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Author
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Comment
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arenshaw
Unregistered User
(1/30/06 4:17 pm)
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Ugly Duckling Across Cultures
I'm doing some research for a children's magazine about different versions of the Ugly Duckling story found in different cultures. I haven't been able to find anything on this topic on the Internet. Does anyone have suggestions for me? Thanks!
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princessterribel
Registered User
(1/31/06 9:59 am)
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hans christian andersen
I have not come accrosss a story like this, although I am sure they exist...if you wanted you could get hold of the old Hans Christian Andersen film/musical which features an idea of the conception of the ugly duckling story. For a poor little boy with no hair. From this I suppose you could look at American culture and interpretation.
A little far-fetched I know.
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Writerpatrick
Registered User
(1/31/06 5:02 pm)
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Re: Ugly Duckling Across Cultures
The Ugly Duckling story was created by Andersen as an original story and would reflect the Scandinavian culture he came from. What you're looking for are similar stories which involve an underdog becoming important and an ugly character becoming beautiful. Cinderella and Donkeyskin could fall into that category, although they don't quite capture the internal conflict of the characters. The ugly ducking believes itself ugly until it discovers it's a swan and not a duck.
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(1/31/06 6:19 pm)
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Re: misc
Personally, that's why the story bugs me a little. The Ugly Duckling doesn't stay looking the same way and is found beautiful for it; nor is then appreciated for some other, internal aspect of its character. Nope, it just grows up and becomes even more beautiful than its former tormentors, and can say the HCA version of "Nanny nanny boo boo" to them. Which is nice as an adolescent fantasy (someday I'll be a beautiful movie star and then you'll all be really sorry) but in my opinion, lacks something as a story.
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(1/31/06 9:49 pm)
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Re: misc
VS: Nope, it just grows up and becomes even more beautiful than its former tormentors, and can say the HCA version of "Nanny nanny boo boo" to them.
JB: Well, that's from the external perspective, and I wouldn't argue that it's wrong. But as a child I read it from the ugly duckling's own viewpoint, where the key is the shift in frame. E.g., I have frequently experienced the discomfort (ranging from an odd kind of embarrassment to open disparagement) some fellow academics (including folklorists!) feel with my other career as a fiction writer. Then I walk out of the academy and meet people who love to read fiction who are so respectful of the vocation! It can make me feel like a swan...
What the duckling discovers is a context where the disparaged attributes of the self become the very traits that are valuable. From the standpoint of story construction, the people for whom the duckling is valuable have to be at least equal in value to the disparagers or their opinion won't be able to counteract the force of the ducks' disparagement. If only equal, that leaves in balance the ways the ugly duckling would have of understanding self, as ugly and beautiful. All you have are competing frames for the interpretation of self. If the valuing people are BETTER than the disparagers, however, the good opinion of the former completely trumps that of the latter, making possible the complete shift of frame for the protagonist.
There is a P.D. (?) Eastman (of "Go Dog Go" fame) take on the story, the name of which escapes me despite having read the book to my son about a hundred times, about a pair of birds who come back to their nest one day to discover a really big egg placed there by a well-meaning boy. Out hatches an alligator (crocodile? I'm not sure the story specifies), which they dutifully take care of despite the immense amount of food it requires. One day the bird parents decide it's time for "junior" to fly and force him out of the nest... fortunately their nest is over the water and junior discovers where he really belongs. In the Eastman story no relative value is assigned to the two species, bird and alligator. The parents love and care for the baby alligator despite being puzzled by its odd attributes (and the alligator seems attached to its parents). The story problem is therefore only a problem of correct categorization and placement, and not of the value assigned to the categories.
I'm thinking out loud here, and what I'm wondering is if you can have an Ugly Duckling type story (about the value of the self), as opposed to an Eastman type story (about classification only), without tagging the people to whom the protagonist really belongs as superior in SOME way.
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(1/31/06 10:06 pm)
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hm...
Hm.... What if the Duckling had met the swans while he was still scrawny and awkward? If they were nice swans, they'd have recognized him and loved him without waiting for him to grow up. As a supposed duckling, he was abnormal, freaky. As a swan-baby, he would still be awkward and scrawny compared to the adults -- but normal as a baby and loved.
What if the ducks had met an adult swan? If the ducks weren't familiar with swans, the adult swan might have been considered a freak, too -- especially if he didn't know any other swans either and didn't feel superior to the ducks. A lone swan, however beautiful by our standards, might have accepted the same inferior status that the 'ugly duckling' did.
Perhaps there are several standards of beauty here. An adult swan, to other swans, might simply look normal
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(2/1/06 8:09 am)
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Re: misc
The Eastman title is "Flap Your Wings," which is what the bird parents exhort their alligator baby to do... which of course he can't, and he plummets helplessly downward.
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(2/1/06 8:32 am)
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Re: misc
This reminds me of Patricia Polacco's "Just Plain Fancy". Naomi, and Amish girl, yearns for something fancy for a change. One day, she and her sister discover a strange egg by the side of the road and place it with their hens to hatch. Out comes an unusual bird that they hide from their elders. During a working bee, the bird breaks out of the henhouse and spreads its wings: it's a peacock. But instead of being shunned by the elders, as Naomi feared, she is told that being born fancy is part of God's handiwork, and should be admired for what it is.
Best,
Alice
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(2/2/06 11:33 pm)
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value
[[ what I'm wondering is if you can have an Ugly Duckling type story (about the value of the self), as opposed to an Eastman type story (about classification only), without tagging the people to whom the protagonist really belongs as superior in SOME way. ]]
Well, the ducks were shown being cruel and the swans were shown being kind and friendly, and in old tales moral ugliness is often shown as physical ugliness, and moral beauty as physical beauty.
Of course it's not certain that those swans would have accepted a scrawny awkward scruffy young swan -- so having the 'duckling' grow up in the meantime did sort of muddy the waters there. *grin*
But really, it's such a beautiful story, and his own growing into beauty (without knowing it!) is part of what Tolkien called the 'eucastrophe'.... And somehow I feel there's more to it: perhaps that getting out of abuse and healing in solitude, revealed his true nature. Perhaps part of his ugliness was an effect of the abuse.
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Elizabeth Leigh
Registered User
(3/2/06 8:57 pm)
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Re: Ugly Duckling Across Cultures
If it interests you, the Ugly Duckling motif has certainly been used and cashed in on by the movie industry. From everything from My Fair Lady to The Princess Diaries, modern society seems to appreciate the idea of an ugly duckling being remade into a lovely swan. The catch is ... whose idea of ugly, and whose idea of a swan?
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