Blog 5 Beauty and Psyche Vs. The Monsters

“Cupid and Psyche,” is a tale of a beautiful girl that falls in love with a man that hides his appearance from her until one day she sneaks up on him and reveals what he really looks like and she almost loses him forever. While reading this tale I found that there were a lot of similarities to the tale of, “Beauty and the Beast,” by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. To start, in both stories there is a family that has three daughters and the youngest of both families are the most beautiful girls you have ever seen. The youngest child in fairy tales are often the most spoiled and for these tales this is not any different. This is because both girls get the best husbands that would do anything for them and their houses are filled with riches. Both girls marry a monster of some sort and unbelievably they both fall in love with these so-called beasts. The stories teach the readers to love people on a higher and more personal level, then just looks. The two sisters of both Beauty and Psyche are filled with envy because both girls live in such wonderful places filled with gold and anything you could ever want. The jealous sisters of both girls try their hardest to ruin the marriages of their youngest sisters. For Beauty, they made her stay away from Beast too long and he becomes ill. For Psyche, the sisters entice her to see the true appearance of her husband and by sparking Psyche’s curiosity; they make her almost lose Cupid forever. Because of this envy the sisters learn their lessons. In “Beauty and the Beast”, the sisters turn into statues and in “Cupid and Psyche”, the sister fall to their death. At any rate this is a lesson for readers that they should never let jealousy run their lives. Throughout these two stories you see tons of similar motifs, with small changes to fit their tales.

Blog 4 Little Red Riding Hood (The Revenge)

Little Red Riding Hood gets her revenge on the wolf that ate her Grandmother, but she has a few tricks up her sleeves to get the job done. This cartoon is a comical version of the tale and shows an alternate ending of how the grandmother was saved and how the wolf was defeated. Instead of the wolf pretending to be someone he is not, Little Red walks into the bar like she owns the place, dressed up as a sheep. How can the wolves resist her tasty sheep self? In many of the versions of LRRH there are plenty of hidden sexual situations, but in this version of the tale you can see them clear as day. In this version Little Red is definitely not going to be the victim of seduction. Instead of Little Red depending on the Huntsman to get rid of the wolf and to protect her, she takes matters into her own hands. Just as the other versions show her growing and becoming more mature, this shows her at her full potential not having to rely on anyone. She shows her moves on the pole and points to the wolf that ate her Grandmother and gives him a killer lap dance (literally) that he will never forget. Once she has the wolf under her trance she rips off her costume and pulls out a knife. The wolf at this point is done for. Little Red opens up the wolf, rescues her grandmother and they walk into the sunset.

This version of the tale is made for an adult audience and gives the tale a funny twist that most people would not expect. I personally think that this version is a good change because the comic relief makes the tale that I knew as a little kid change into something funny I can laugh at and makes it a bit more entertaining because I have read the other versions so many times now.  

Blog 3 Fairy Tales and Psychology

 

When you first read a fairy tale you may think that it is just a simple story, but through a psychologist’s mind a tale can be interpreted in many different ways and help better understand the human mind. Through these interpretations there were many underlying messages found throughout many fairy tales. One of the most influential psychologists that have interpreted fairy tales is Sigmund Freud. Freud believed that when something bad happens to a person such as being hurt by their father when they are younger can make them fear men, so when they read a fairy tale these repressed memories that are stored in your subconscious can be revealed. Freud could have a person retell a fairy tale and the person may skip the part in the fairy tale where the character gets hurt by a father figure. They often use fairy tales in this method during psychotherapy to bring out such repressed memories. During Dr. Mazeroff’s lecture he talked about the parts of personality. These parts were also another theory of Freud’s and he uses them to help better understand fairy tales. The first part is the ID. This is where a person’s basic thoughts come out.  The second part is the ego, which helps you negotiate what is going on in the real world and the last part is the super ego. The super ego helps people determine if what they are about to do is right or wrong. Although Freud used these theories to better understand the mind and fairy tales it is really up to the reader to how they interpret them. To conclude I’ll leave you with a quote that Dr. Mazeroff told the class about, which is that “the best explanation for a fairy tale is a fairy tale”, so it is best to keep an open mind when reading them.     

Blog Entry 2 What is a Fairy tale??

What is a fairy tale?  Most of the time people think that fairy tales are just stories read to little children at night so they can fall asleep, but there is so much more to them than meets the eye. A fairy tale is a short story that originally started as a tale verbally told to listeners. Because these tales were verbal they gave the stories life and entertained everyone that heard them. Fairy tales do not have one specific origin because they were passed by word of mouth and people from every country were telling them. Over time they evolved into tales that children could read to give them a greater meaning of life and to learn lessons and to have solutions for different problems that can arise in life. Many people that analyze fairy tales see that when children read them they can better connect with the characters because they are free thinkers and open to more than adults. These tales are presented in terms that younger people can grasp, but every tale can mean something different for every person that reads it. Fairy tales are often compared to artwork because to the creator it can mean one thing, but to all of its viewers it can mean so many other things. A great aspect of fairy tales is that they are entertaining to all ages. They can spark the imagination of all and instill values into those that read them. Fairy tales do not show emotion, which is why everyone can take away something different from them. An example of this is when Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother got eaten, she had no emotion, but you as a reader can get many feelings from this one scenario. Another great aspect of fairy tales are that there is always some type of journey or quest that the character must go on. These quests not only make the tales more interesting, but this is where the hero must overcome some type of problem or struggle. During the quest the reader can connect with the hero and learn from his mistakes or triumphs and watch him always prevail in the end. Although I have given points on how to define a fairy tale the best way to interpret what they are is to read them yourself and see what feelings, emotions, and thoughts you get from them and then you yourself will really understand what they are. As I said earlier they hold so much meaning, but it is in the eye of the beholder.   

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