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Author
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Comment
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Terri
Windling
Registered User
(8/28/04 9:00 am)
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The Culture War Over Fairy Tales
f.y.i.:
"The Culture War Over Fairy Tales," an article by Kathleen
Kisner, has recently been posted here: offenburger.com/guestpaper.asp?link=20040823
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janeyolen
Registered User
(8/30/04 5:57 am)
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Re: The Culture War Over Fairy Tales
I dunno, Terri--if she calls Robin\s DEERSKIN
"charming" I think she missed the point!
Jane
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Nalo
Registered User
(8/30/04 4:06 pm)
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Re: The Culture War Over Fairy Tales
*chuckle* too true.
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redtriskell
Registered User
(8/30/04 9:21 pm)
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I'm confused...
Is "The Little
Mermaid" really a "sweet" story? I am heartened
when people embrace and praise the fairy tale, but is this lady
still reading like she did at fourteen? I confess that "charming"
is definitely not the word I would use to describe "Deerskin."
I wonder if her glasses are rose colored.
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tlchang37
Registered User
(8/30/04 11:15 pm)
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re: I'm confused
I second (third?) the response to Deerskin.
I found the book mesmerizing - in a can't-take-your-eyes-off-that-car-wreck
kind of way. A couple of details about it have always puzzled me,
however. I suspect you wise people can explain. After all the glowing
stories of the "perfect and beautiful" king and queen
in the beginning of the story, how did the queen end up having so
much bizarre control? In having her portrait painted -which obsessed
the artist until he dies, (is that right? It's been awhile since
I read it) and the power the portrait itself seemed to have, and
in having the king make the vow to only marry someone equal to her
beauty - which seems to cause his insanity and incestuous behavior.
Maybe there is more 'back story' in other versions that make this
clearer - but I never did understand the motivation (and power)
in the adult parent's behavior in this book.
Tara
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Rosemary
Lake
Registered User
(8/31/04 3:22 am)
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queen's motive
Tara,
I haven't read Deerskin,
but the same question applies to "The
She-Bear." I see a traditional motif there, and some coincidence.
I can't recall where I saw a motif described, that occurs iirc in Tom Thumb, the Snow Maiden, and some quite diverse tales, that when a childless person wishes too insistantly for a child, she gets one, but something goes wrong.
The coincidence would be, that the queen's illness affected her emotions and judgement, leading her in delirium to ask the king to promise to marry only someone equally beautiful -- and the king's grief affected his so much that he agreed and kept the promise. The search, comparing every woman to his dead wife, would keep reopening the wound.
As to the perfection, that might also be a cause for greed and grasping: "My life is 99% perfect, why can't I have a child to make it 100%?" Hubris, not being content with the garden of Eden as it was....
Rosemary
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Erica
Carlson
Registered User
(9/9/04 6:46 pm)
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Re: queen's motive
If I remember correctly, the portrait-painter in Deerskin
doesn't die, but after he leaves the palace he will no longer paint
portraits.
Here's my quick and dirty notion of the queen in Deerskin:
I think that the Queen is obsessively attached to herself as she appears in those glowing stories about her. She gets a lot of satisfaction and power from being so admired and loved and famously beautiful. There are hints in the book that she refuses to live because her illness may have diminished her beauty even slightly. Her desire to make sure no one forgets or eclipses her, to ensure that she isn't replaced of forgotten after her death, is so strong that she ruins lives through her dying request and through the (really disturbing) portrait. After her death, she is still very much a presence, and an openly malevolent one.
Hope that sort of makes sense,
Erica
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janeyolen
Registered User
(9/10/04 1:46 am)
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Re: queen's motive
Another way of looking at it is that the queen has been told so often that she is the most beautiful woman in the world, that it has become what defines her to herself. She only exists in the admiring eyes of others. So of course, when she is dying, she tells the husband she adores to only marry again if he can find someone like her.
Not evil, but as she was made.
Jane, who wrestled with this same problem in her short story, "Allelieurah."
(Or however that's spelled. It's early.)
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EdensEcho
Registered User
(9/19/04 12:10 pm)
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Re: queen's motive
I'm not sure why, but I have a pretty adverse reaction to that article.
Perhaps it is because she called Deerskin
"charming." Well-written and thought-provoking, yes. Disturbing?
To a degree. But not charming.
I also think it was her love for Perrault that turned me against her. :/ I absolutely loathe his treatment of fairy tales, and actually wrote a paper about it.
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redtriskell
Registered User
(9/24/04 2:33 am)
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why does a queen need a motive
I have to agree with Jane on this; I think the queen had the portrait
done for the same reasons regular people write a will. Her beauty
was her only currency- to her husband, the people, her child- so
she sought to distribute her wealth after her death. As physical
beauty is hardly something to be divided up and passed around, she
commissioned the portrait. That said, I think the king's grief was
indulged and he used it as an excuse not to remarry. And over time,
the deification of the dead set in. Everybody knows that flaws magically
disappear after someone dies. Of course, I also think the king must
have had certain predilictions before his wife died. Many men lose
their wives and don't rape thier daughters. I imagine that if Robin
McKinley had wanted to, she could have let us eavsedrop on the
king's habits- I imagine we would have heard a lot of disturbing
things about his majesty from some of the young chambermaids. Or
seamstresses. Or kitchen girls.
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Erica
Carlson
Registered User
(9/27/04 12:20 pm)
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Re: why does anyone need a motive?
I'm not sure I disagree with Jane on this. I do tend to think that people can be made evil (or at least malevolent and incredibly scary), though.
I'm now fascinated by the thought that one of Lissar's saving graces might be that she became tangled up in a more restoritive story than her mother's.
Erica
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redtriskell
Registered User
(9/30/04 12:53 am)
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Now I'm curious...
To Erica-
I am now curious as to what you meant by a more restorative story.
Please tell me what you mean... this book means the world to me,
and I'm very interested when people have something to say about
it. Besides, your phrase made a harp-hum in my head when I read
it. I would suggest you email me off the board, but I still haven't
figured out how to work the ezboard mailbox. How embarrassing...
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