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Author
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Comment
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joslinva
Unregistered User
(12/13/04 10:37 am)
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Not Waiting
Is there such thing as "Not Waiting" in fairy tales? I'm interested in the passive v. active roles of female charachters within fairy tales and how childhood tales effect adulthood gender relations within quotidian existence.
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Erica Carlson
Registered User
(12/13/04 11:39 am)
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Re: Not Waiting
Is this a paper question or just an interest?
First of all, take a look at this excellent page that Heidi has put together:
FAQ: Women and Fairy Tales
Having wrestled with some similar ideas & concerns recently, I think it's important to mention that one person's idea of a passive character can be another person's idea of a resourceful heroine, so you'll want to be careful how you define passive.
Kay F. Stone is also someone you might be interested in reading. She has written about how there are several active and aggressive fairy tale heroines who only infrequently turn up in popularized anthologies ("Things Walt Disney Never Told Us." Women and Folklore. Ed. Claire R. Farrar. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975. 42-50). She also has a nice summary of feminist approaches to the study of fairy tales ( “Feminist Approaches to the Interpretation of Fairy Tales.” Fairy Tales and Society. ed. Ruth B. Bottigheimer. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. 229-236) and a very interesting article where she discusses how hearing two story-tellers changed her own perceptions on what is "heroic" in fairy tales (“And She Lived Happily Ever After?” Women and Language. 19:1, 14-21).
Best,
Erica
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janeyolen
Registered User
(12/14/04 6:14 am)
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Re: Not Waiting
You might also look at my chapter called "America's Cinderella" in the CINDERELLA CASEBOOK by Dundes (a shorter version is in my book of essays TOUCH MAGIC>)
Jane Yolen
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joslinvahotmailcom
Unregistered User
(12/15/04 2:18 pm)
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Re: Not Waiting
It is a question of interest related to my graduate thesis.
Thank you for your recommendations. I will definitly look into those books. I think you are right, in the role of passive versus active, or even it is a subtle subtext within the various contexts in which one may wait. I began with the idea of Faith Wilding's Woman House performance called " Waiting". And have been thinking of recontextualizing this in contemporary times. I then asked myself how is this related to the trend in female directed self-help book like The Rules and He's Just Not that into You, where the books inspire women to take more active roles in defining and prioritizing their wants and needs. Although, this may vary from culture to culture, I 've found the visual arts to be useful in expressing the universal theme of fairy tales through the use of symbolisim. :D
Best,
Joslin
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KathieRose
Unregistered User
(12/19/04 11:43 pm)
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Not Waiting
It's always struck me that in both the Hansel and Gretel tale and in The Snow Queen, it's the little girls who are active and rescue the trapped boys. (By the way, the Woman House poem, 'Waiting' electrified me when I first came upon it.)
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