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Author
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Comment
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Rod
Registered User
(1/17/03 12:38:52 pm)
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Same story from perspective of different tellers
I was wondering if anyone knows of a fairytale(s) that are presented from the perspective of multiple storytellers. A friend was telling me about a recent movie whereby the same story was viewed through the eyes of a policeman, a bystander, etc. Obviously, each teller views and weighs the information differently and thereby puts a different spin on the same story. This process also occurs in the bible from the perspective of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Are there also good examples of this varied storytelling perspective in fairytales?
Thanks for all you help!
Rod
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(1/19/03 8:01:20 pm)
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different storytellers?
Rod,
Are you asking about folk narratives where a version has been collected from more than one storyteller? Or about a single story told RASHOMON-style?
On the subject of what different storytellers might bring to a particular story, you could look at "The 'wife' who 'goes out' like a man," in Dell Hymes, IN VAIN I TRIED TO TELL YOU. That text is from a traditional storyteller, an elderly Native American woman, who narrated the triumphant final episode of a war-and-revenge tale but told it from the point of view of the women in the household where the revenge is finally consummated and who are bereaved by it. In her hands, it's a tragedy that was enabled by choosing propriety over truth.
Some of Dell's more recent work might also be of interest. Look for his new collection coming out soon -- this year?
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Kevin
Smith
Registered User
(1/20/03 1:44:05 am)
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blah blah
The Grimms' "The Robber Bridegroom" and the first volume of the Arabian Nights spring to mind.
Very few european fairy tales have multiple viewpoints, at least in their collected forms. You have to remember that having multiple centres of consciousness is a literary technique, and was quite groundbreaking when used by Proust and Joyce at the beginning of the 20thC, although the ground had been paved by Shelley and Emily Bronte in the early nineteenth century (Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights especially). The technique *is* used earlier, but not to great effect (see Don Quixote for example). The fact that most European folk tales were collected in the early nineteenth century is probably one of the reasons for the absence of multiple viewpoints.
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Don
Registered User
(1/20/03 10:27:04 am)
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Multiple Perspectives
Multiple viewpoints in literature generally can found found as early as Romanticism--especially in Romanticism. Think of Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (with its narrator, the Wedding Guest, and the writer of the marginal commentary) or even "Kubla Khan" with its introduction; or Blake's "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience." In Germany there are important works such as Friedrich Schlegel's novel "Lucinde" or his "Dialogue on Poetry"; and W. H. Wackenroder's "The Emotional Outpourings of an Art-Loving Friar." Epistolary novels also come into play, of course; as do, at least in Germany, a genre called the Doppelroman," or the "double novel." These were novels that were composed by diverse authors.
More pertinent to the fairy tale itself is perhaps Novalis's novel "Heinrich von Ofterdingen," which is itself structured as a fairy-tale in which several different tellers tell fairy tales that in their own right reflect each other and the novel as a whole from different perspectives. Ludwig Tieck's "Blond Eckbert" also comes to mind, which has a frame story and a tale within a tale by one of the characters. Diverse perspectives also come into play in the tale cycles published by German Romantic writers (esp. Tieck and E. T. A. Hoffmann)--frame stories in which different characters tell different tales.
This isn't exactly what the initial question was getting at, I don't think, but it may be useful nonetheless in thinking about the topic.
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Helen
Registered User
(1/21/03 9:40:13 am)
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Re: Multiple Perspectives
Although I can't think of any "original" folk or fairy tales that utilize the technique of multiple perspectives, there are a number of modern retellings that do so. Many of them can be found in the Fairy Tale series edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling: personally, I would highly recommend "The Root of the Matter," by Greg Frost (_Snow White, Blood Red_), and "Rapunzel," by Anne Bishop (_Black Swan, White Raven_). Good luck!
Best,
Helen
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(1/21/03 9:47:11 am)
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Re: Multiple Perspectives
And there is also Donna Jo Napoli's "Zel," which features the perspective of all three main characters in Rapunzel.
Heidi
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Kevin
Smith
Registered User
(1/22/03 5:04:19 am)
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jumping on the bandwagon
Oh, if you want to get all modern about it, I suggest Robert Coover's _Briar Rose_ and Donald Barthelme's _Sleeping Beauty_.
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