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Comment
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SPW
Registered User
(1/27/02 6:49:54 pm)
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Rumpelstiltskin and capitalism
I teach a unit on fairy tales in a secondary setting. I am also working towards the completion of my masters thesis on the use of fairy tales in the secondary classroom.
We have recently been studying the tale of Rumpelstiltskin. I have discovered that many of my students sympathize with Rumpelstiltskin because of his "capitalist ideas" as they call it. We have compared Rumplestiltskin to the quick loan centers which will often appear in downtrodden communities. The one flaw they truly see is his boasting.
The school I teach in is in a relativly affluent neighborhood. I realize that this is a villian tale where each character seems to have some quality of disdain, but I was wondering if the fact that many students can identify with Rumplestiltskin has anything to do with their own community. Has the American dream gone too far? Or, is Rumpelstiltskin an appropriate image for American capitalism? Too Marxist?
Just curious if anyone has a thought on the subject or if anyone has had a similar experience teaching the tale.
SPW
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(1/28/02 7:28:36 am)
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My take
I wrote an entire essay on Rumplestiltskin, but as an anti-semitic story. No one else in the entire drama comes off as well as the little man with the big nose, unprounceable name, who money-changes.
Jane
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Lotti
Unregistered User
(1/28/02 11:29:05 am)
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Capitalist?
I'm a little confused - I don't get it somehow: In how far do you think Rumpelstilzchen is capitalistic? He is obviously able to produce great wealth if he so chooses, but lives in a little hut in the woods - being very self reliant, as he both bakes and brews etc. Also, he is looking for company - the child - rather than money or luxuries. The others in the tale, there is that element, yes, but R.?
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Gail
Unregistered User
(1/28/02 2:41:01 pm)
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Zipes' take on capitalistic tendancies
Jack Zipes talks about this in his 1994 collection FAiry Tales as Myth, Myth as Fairy Tale. There are some other discussions around this tale with cloth production by Jane Schnieder in her article "Rumpletstiltskin's Bargain: Folklore and the Merchant Capitalist Intensification of Linen Manufacture in Early Modern Europe." in Cloth And Human Experience edited by Annette Weiner and Jane Schnieder, Smithsonain, 1989.
Gail
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Kate
Unregistered User
(1/28/02 3:36:25 pm)
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Zipes
Gail,
I was signing on to post exactly that reference, from MYTH AS FAIRY TALE, which I read just last week! Thanks for putting it up here. I second it on this subject--lucid, enlightening. The chapter is fascinating, and I can't recommend it more. It discusses industrialism, specifically (machine innovations, and effects of them on language, sexual politics, etc.). He compares two versions of Rumpelstiltskin in there also to great effect, showing the influence of industrialization on evolution of the plot of the tale.
Kate
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