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Author
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Comment
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Slyguard
Unregistered User
(9/18/02 11:20:13 am)
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Rumplestiltskin and Devils Advocate
I see a few parallels, does anyone else see this?
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pinkolaests
Unregistered User
(9/22/02 1:55:14 pm)
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do you mean....???
do you mean old little rumpel as the devil's advocate?
allbest
cpe
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Kate
Unregistered User
(9/22/02 7:01:51 pm)
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Zipes
I meant to offer this earlier, sorry. In the excellent book Myth as Fairy Tale, Fairy Tale as Myth, Jack Zipes has a very good chapter on Rumpelstiltskin. Of course this doesn't quite answer your question but I highly recommend it, and his interpretation of the significance of different versions of the "disturbing tale" (as I feel he rightly calls it) may be quite useful to you.
I'm not sure which version you are using, but in one that JZ cites (the 1810 "Rumpenstunzchen" version), when the princess guesses R's name, "he became horrified and said, 'The devil must have told you,' and he flew out of the window on the cooking ladle." When the Grimms revise it, Rumpelstiltskin instead tears himself in two in the end. Devil's advocate, or devil . . . ? On the board, in another discussion on this tale (I think you can search), Jane Yolen interprets the tale as anti-semitic. (Jane, I think you wrote an essay on this? I apologize for not having the cite.) I have seen similar interpretations elsewhere, too, that are very persuasive.
Good luck!
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Helen
Registered User
(9/22/02 8:12:41 pm)
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The movie?
Okay, this could just be my flypaper brain hard at work, but are you referring to the general *concept* of the devil's advocate, or are you referring to the movie?
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(9/22/02 8:59:23 pm)
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essay
I did write an essay on Rumple being an anti-semitic story. (Though in the English Tom Tit Tot the named character is a "black imp" and is often pictured with very African features.) It is NOT a pleasant story at all, but about the fear of the "other, the outsider, who must be considered the very devil and vanquished.
Jane
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Jess
Unregistered User
(9/23/02 6:21:29 am)
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Devil's Advocate
In the traditional sense, the Devil's advocate was the person who argued for the Devil against the cannonization of a saint. From that standpoint, you would have to look at Rumplestiltskin as bringing out the "sin" in the Queen (miller's daughter). Surely, she is the most blameless person in a story full of evil and selfish people. We have no evidence, however, as to Rumple's true motive in taking the child, or indeed if he intended to keep it before she broke her promise. Punishment for a lie? Was she granted "forgiveness" and hence learned his name?
Jess
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Kate
Unregistered User
(9/23/02 8:01:27 am)
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Movie
Helen,
I must have my head in the sand. I didn't even know there was a movie called Devil's Advocate.
(I think we have lost the originator of this question, anyway? Maybe I'm wrong on that!)
Kate
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Helen
Registered User
(9/23/02 9:33:29 am)
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Duuuude ...
Yep, starring Al Pacino as Old Smokey, now head of a large corporate law firm in NY, and Keaunu Reaves as his new recruit and sacrificial lamb. It was the capitalization in the subject line that made me think of it ... there are *some* parallels between the folktale and the movie, as the putative heroine (Reaves's wife, played by Charlize Theron) is terrified of Pacino claiming her baby, and spends a good deal of the movie trying to figure out just who he *really* is ... but the parallel doesn't completely work, as the movie focuses more on the Young Hero, and, in most versions of "Rumplestiltskin" that I've read, the king doesn't get much of a role relating to the title character ... the heroine is always the intermediary.
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jane yolen
Unregistered User
(9/23/02 10:16:04 am)
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another look
I have a different take on Rumple--after all he is the ONLY character who is completely clear about what he will/can do.
Miller and daughter connive in a lie.
King is only interested in the gold.
Who is the moral center, then? Rumple.
Chew on that a bit.
Jane
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