Hansel and Gretel

The tale by The Brothers Grimm of “Hansel and Gretel” brings us back to the world where the female character is this kind of weak, whiney, scared little girl, and the character needs to be protected and taken care of by her brother. 

“The two children had not been able to fall asleep because of their hunger, and they heard what the stepmother had said to the father.”

“Gretel cried bitter tears and said to Hansel, "It is over with us!"”

"Be quiet, Gretel," said Hansel, "and don't worry. I know what to do."” (Grimm 1857)

In the beginning of the story she is just that, she depends on her brother 100 percent, and has no wit or capabilities to come up with plans to rescue them when being left alone in the forest to die by the parents. She is crying and being comforted by her brother at all times. He is the strong one; she is the one just being able to follow her brother’s lead.

But something happens towards the end of the story, when the children are trapped in the evil witch’s house, and Gretel is forced to feed her brother week after week to fatten him up for the witch to cook and eat him eventually. There is a moment when I saw the scared little girl that Gretel was in another light. When she was called upon by the witch to the fiery oven, another side of Gretel came out: 

"Climb in," said the witch, "and see if it is hot enough to put the bread in yet."

“And when Gretel was inside, she intended to close the oven, and bake her, and eat her as well.”

“But Gretel saw what she had in mind, so she said, "I don't know how to do that. How can I get inside?"

"Stupid goose," said the old woman. "The opening is big enough. See, I myself could get in." And she crawled up stuck her head into the oven. Then Gretel gave her a shove, causing her to fall in. Then she closed the iron door and secured it with a bar.” (Grimm 1857)

Gretel showed that she was clever even smart, and also very brave. She saw the witches plan to kill her in addition to her brother, and decided to outwit her. And she did by pushing the witch into the oven after pretending that she did not know how to climb in. She ended up being the one rescuing her brother, a great way to end the story in the feministic perspective. Compared to other folk and fairy tales we have read, such as “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Snow White”. This is the first one where the female character turns out to be the heroine of the story, saving the day.

Little Red Riding Hood, a sex symbol?

 

      

        The Little Red Riding Hood I know from the childhood fairy tales from such collections as The Brothers Grimm is nothing but a good, sweet, and naïve girl in desperate need for some supervision and protection. The big bad wolf is just that, a wolf. But now another side of the story has become very clear to me, another side of Red, the sexual, seductive and owning a strong will. Angela Carter tells the story of Red as I never read it before, so sexually charged but carrying the main elements from the traditional fairy tale within it, in “The Company of Wolves”. She now carries her red cape as a symbol of her femininity, and to signal she is a full bloomed woman, waiting for that one special man.

A little late-comer, had been indulged by her mother and the grandmother who’d knitted her the red shawl that, today, has the ominous if brilliant look of blood on snow; her breasts have just begun to swell; her hair is like lint, so fair it hardly makes a shadow on her pale forehead; her cheeks are an emblematic scarlet and white and she has just started her woman’s bleeding, the clock inside her that will strike, henceforward, once a month. (Carter 3)

         Carter’s version is a story of Red and the wolf but in this case a werewolf, both a man and a wolf. Red is charmed by the human side of the world she meets in the dark forest while on her way to the grandmother’s. She is not afraid, she is intrigued. She now carries a knife with her to show her independence and ability to protect herself, and she also is well aware not to stray from the path. The whole story of her now can be defined by one sentence: “she knew she was nobody’s meat.” (Carter 6)

         The sexual side of her is shown as she interacts with the wolf at the grandmother’s, after the wolf already killed the grandmother. She still isn’t afraid. “The firelight shone through the edges of her skin; now she was clothed only in her untouched integument9 of flesh. This dazzling, naked she combed out her hair with her fingers; her hair looked white as the snow outside. Then went directly to the man with red eyes in whose unkempt mane the lice moved; she stood up on tiptoe and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt.” (Carter 6) She will face the wolf and despite the danger, she is more curious about the sexual tension between them she is feeling. She will not run, she will not fight, but she will seduce the wolf, and go to bed with that man, and there is the ending. Makes me wonder what happens with Red and her lover next.

       

Bisclavret's wife

The tale of “Bisclavret” by Marie de France tells a story of a werewolf but also a story of a husband, and king’s loyal friend who every week turns into his wolf form leaving his beloved wife home to wonder; where does he go when he leaves her?  It’s a story of a werewolf who gets trapped in lupine form by the treachery of his wife. But for this post I’m concentrating on the wife who is compared to other fairy tale characters we have read about, something different. Her character isn't weak, naive nor vulnerable. After learning about her husband’s scary transformation into a wolf, she seems first terrified and feeling like the only way is to escape because “she didn’t want to ever share his bed.” (France 3) But the conspiring, strong, and almost clever side of her takes over. She realizes she can use her womanly power over another man, a knight, to get rid of Bisclavret for good so that she can live a happy, prosperous life with the knight. 

So soon after, with the knowledge that while in werewolf form Bisclavret needs to hide his clothing in a safe place so he can return to human form, she forms a plan. She conspires with the knight who has loved her for a long time to ban Bisclavret to his wolf form for the rest of his being. The wife sends the knight to steal her husband's clothing. When her husband fails to return to obvious reasons after the wife’s betrayal, she marries the knight. The baron's people search for Bisclavret but finally give up, feeling that he may have disappeared for good. This shows the true characteristics of the wife; she is not sweet nor loyal, faithful to her husband. She uses men to her pleasing just to create a comfortable life for herself. She doesn’t approve any deviations from what she sees normal, human; how could she remain and be the wife of a werewolf? This is total opposite of the sweet, trustworthy characters of Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood. 

I must point out how happy I was in the end of the story when she got what she deserves! Accepted by the king even in his wolf form due to the human like sense of Bisclavret, the king sees that there is some wrong doing that must be corrected when the wolf attacks both the wife and the knight when they come face to face finally. The good characteristics of Bisclavret as the wolf create questions about the wife’s characteristics in a rightful way. She breaks down, and confesses about the betrayal. She is exiled with the knight, and as a punishment from Bisclavret’s part she has no nose, he bit it off. And as a curse that followed her in life afterwards, it is said that many of the wife's female children were born without noses, “and lived denosed. It’s true! It’s so!” (France 9) How fitting was that? She judged her husband on the qualities he cannot control, and didn’t feel that he was worthy of her. She conspired to her own advantage, and in the end lost her beauty as a consequence of her actions.

Red

Little Red riding Hood

Charles Perrault’s tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” (1697) is a view of how children, especially young girls, were viewed in the eyes of adults. It also depicts the traditional view of women as weak, vulnerable and in need of rescuing as we have read in stories such as “Snow White”. The evil mother character from the fairy tale of Snow White has been replaced with an evil male character making the women in the story appear even weaker, defenseless. 

But the most important part of the story isn’t how the women are seen but how they act and how their actions have an imperative effect in their lives. First of all LRRH’s mother seems careless, without any idea how to teach her child the important lessons in life such as do not talk to strangers, because bad things will happen to you. The mother also lets her little girl into the woods alone without any supervision, what kind of mother would ever do that is my question? Her character seems to lack caring, concern and willingness to guide her child in life. The grandmother is the one who is far away, sick; the question would be why is she not living with Red and her mother? She is the one “who adored her even more and made a little red hood for her” (Perrault 1^st paragraph); for someone with so much love for a child she should be there to help in raising her and not letting her either walk around in the woods with evil wolf lurking around.

The most important character, LRRH, is almost too vulnerable and too naïve to ever escape from the wolf after they first meet. “The poor child did not even know that it was dangerous to stop and listen to wolves” (Perrault 3^rd paragraph), and in the end of the story she was clueless that the wolf dressed as her grandmother actually wasn’t her grandmother. Today, if any child would be as careless and unaware of certain dangers in life, they would definitely end up like LRRH, eaten by the wolf. 

The great lesson of being a girl/woman in this story is that not much is expected from you other than acting defenseless, and the male character will come and eat/violate you. So little girls you better watch out for the wolves in disguises all around you.

The Two Faces of Little Red Riding Hood

 Through the years the character of Little Red riding Hood has been describes in many ways by many authors. She has been the vulnerable, scared little girl or as opposite from that, strong, fearless, sexy woman. Zohar Shavit shows how two story tellers can transform the image of her into two separate individuals with the red hood still remaining as the focal point, in his article “The Concept of Childhood and Children’s Folktales: Test Case – “Little Red Riding Hood”. The same exact theme can be seen when we were reading about the traditional fairy tales and then the Disney versions; one female character but multiple images of her.

The character in the Brothers Grim version concentrates on the family ties between Little Red and the Grandmother, creating an illustration of womanhood as loyal and loving, and always there for each other. On the other side in Perrault’s version the women do not seem to be bonded by family ties nor unconditional love for each other, both women are seen as individuals with their own goals. Childhood for girls is represented in multitude of ways if you combine these two versions. One can be individual or one can be seen as extension of a family. “In Perrault’s version, the girl picks flowers for her own enjoyment alone, while in the Grimm version she picks them to bring as a gift to her grandmother.” (Shavit 331)  

Another way these two authors portray Little Red in different light is the way they portray her sexuality or the lack of it. The hood assumes the role of this particular symbol. “For Perrault it symbolizes the girl’s eroticism, whereas for the Brothers Grimm it is an expression of the grandmother’s deep love.” (Shavit 330) How this portrays her to the children who read these stories affects the view of women, the way sexuality and family love is expressed. The Grimm’s version depicts her as good, respectful, vulnerable girl but by Perrault she gains new qualities as a women with a power of on scene in the story; the one where she climbs to bed with her grandmother. Which one of these stories would one consider more appropriate for children, or is the way of describing the erotic undertone in Perrault’s version just an adult readers set of mind playing tricks. The point being, these are two different views of Little Red Riding Hood for the reader’s amusement.

Real life "princess" meets Disney princess.....

                                                   Real world..........

How does a real life woman/girl differ from Disney princesses was my question in mind? Disney’s characters have a given quality of being beautiful, but is there anything behind that…..not really, but in fairy tale movies   sometimes that is just what is needed to capture the eye of the beholder. In real life there are so many more aspects of women that matter other that beauty; inner beauty for example cannot be drawn on a paper, if reflects from the person’s speech, manners and beliefs. Real world portrays darkness in both people and environments; in fairy tale the darkness is colorful and evil people often silly, not so scary.

Article “Breaking the Disney Spell” by Jack Zipes points out the different views that the traditional fairy tales and Disney fairy tales provides us; “The diversion of the Disney fairy tale is geared toward non-reflective viewing. Everything is on the surface, one-dimensional, and we are to delight in one-dimensional portrayal and thinking, for it is adorable, easy, and comforting in its simplicity.” (Zipes 352) The traditional fairy tale women/girls are transformed into the big screen still much as domesticated, fragile things, but their beauty is exaggerated to a new level. These cartoon films cannot quite bring the female characters alive; multidimensional images are difficult to create so the concentration remains on the beauty, the beauty alone due to the fact that drawing beauty is easier that creating beauty with attempt to show the characters beliefs, dreams and feelings beyond the normal happiness and sadness. But this beautiful image attracts audiences, and for that Disney succeeded in transforming the fairy tale image to the screen. Real world and fairy tale stay apart; Disney fairy tale is the dreamy alternative reality that we will continue to fall from time to time as amusing it is. 

                                                       Disney.........