Victorian Attitudes, Murder, and Bluebeard

Beneath its prim and proper exterior, the Victorian period was a fascinating, dark time. As far as fairy tale history goes, any version of a tale that people mistakenly call the "original" or "classic" was probably created and enforced during this time period. Not only did the morality of the Grimms shape how they edited their volumes of tales, but countless other translators, editors, and illustrators in this period contributed to what we now think of as the definitive fairy tale genre.

It's getting pretty trendy today to point back to the grim and gruesome details of the fairy tales that came from this time, partly for shock value and partly to legitimize the idea that fairy tales are not just simplistic stories for children. The amount of violence found in the tales can be disturbing for modern audiences.

Illustration-H.J. Ford, "The Girl Without Hands"

Our modern consumption of murder mysteries and violent media as arguably a much better alternative to what this replaced-through the Victorian period, criminals were often publicly executed for sometimes minor infractions of the law. Going to see a hanging was entertainment for the poor people-executions drew crowds who watched the events unfold like they would watch a play on the stage.

Image of the last public hanging in England
May 26, 1868

Yet in life, as in fairy tales, this exposure to death and violence was seen as excusable because it also provided an opportunity for moralizing. It was very common during the Victorian period to add a "moral" at the end of fairy tales aimed at teaching children how to behave properly, and the same went for the way the newspapers covered famous criminal cases. Broadsides, or a cheap, one-sided newspaper, would come out with a "confession" from the criminal (printed before the death actually happened,) including a remorseful insight into the now-realized futility of a life of crime. In murder cases, people were arrested and charged, often on very little evidence. This was partly due to a police system in its infancy and in a time before science and technology provided the ways we now catch criminals, but also to pacify the crowds into thinking they were safe and to give the impression that there was a happy ending, because the criminal was done away with.

Therein lies the paradox of consuming murder as entertainment-we are pleased as we are horrified, and comforted as we are disgusted. When I want a light, easy read I turn to Agatha Christie (even though I also get really depressed watching the news). The world of mystery, despite the necessary violence, is actually one of the most predictable and satisfying. There is a clear villain and a clear happy ending in which the criminal is caught and brought to justice.

George Melies' "Bluebeard", 1901

This goes a long way to explain the fact that Bluebeard was wildly popular in the Victorian period and even considered a suitable source for children's entertainment. The awful image of the bloody chamber was exciting as it was dreadful, and it was all okay as long as it taught children a very important lesson (in fact, the bloody chamber in Bluebeard is very similar to the Chamber of Horrors in Madame Tussaud's waxworks museum, very popular in the Victorian era, where bodies and scenes of famous murderers and their victims are on display. A google search will get you even more disturbing images than this one of the heads of French royalty as they were, just after the guillotine).

And of course, one of the greatest mysteries of fairy tale history is how so many people in the Victorian period could have actually interpreted the Bluebeard tale as a cautionary story against women's curiosity and not the obviously more evil serial killing husband. Yet these quotes really shed light on the issue: at the trial of Maria Manning, a famous 1849 murder case, her husband's barrister said "History teaches us that the female is capable of reaching higher in point of virtue than the male, but that when once she gives way to vice, she sinks far lower than our sex." Somehow their unfair expectations of females having the ability to achieve near "perfection" (more like, submission) was also used to unfairly condemn. Even though Maria and her husband were both found guilty of murdering Maria's lover, a popular ballad sung and sold at the execution (it really was an entertainment source!) goes "Old and young, pray take a warning/Females, lead a virtuous life/Think upon the fateful morning/Frederick Manning and his wife." Note that females are singled out for the warning despite their joint guilt.

Russian Illustrated Children's Book (anybody know the artist?)

Yet the gender bias was so strong that some women were able to use this idea to their advantage-female murderers who are most likely guilty were able to escape sentencing simply because the public could not believe that they were actually guilty, such as Florence Bravo and Madeleine Smith. Though the evidence all pointed to them having murdered their husbands, the public couldn't accept that a young, beautiful, proper woman could have done such an "unfeminine" thing. Many people thought it was unseemly for a woman to even take interest in their cases, yet the world of murder was actually somewhat empowering. Women caught in oppressive marriages could actually speak out for themselves-at her trial Florence told reporters that her abusive husband "had no right to treat me in such a way" and was unpunished for poisoning him. Detective fiction as a genre was pretty proto feminist at its beginning, featuring strong and clever females.

One more fairy tale connection-in the famous Road Hill House case, older sister Constance eventually confessed to slashing her brother's throat in the middle of the night. The reason was most likely that the little boy was her stepbrother, and much like Cinderella, Constance and her full brother were mistreated, while her stepmother's children were given preferential treatment. She had previously run away from home and told her friends that she was treated cruelly. Once again she was not initially convicted, partially because of prejudice (servants were suspected first) and  delicate Victorian sensibilities (a key piece of evidence, her nightgown being missing and bloodied, was not spoken of because it was inappropriate to talk about what a woman wore to bed). Yet years later she confessed and gave some closure to an unsolved case.

Arthur Rackham-Cinderella

*Source: The Art of the English Murder, by Lucy Worsley. Not directly fairy tale related, but a fascinating read that I highly recommend! I couldn't put it down!

Grimm's Grimmest

I don't know about you, but when it comes to reading new fairy tales, sometimes it can be intimidating to pull out a large copy of an edition of Grimms' complete fairy tales. Where to even start? It's not the sort of book you usually read cover to cover.

In fact, my copy of complete Grimm tales I use mainly for reference. I find it helpful to discover books in which tales are separated by categories such as themes or country of origin, which is why I was pleased to discover Grimm's Grimmest, edited by Marisa Bulzone, in my library. Not only did it introduce me to several tales I wasn't as familiar with alongside some of the classics, but the best part was the introduction by Maria Tatar.

She provides a little history of the Grimms and their process of collecting but also editing the tales to suit, what was then, modern tastes. Although the Grimms (and the general culture of the time) abhorred any mention of sexuality or pregnancy, altering the tales to remove such references, they actually tended to increase the violence when it was part of a character's punishment. Seemingly shocking and harsh punishments for what we might consider to be small misdemeanors were characteristic of not only the Grimms' collection but other children's literature of the time, such as Strewwelpeter.

Page from the book-Illustrations by Tracy Arah Dockray

For example, the short and haunting story "The Willful Child" would have been more or less typical fare for the time:

Image

Once upon a time there was a child who was willful and would not do what her* mother wished. For this reason, God had no pleasure in her, and let her become ill. No doctor could do her any good, and in a short time the child lay on her deathbed.

When she had been lowered into her grave, and the earth was spread over her, all at once her little arm came out again and reached upward. And when they had pushed it back in the ground and spread fresh earth over it, it was all to no purpose, for the arm always came out again.

Then the mother herself was obliged to go to the grave and strike the arm with a rod. When she had done that, the arm was drawn in, and at last the child had rest beneath the ground.


*In the introduction, Tatar clarifies that in the German, the child is given no specific gender

Tatar also cited psychology and the fact that "children are rarely squeamish when they hear about decapitation or other forms of mutilation. Typical Saturday morning cartoon fare shows that grisly episodes often strike them as hilarious rather than horrifying." It's true that some of the stories, even with their gruesome aspects, I found mostly entertaining, such as "The Three Army Surgeons." Yet others were truly hard to read-I don't think anyone can read "The Willful Child" above and not find it disturbing on some level (and this collection didn't even include "How Children Played Butcher with Each Other," which I find the most horrifying).

For while we tend to think of fairy tales as simple, sweet children's stories, Tatar reminds us that they are also the precursors to other genres, such as urban legends and horror.

Yet, there are different categories when we look at violence in tales. There is violence that is punishment for a truly horrible villain-which we tend to be more comfortable with; children in America are familiar with the scene in which Gretel pushes the witch into the oven, whereas we have largely forgotten some tales that are still part of general knowledge in Germany today, such as "Juniper Tree" which involves a mother decapitating her son and feeding his flesh to her unknowing husband (and, another perfect example of cultural differences in approaching fairy tales!).

Tracy Arah Dockray-illustration for "Juniper Tree"

Then, sometimes, the protagonist is treated cruelly by the villain. This elicits sympathy from the reader and further establishes which characters we're rooting for and which ones we're against, and many of our most loved heroines in American culture fit into this category-Snow White and Cinderella, for example.

Then there's a different sort of story in which the violence doesn't seem to serve a purpose at all. In tales like "The Death of the Little Hen," the stories lead from one tragedy to another, with no happy ending. They seem pointless and depressing, but Tatar reminds us that if nothing else, these tales point to the harsh cruelties of peasant existence, where diseases spread rampant, mothers often died in childbirth, and poor harvest meant going truly hungry. Fairy tales blend truth with hope. Although the common perception is that fairy tales are all hope and no truth, that's a misconception; but it would also be misleading to present all Grimm tales as the creepy, depressing ones found in this volume either. We can point to the darker aspects of fairy tales but they are not the complete picture.

Albert Weisgerber-"The Death of the Little Red Hen"

I have to point out though-I was very disappointed that the book jacket description claims that the Grimms' "Aschenputtel" was "the original Cinderella story." It's a common thing to mistake Grimm tales for "original," but for someone responsible for creating a book description to make such a gross error, especially when Perrault's version is not only older, but arguably more famous? Whoever wrote it clearly didn't read Tatar's introduction, which not only referenced Perrault's "Cinderella" (with the year, 1697), but compared and contrasted the Grimms' version with Cinderella tales from around the world-some of which show forgiveness for the stepsisters and some of which are incredibly violent in their punishments. On the one hand this shows that violence is not limited to German or Grimm tales, but on the other it shows that violent aspects are not necessary for the tale type.

Christmas as time for Storytelling

Hey-remember when I said I was engaged? Well, the wedding is now less than a month away! Which means that in addition to working, I will be doing much wedding planning, moving to a new Chicago suburb, and doing this thing called Christmas. So don't be surprised if I'm extra scarce around here for a while...I will hopefully have more time for reading and posting around mid-January when we get back from the honeymoon!

In the meantime:

Christmas, at least in Victorian England, was seen as a time set apart for telling stories. I have a book from my library from 1881 titled "Yuletide Stories" which I originally thought would be Christmas themed, but are in fact fairy tales from different parts of Europe. Dickens wrote a series of stories, each supposedly told by a different person in a group gathered around a Christmas tree.

Christmas was also used as an idealized image of the telling of folk and fairy tales. When the Grimms published their collection, they tried to romanticize them by emphasizing the image of an old woman reciting the tales word for word, when really most of the tales were told by young friends of theirs. When the Grimm collection was translated into English, Edgar Taylor, the translator, fleshed out this image even more.

from The Illustrated London News, 1848

In the epigraph to his first volume, he writes, "Now you must imagine me to sit by a good fire, amongst a companye of good fellowes, over a well spiced bowle of Christmas ale, telling of these merrie tales which hereafter followe." Sounds pretty cozy...

Taylor went on to name a fictitious narrator, Gammer Grethel, and invent a history for her:

"Gammer Grethel was an honest, good-humoured farmer's wife, who, a while ago, lived far off in Germany.
She knew all the good stories that were told in that country; and every evening about Christmas time the boys and girls of the neighborhood gathered round to hear her tell them some of her budget of strange stories.
One Christmas, being in that part of the world, I joined the party; and begged her to let me write down what I heard, for the benefit of my young friends in England. And so, for twelve merry evenings, beginning with Christmas Eve, we met and listened to her budget."

Even though there was no Gammer Grethel, we can try to revive the tradition of spreading fairy tales at Christmas time!

EDIT: Woops! Forgot to credit my source! Jennifer Schacker, National Dreams: The Remaking of Fairy Tales in Nineteenth Century England

When Grimms' Fairy Tales Came to England

Sometimes in the academic world, the Grimms tend to be cast as villains. Despite their claims of authentic oral folk tales, they actually took most of their tales from wealthy family friends of French descent and edited them throughout successive editions of their work.

And I'm not saying that there isn't something to be said for integrity, but the reality was, the Grimms were getting pressure from casual readers and academics alike to alter the form and content of their tale collections. Their editors and publishers wanted to make money, and so the tales were altered as time went on.

However, this is only the beginning of the story. As we know, the tales continued to change and morph over time, but a very important part of their evolution that is often overlooked and forgotten are translators. I think I always used to take it for granted that translation could be trusted, but I've recently learned that there are issues even with the most modern and respected translation of Villeneuve's Beauty and the Beast. Similarly, when Grimms' Fairy Tales was first translated into English, the Edgar Taylor continued the process the Grimms had already started and the tales resembled their original forms even less, as they became more an more an ideal for the moral education of children, which was never the purpose of oral folklore.

Grimms' Children's and Household Tales made its first appearance in England in 1823 under the title German Popular Stories, under publisher Charles Baldwyn, translated and adapted by Edgar Taylor. According to Jennifer Schacker, "With a focus on humor, justice, and romance, this little book encapsulates the themes and worldview that have since come to be associated with the genre of the fairy tale. Indeed, no one has done more to shape contemporary conceptions of the fairy tale-its content, tone, function, origin, and intended audience-than English solicitor and amateur folklorist Edgar Taylor."

In an age of increasing industrialism, the old German tales seemed to hearken back to "the good old days"-the times when women actually spun wool as opposed to fabric being created in a factory; the times when simple peasants lived in the rural countryside. The book was presented as a quaint and picturesque look into German history.

But of course, the tales were not as authentic as people thought they were. The Grimms themselves admitted that one of the aims of their collection was to "bring pleasure," as well as being "a manual of manners." In Taylor's hands the stories became even more so. Thirty-one out of 161 tales made up the first edition of German Popular Stories, which he shortened and adapted.

Many of Taylor's changes were to eliminate or tame "episodes of gory retribution, dangerous villains, premarital sex, and even references to the Devil." Snow White's stepmother does not dance herself to death in red-hot slippers, but choked with passion and fell down dead. The Princess of The Frog Prince does not wake to find a handsome prince in bed with her, but standing at the head of her bed. Devils become giants. The song that the bird sings in Juniper Tree no longer says "My mother she slew me, My father he ate me" but "My father thought me lost and gone"-taking away the eeriest part of the song, the relish the father has in unknowingly cannibalising his son. The bird goes on to sing of how he "roves so merrily" as if he enjoys being a bird, and being murdered by his stepmother wasn't so bad after all.

To be fair, Taylor never claimed absolute fidelity in translation, but admitted to editing the tales with children in mind. Donald Ward believes that had the tales not been edited by the Grimms, "no one other than a handful of philologists and narrative researchers would have heard of them today." Hard to imagine a world without knowledge of Grimms' fairy tales...

Part of reinforcing the image of fairy tales as harmless and light were the illustrations provided by George Cruikshank, who drew all the illustrations in this post. The scenes he chose to illustrate are very telling. Villains and supernatural creatures are not presented as threatening, but only seen at the moment of their humiliation-for example, Rumplestiltskin below, in the scene where he gets his foot stuck in the floor (very different than the original tearing his body in two out of rage).

 

The illustrations lend themselves to that same idea of the idealised past-peasants in the countryside living a simple and quaint life. The fronstpieces to the different editions, of narrators orally sharing the tales, help the illusion that the Grimms collected the tales from German peasants and not their middle class neighbors-as well as a frame narrative added in later volumes that describe how Gammer Grethel (who was supposedly Dorothy Viehmann, one of the Grimms' informants) told her audience a group of tales each night at Christmastime.

 

The public loved the editions of German Popular Tales, and later writers looked back with fondness on the collection that they believed represented "the true unadulterated fairy tale", in the words of Charlotte Yonge. Yet the tales had only begun their process of becoming idealised and directed at young children, a process which is still happening today, although many writers and artists are trying to combat those preconceptions (some, ironically, think they are the first ones to turn the tales into violent, sexual adult tales).

*All information taken from National Dreams: The Remaking of Fairy Tales in Nineteenth-Century England by Jennifer Schacker. This was the other book that Heidi Anne Heiner of Surlalune was kind enough to give me when I had the opportunity to meet her earlier this year! Thanks again, Heidi!

Strewwelpeter

I've mentioned Strewwelpeter before, but I just found a humorous article highlighting some of the most gruesome stories found in it. Strewwelpeter is a German collection of cautionary tales for children. I think it's important to understand Victorian fairy tales within context-if the tales of the brothers Grimm seem outrageously inapproriate for kids or extremely didactic, they were actually something like a breath of fresh air compared to some of what was in circulation at the time.

From the article:
"The Story Of The Man That Went Out Shooting" teaches us the paramount lesson of firearm safety. Namely, that sentient rabbits will steal your guns if you're negligent...







...whereas "The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb" informs tots that A.) a vengeful tailor will lop off your appendages with hedge trimmers; and B.) your parents will shrug nonchalantly when it happens.








And finally there's "The Story of Augustus, Who Would Not Have Any Soup." This story imparts the subtle lesson, "If you don't eat, you will die immediately.""

Prince Cherry

Once there was a King who rescued a rabbit while out hunting. The rabbit was actually a fairy in disguise, and in return for his kind heart, the Fairy Candide offered the King a choice of gifts: to make his only son the handsomest, the richest, or the most powerful Prince. Being wise, the King decided he wanted his son to be a good man rather than anything else. The fairy promised to point out the Prince's faults and punish him for them.


Image from here
To do this, she gave the prince a gold ring which would always prick his finger when he was doing something wrong. If he continued to ignore his ring's warnings, she would stop being his Protectoress. The Prince was amazed, but the ring did indeed start pricking him whenever he lost his temper or became cruel. At first the Prince obeyed his ring, but he became frustrated with not having his way, and ignored the ring more and more, and eventually got rid of it. He also had bad companions who encouraged him to do the wrong thing. He had a beloved tutor, Suliman, who would admonish the Prince when he took advantage of his power, but one day the Prince became so frustrated he banished the tutor.


Later, Cherry happened upon the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and proposed marriage. The maiden, Zelia, refused, for she knew he was selfish and had a bad temper. His friends encouraged him to make an example of anyone who dared disobey him and imprison the girl. He listened to his friends and cast her into the dungeon.


The Fairy appeared before the Prince again. Because he behaved like an animal, she condemned him to appear as an animal, and Cherry was transformed into a creature like a mixture of a lion, a bull, a wolf, and a serpent. Cherry ran away and fell into a bear trap. His captors put him on display, and through people's talk, Cherry learned that his wise tutor had been made King in his absense, and that the people were glad of the disappearance of the cruel prince.


One day, the keeper of the Menagerie was attacked by an escaped tiger. As soon as Cherry had the impulse to save the man, his cage was opened and he saved the keeper, who was thankful. At that moment, Cherry transformed again, this time into a dog.


Cherry lived happily as a dog for a while, until he saw a woman in a garden looking for food. Feeling pity, Cherry gave her the piece of bread he was about to eat. As he did, he recognized the beautiful Zelia as the recipient of his bread-but just then she was dragged back into the dungeon. As Cherry repented of this deed, he became a white pigeon.


Cherry flew in search of Zelia. He finally found her and perched on her shoulder. Zelia proclaimed her love of the bird, which were the words needed to turn Cherry back into his human form. Zelia was able to love Cherry now that his true nature was not "hidden by faults," and they were transported back to rule Prince Cherry's kingdom. His ring was restored to him, and he became a just and kind ruler.


This little fairy tale isn't really part of the Beauty and the Beast cycle, although it is an Animal Bridegroom tale. Here we see a foreshadowing of the Disney version in that the beastly forms are punishment for beastly behaviors, only here the Prince gradually goes from savage to domestic, which is an interesting twist.


Also interesting is that this tale is written by Madame LePrince de Beaumont, the same woman who is credited with writing Beauty and the Beast Proper. Clearly appearances and beast-like men were a theme with her. Only the book from which I got this tale (Bookhouse Through Fairy Halls, 1928) calls her not "LePrince de Beaumont," but "La Princesse de Beamont." I don't know why they decided to make her last name feminine, but I checked and it really is the same person.

Pinocchio

First of all, Pinocchio isn't technically a fairy tale, but how exactly do we define a fairy tale? A fantastic story so old we can't trace its origins? Wikipedia skirts around a definition by giving examples of what a fairy tale is not (a myth, fable, or cautionary tale), and including a whole discussion on the difficulties of defining fairy tales, but doesn't actually say what it is. The American Heritage Dictionary calls a fairy tale "A fanciful tale of legendary deeds and creatures, usu. intended for children." Which is not actually correct: a)this definition would encompass all children's fantasy, and fairy tales are a more specific branch of fantasy, and b)nowdays we think of fairy tales as being intended for children, but historically fairy tales were not intended for children, and even now there are plenty of modern adult interpretations.

So all that to say, you can't really say definitively that Pinocchio has no place on a fairy tale blog; I focus more on traditional tales, but any story that was later made into a classic Disney movie also holds interest for me. And Pinocchio does have something most fairy tales lack, which is the presence of an actual fairy.

Pinocchio is a story written by Italian Carlo Collodi which came out in 1883. It contains the story of a puppet who wants to be a real boy, but has to learn to be responsible, and in the process makes a lot of stupid decisions and is severely punished for it. Some scenes are really quite awful and violent, but that was the mode for children's literature in the Victorian age-to scare children into obedience by telling stories of children who suffered horrifying punishments for their crimes.

Enrico Mazzanti

The book is sort of frustrating to read, because at first you're just annoyed with Pinnochio for being so obstinately stupid. He does have good intentions (don't we all?), but even when he tries to be good, he gets tricked or tempted beyond what he can bear. Although, as the book goes on, he holds out more and more before giving in. The book has good messages-stay in school, work hard, obey your parents, etc., but it's so preachy it gets tiring. The plot itself would be more enjoyable if it weren't for them hitting you over the head with lamentations like this one from Pinocchio: "It serves me right!...Decidedly it serves me right! I was determined to be a vagabond and a good-for-nothing...I would listen to bad companions, and that is why I always meet with misfortunes. If I had been a good little boy as so many are; if I had been willing to learn and to work; if I had remained at home with my poor papa, I should not now be in the midst of the fields and obliged to be the watch-dog to a peasant's house."

The Disney movie takes all of its scenes from the book, with alterations, and leaves out other scenes. Some differences of note: Pinocchio actually starts off by killing the Talking Cricket. He later comes back as a ghost, but doesn't have nearly the importance that Jiminy Cricket does in the movie. At one point you think Pinocchio also killed the Blue Fairy, but she was just teaching him a lesson. The large man-eating fish is also like Jonah's fish in that people insist on making it a whale-Pinocchio's fish was actually referred to as a Dog-fish. Also, Pleasure Island in the book is "known on the geographical map by the seducing name of the 'Land of Boobies.'" But not that kind of seductive boobies...

Pinocchio starts off by being infuriatingly annoying. He has no schoolbook, so Gepetto goes out, sells his coat in the middle of winter, and buys Pinocchio a spelling book. The next day Pinocchio sells the book to see a play. But, Pinocchio does grow on you more as you read the book. Gepetto doesn't start out as the best character either, though; early on the villagers are concerned that Gepetto will beat the puppet and abuse him, and he gets into a fight with another man for calling him names. So I guess there's plenty of character development for all involved...

Hee hee Pinocchio from Shrek is really funny...

Wooden Tony

Taken from Beyond the Looking Glass, edited by Jonathan Cott. "Wooden Tony" was written by Lucy Lane Clifford and tells the story of an autistic child, which is especially relevant to my work, as several of my students have autism. The story is very sad and moving. I find it strangely beautiful, and yet it's more like a horror story than a traditional fairy tale. As always, you can read my summary, but the original story is infinitely better.

Tony was a lazy boy who would sit by the fire. He never did chores, and his eyes often had a blank expression, and the neighbors would call him "Wooden Tony." He noticed that, when people were far away, they were smaller, and he told his mother he wished he could be far off so that he would be small again and people would stop demanding things of him and scolding him when he didn't do them.

But Tony loved to sing. When he would go out to pick eidelweiss, he would come back with no flowers but with a new song no one had heard before. Tony also liked to watch his father carve little figurines out of wood during the winter; these he would sell in town for money.

One morning a dealer came to buy Tony's father's figures. He had heard Tony's song and wanted to share it with the world. He took Tony with him to Geneva. He told Tony to sing, and he did, and as Tony sang, the dealer wrote down the notes of his song. As they walked past mountains and trees, Tony sang and sang, and the dealer copied. Yet as he went, "his song was different, it seemed no longer to come from his heart but only from his lips, and as he sang he heard the notes repeated. The song was going out of him and on to the dealer's wire. He did not look towards it, he did not care; he felt nothing keenly. His legs were growing stiff and his feet were hard...He was not tired, or warm, or cold, or glad, or sorry, but only in a dream."

Tony and the dealer arrived at the town, but the town felt strange to Tony, who was used to nature. He could no longer sing anything. The dealer put Tony in a little wooden house and told him to go upstairs. He did, and saw a wooden figurine his father had carved before, that he had been afraid of, but no longer was. Tony waited in the dark with the woman figurine. Sometimes he would hear the notes of his song, twanged back on wire, and he and the woman would catch a glimpse of light.

One day, Tony's mother and father were in town. His mother saw a cuckoo clock and Tony as the wooden figurine. His father insisted that could not be Tony, but his mother knew him. "His song has gone into the world, but Tony is there," she insisted. His father wondered if, since Tony's head had been wooden, the rest of him had turned wooden too.

His mother wanted him back, but when the song was finished, Tony was jerked back into the darkness.

"Life is not only in nodding heads, and work is not only for hands that move and feet that walk; it is in many other things."

Forbidden Journeys

No, not this forbidden journey:

This image is a promo for "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey," a ride at the new Universal Studios Harry Potter land. I'd like to go on that too. But today we're talking about these fobidden journeys:

Specifically, women writers of fantasy in the Victorian period who strayed from what was expected of women in their day. Auerbach and Knoepflmacher (that latter last name would be even harder to pronounce than my own) gathered a sampling of fantasy from several authors and provide introductions to each section: Refashoining fairy tales, Subversions, A Fantasy Novel, and A Trio of Antifantasies.

The introduction to the book describes the difference between male Victorian writers, whose "obsessive nostalgia for their own idealized childhoods inspired them to imagine dream countries in which no one had to grow up." Whereas women of the time were treated like children their whole lives, but in the most negative ways, they perceived childhood darker and less innocent and playful. Interesting note about children's literature in the Victorian period: "Since Victorian children were perceived as secure in their innocence, there was no felt need to expurgate anger, subversion, or literary experimentation from their reading." This explains why many fairy tales from the period are surprisingly dark for our sensibilities.

Yet, given this introduction, I didn't find the tales all that dark. They were very sweet, I thought, with one of Rosetti's stories being the only tale that was truly a dark social satire. But what to us seems mild was often more shocking at the time.

Some highlights: the stories of Anne Thackeray Ritchie (daughter of W.M. Thackeray), pictured above. She retells Beauty and the Beast and Sleeping Beauty very closely to the traditional plots, yet without the magical elements. Her characters discuss, at the beginning of each story, how fairy tale themes can be seen in everyday life. I love this theme-it's very empowering to the listener. What is the true miracle of the fairy tales-that a kiss awakens a female, or that a sheltered woman finds love and blossoms? That a Beast is transformed, or that a Beauty is able to love despite negative circumstances and appearances?

I also enjoyed Maria Louisa Molesworth's "The Brown Bull of Norrowa," a retelling of an Animal Bridegroom tale.

The "Subversions" section featured two parodies of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," which were supposed to be very dark but I didn't think were especially dark. They were nice but not something I'd want to read again, the same as E. Nesbit's stories (although I love her novels). I did enjoy Frances Hodgson Burnett's "Behind the White Brick"-a young girl's dream journey into another world. But again, I didn't think a sarcastic talking baby was any darker than a queen who wants everyone's heads cut off. The introduction describes how Burnett's writing was limited by her fans' fear of her being a "new woman," so she uses the baby as "a perfect vehicle for the expression of emotions forbidden to a Victorian lady."

Confession: I never finished Jean Ingelow's "Mopsa the Fairy," the short novel. I just never grabbed my attention. The whole thing was designed as sort of the anti-Alice in Wonderland. The plots are parallel, yet opposite in some areas. Noteably, the female starts off being the innocent fairy dependant on the boy, who one would assume is the hero of the story, but the fairy (Mopsa) eventually gains authority as the human boy loses it and is eventually sent home unwillingly, to be back in the authority of his parents. The concept is interesting, but in order for a fantasy world to be good, it must be either believable, or humorous (like Alice's world), and for whatever reason I thought this story to be neither especially. Although I can't judge authoritatively since I didn't get very far (but for me to not enjoy a work of fantasy is very rare!)

The last section of the book features a set of stories told by an aunt to her neices, called "antifantasies," written by Christina Rosetti (pictured above). The first story features a birthday girl disappointed by the unrelenting realism of her birthday party compared to a little girl's ideal, followed by another dreamworld episode where she visits another birthday party where the children play cruel games with each other. These games mirror the cruelties-subtle and not-that women and children were already subjected to by society. The second features a girl who never accomplishes the task she set out to (to boil water)- an anti-heroine. The third is sort of a cross between The Little Match Girl and Little Red Riding Hood, only unlike Red, this underpriviledged girl resists temptations, which turn into pets she rescues and ends with a happy reunion at home for all of her troubles.

It's impossible for a modern mind to read the stories like a Victorian mind would, but I appreciate the concept of this book. As one commenter said on the back of the book called it: "A rival to masculinist histories of the 'golden age' in children's literature." (Margaret R. Higonnet, former editor, Children's Literature).

Beatrix Potter

I saw the movie "Miss Potter" with my mom tonight. A sweet period romance. People don't think of Peter Rabbit as a fairy tale, but we consider other classic Victorian imaginative children's books to be fairy tales, like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, so there's no reason to exclude Peter Rabbit.

Renee Zelwegger as Beatrix Potter

But in addition to that, there were several fairy tale references in the movie I noted: a story about a changeling, "Fairy-beasts" as an example of adults using supernatural creatures to frighten children into obedience, a reference to Vlad the Impaler (the figure behind the legend of Dracula). Also some themes that come up in fairy tale studies: oppression of women in the Victorian period, and a Freudian good father/bad mother relationship (Sidenote: the Chicago Tribune had an article a while back about how many movies we see now have this strong father-daughter relationship, from The Lovely Bones to the Hannah Montana movie. The writer's conclusion suggested the examples our last three Presidents have had of being fathers to daughters and not the Electra complex, but the father/daughter relationship has been prevalent in tales and folklore long before modern media.)

I wondered how accurate the movie was, and was surprised to learn it was pretty faithful to the facts, with a few minor omissions. Not only did Beatrix Potter become a famous author/artist, but previously she had been well-respected in the field of mycology (having to do with fungi, I guess-science is NOT my forte). Despite her respected work, because she was a woman, she was denied entrance to school or having any papers published. Quote from wikipedia:"When Potter came of age, her parents appointed her as their housekeeper and discouraged any intellectual development, instead requiring her to supervise the household." How sad. (By the way, wikipedia didn't suggest any special relationship with her father as opposed to her mother, as the movie suggests.)

As far as her literary career is concerned, it was a former governess who encouraged her to publish, and her first books were self-published. Her fiancee was, in fact, her publisher, like in the movie. And also as the movie states, she spent her royalties preserving the countryside and left her fortune to the National Trust. What a perfect role model for the modern audience-a strong-willed, single female (well, for most of the movie) who makes a name for herself despite many obstacles, and she was Green way before that became fashionable.

Interestingly, Walt Disney tried to get the rights to Potter's works and she declined. Also, she kept her journals in code-and so do I!

Bright, Deardeer, and Kit

"The Fairy Tale Book" (later published as "The Golden Book of Fairy Tales"), translated by Marie Ponsot and illustrated by Adrienne Segur, was well-loved by myself and my sister growing up, and was my first non-Disney venture into the magical world of fairy tales. For more about the artist, check out Terri Windling's tribute.

I used to be fascinated with the tale of "Bright, Deardeer, and Kit," by Madame la Comtesse de Segur, and can't recall ever coming across it in my research. Going back and reading it with a different perspective was interesting.

It starts out very typical of fairy tale plots--beautiful and kind Princess (Bright) whose father (King Kind) remarries an jealous stepmother with a mean daughter. But this tale goes out of its way to emphasize the innocence of the father (his only request for his new wife was that she would be good to his little girl, and when he saw that Bright was unhappy he arranged that Bright "wouldn't see her often." Also, Bright's stepsister, Dark, isn't the typically ugly and cruel stepsister--she was "pretty, though less pretty than Bright," although she was mean.

Reminiscent of Snow White, the Queen (Rigid) bribes Bright's page into leaving her in the enchanted lilac forest. There, she befriends Deardeer and Kit, an enchanted deer and cat, who befriend her.

Another unique aspect of this tale--Bright wakes the next morning as a young lady, instead of a seven-year-old. " 'Today's your fourteenth birthday, child,' said Deardeer. 'You've slept an enchanted sleep for seven years. Kit and I wanted to spare you the tiresome part of growing and learning. We're taught you in your sleep. You've learned what an educated woman should know...' She [Bright] threw her arms around Deardeer's neck. 'What wonderful friends you are!' she said. 'No better present was ever given anyone.' "

Though we may disagree with the philosophy that the years from ages seven to fourteen are purely tiresome and worth skipping over, it makes a very interesting idea to entertain.

Bright lives happily with Deardeer and Kit, but is tricked by a parrot into disobeying Deardeer and picks an enchanted rose (rather reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast), and she finds the mansion destroyed and deardeer and Kit gone. However, after wandering around in the forest, an enchanted turtle instructs her to climb on his back and ride completely silently for half a year, which she does. This is another example of females having to endure silence for long periods of time, which never seems to happen to males. This fairy tale falls into many of the "misogynistic" patterns found in tales, yet it was written by a woman. Madame la Comtesse de Segur lived from 1799 to 1874-born the daughter of a Russian governor, she married a Frenchman. The Victorian period was so different from our own--I wonder if she wrote according to patterns to please her audience, or if she didn't even view things we now think of as misogynist as being demeaning.

Anyway, Bright obeys this time, and finally reaches the house of the Fairy Goodness, who gives Bright the key to a cupboard which contains the stretched out skins of Deardeer and Kit (this is the other image that really stuck with me from childhood). But, it turns out that viewing the skins was the only way to free Bright from enchantment, and the Fairy Goodness really was Deardeer, who marries King Kind in a double wedding with Kit, now a handsome Prince, and Bright.

Maria Tatar: Off With Their Heads!: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood

To sum up this book very quickly: Life in the Victorian times sucked if you were a woman or child because men had complete authority. The fairy tales collected and published during this time were not the "authentic" versions of the tales, as we often think they are today, but altered from the oral tales to encourage complete submission to authority (children to adults, women to men.)

First of all, let me preface by saying: I've heard feminist arguments before that I thought were weak and/or failed to take into account the culture and context in which the tales were created. Things like "the fact that Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are in coma-like-death clearly indicates that men want their women passive." Which I didn't buy into. First of all, a couple tales in which women are immobile for a while doesn't indicate that those circumstances are set as the ideal for all women everywhere. Secondly, the sleep is clearly a curse, not the desired state of being. The happy ending occurs only after the heroine has been awakened, therefore giving mixed signals at best.

Another slightly better argument I've heard: "Since females in fairy tales do domestic chores and then have a happy ending, this means that domesticity is a trait of the desirable female in the eyes of the storyteller." But again, nearly always, the chores are represented as an undeserved punishment imposed by (usually) a cruel mother/stepmother. The happy ending includes the female, generally, as married to a Prince and therefore never in need of doing housework again. But consider it as well in the context of the culture--in a time when most people were living off the land, women did housework. Housework itself is not demoralizing or degrading, someone has to do it. I think it totally natural that women would pass the time cooking or cleaning by telling stories and imagining that someone hardworking like them would be rewarded so richly. Plus, at the time, men weren't going into the office and leaving all the chores to the women, they were probably working in the fields or doing their part to supply the family with their needs. But the interesting thing about this argument is the fact that there is a notable lack of males who ever do their own chores in tales. Males tend to go on supernatural quests, while females end up doing chores somewhere in their adventure. But one more thing--Cinderella often gets accused of being too passive. But what options did she have? She couldn't go out, get a GED, and work her way through school. Back then women could be wives, be servants, be a teacher if they were educated themselves, or be prostitutes. Those were pretty much their only options. If Cinderella had run away, it would have been to be a servant to someone else who probably would have treated her about the same.

All that to say, I think Maria Tatar has the best arguments I've read to describe the reality of gender roles in folktales. She does take into account the cultural context, and also analyzes the trend of the tales through different cultures and time periods, rather than picking apart details of a certain version and assigning them meaning, even if it's a meaning most educated people wouldn't necessarily pick up on, much less uneducated peasants telling tales among themselves.

Chapters 1-4

The Victorian age witnessed the birth of children's literature as its own genre. Stories for children were made specifically to induce fear of disobeying. While this summary may not seem to surprising--as an educator myself, I know firsthand the need for obedience in the classroom--but the many specific examples she quotes of excerpts from literature or actual childrearing practice are shocking. In stories, one disobedient act by a child would be punished by often a painful death, if not the deaths of others around them. Parents were encouraged to beat and whip their children for mild offenses, even infants. Tatar gives examples of oral fairy tales, and then the written Victorian versions (mainly the Grimms), and it's clear that the tales were altered to fit in with this harsh trend in childrearing. (What I really wish someone would publish is the complete original notes the Grimms took while listening to their oral sources, then the first edition, and the subsequent versions, to trace the evolution even within the Grimms themselves. Some revisions are surprising, but some tales have very little editing.)

Tatar also refers often to Maurice Sendak as a more modern contrast to the Grimms, which was very enlightening, since I was only familiar with his "Where the Wild Things Are."

From chapter 4-"This simple fact of children's literature as a product of adult reconstructions of childhood's realities does much to unravel on of the mysteries of fairy tales...whenever a book is written by adults for children, there is a way in which it becomes relentlessly educational" (p.92)

Chapters 5-7

The next section of the book deals with women and girls. I had known life wasn't ideal for women in Victorian times, but the more I learn the more horrified I am. Women now tend to long for the old-fashioned man with manners and chivalry, and I think we think every man back in the day was a Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." I've always preferred the Bronte sisters to Jane Austen--their novels introduce a slightly darker side to Victorian life. Especially Anne Bronte's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," the lesser known of the Bronte novels, but probably more indicative of what life was really like for a typical woman. If anyone wants to learn about life for women in Victorian times through a novel, read this book. Warning: you will get very angry while reading this book.

That had nothing to do with Tatar, by the way. Tatar again cites cultural views of women and their role, as well as lesser-known tales and versions to give a more complete picture. Like children in the didactic tales, women are often severely punished for things like disobeying their husbands. "Even the harshest penalties remain unchallenged when women begin breaking all the rules in the book of feminine behavior by taking steps in the direction of acquiring knowledge and power" (p.119). Males actually get off pretty easily for more severe sins--think of the father in Donkeyskin, most versions of that tale end with the Princess reconciled and living happily with him. Daughters are expected to be completely devoted to their fathers, then transfer that total (even blind) devotion to their husband--while, of course, still remaining on good, obedient terms with their father. "Never once do these stories show a heroine making a move in the direction of autonomy--the tales ceaselessly turn on the question of retargeting the object of the woman's devotion."

Tatar points out a very interesting contradiction existing in most tales--characters are applauded for disdaining worldy wealth and then rewarded with...worldly wealth. I had noticed this in "Beauty and the Beast," that the sister that wants a simple rose rather than the jewels and expensive clothes of her sisters is given more dresses and jewels than she could ever wear, as well as a complete life of luxury. Tatar explains this as the affect of didactic morals being placed into a tale that was not originally didactic, therefore has competing messages. I definitely agree, but I think another way to view this would be to think of the riches (or even the handsome prince at the end of Beauty and the Beast) as symbolic: to those who appreciate the simple things in life and are content rather than always wanting more, those simple things provide genuine pleasure. The Beast, which is initally seen as ugly, ceases to be ugly once Beauty gets to know him because she sees the beauty of his character.

Chapters 8-10-Violence, Cannibalism, and the Juniper Tree

Tatar explores the surprising amount of violence found in most tales, especially the un-moralized oral tales, but also the extemity of the violence found in moralizing tales when punishing the villain. Food itself also plays a very significant role in folktales. Tatar again alludes to culture--to a people often exposed to starvation, infant deaths, deaths of mothers giving birth, and child abandonment, some of the more dark themes explored in fairy tales make more sense. Returning again to the subject of gender roles, she talks about how a "happy ending" often consists of father and children living happily without the mother. A lot of this could be attributed to the reality of stepmothers stepping in after a mother had died in childbirth, who would desire for her own children to have what inheritance there was. Or, it could be attributed to the fact that these tales were largely collected and published by men, who felt more comfortable with female than male villains.

The epilogue contains a very interesting critique of Disney's "Snow White." I don't think Disney consciously knew he was, as Tatar claims, creating "a complete absorption of maternal figures into the realm of evil" (232)--as Tatar does point out, he was really just following the trend the Grimms before him paved the way for. And for those who attack Disney as being chauvenist, while there are good arguments against him, consider again the context--Snow White came out in the 1930s, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty in the 1950s. American notions towards women were very different then than they are now. Not that that completely excuses Disney, but people back then weren't aware of what messages they were implying as much as they are today.

To close, a quote from the epilogue:

"No fairy tale text is sacred. Every printed version is just another variation on a theme--the rewriting of a cultural story in a certain time and place for a specific audience." (229)