister, than Dickon and Colinturn to her and she accepts their friendship, blossoming as the garden does, with her new friends.
In the stage production that child is NEVER alone, but beset by one ghost or another singing at her, with her, yammering away.
Jane
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(12/2/02 2:05:31 pm)
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Re: Differ
I'd forgotten about Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan when this topic started, but he is a fascinating character. The character is also threatened with extermination even before his birth since his father's culture believes that any mutant or deformed child should be euthanized. His parents are wiser than this although they have to get a bodyguard for their newborn to keep Miles from being killed by his grandfather. Bujold uses primarily Russian and Japanese cultures--including folklore--to enrich her worlds. Miles' disabilities keep him from growing to full adult height and keep his bones brittle until they are gradually replaced with synthetics (this is science fiction, after all). He is also slightly hunched and fights for every centimeter of height he can get. He is also a genius and an adrenaline junky which makes him fun to read.
Yes, I am a fan, especially of some of the later books in the series. I especially like Memory, Komarr, and A Civil Campaign.
Heidi
Edited by: Heidi Anne Heiner at: 12/2/02 2:07:59 pm
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Nalo
Registered User
(12/2/02 2:56:45 pm)
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Re: Differ
There's a Caribbean version of the "Diamonds and Toads" tale, in which a "good" sister and her "bad" stepsister meet a crab-backed woman bathing down by the river. The woman's back is deformed with lumps and deep grooves that make it resemble a crab's back. The challenge for the sisters is to do as the old woman requests, and scratch her ugly back. I believe that the old woman goes through some transformation when the "good" sister complies, so this story may not work for your purposes.
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(12/3/02 4:27:07 am)
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Older tale
Nalo--my guess is that is a story brought over from Africa and cleaned up a bit. There's one (I forget right now from which African nation) in which an ugly old woman with running sores requests the girls lick her sores. Only the good girl complies. And of course is rewarded for it.
Jane
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summersinger
Registered User
(12/5/02 5:55:30 pm)
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Irish story
I have a 1948 picture book ("Let's Pretend" by Nila Mack) that tells an Irish story on the subject. A wise Irish woman has a son, Paudeen, who has a crooked back. One night she hears the sound of a leprechaun making shoes for the fairies, and she tells her son to go catch the leprechaun. Once he has done so, she says, he can make the leprechaun straighten his back.
Paudeen does catch the leprechaun, who grudginly agrees to grant one wish. When Paudeen demands a straight back, the leprechaun warns him that he may end up regretting this. Paudeen insists, and his wish is granted. He goes straight to the house of the prettiest girl in the village and asks her to marry him. Eileen doesn't recognize him, and angrilly says she won't because she's in love with Paudeen.
Amazed, Paudeen runs back to the leprechaun, catches him again, and gets his back bent again. He then returns to Eileen to declare his love, and they live happily ever after.
I have no idea how traditional it actually is, but I always liked it.
-Julia
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