Looking Critically Upon Fairy Tales

Looking critically at various aspects of fairy tales including gender roles, enables children to understand how these stories change through time. The idea that fairy tales are “beautiful [and] romantic”[1] and must remain untouched has led to criticism of the Respectful Relationships curriculum for manipulating fairy tales due to political correctness. A brief analysis of Perrault’s Donkeyskin and Grimm’s Cinderella indicates some significant gender roles and a considerable change in the way of representing gender in each era. In both stories, the sequences of events are founded on the conflicts which originate from women’s envy, rivalry, and hostility. There is not a single instance of tension between men. Even the king reconciles with the prince,[2] who, in spite of the king's desire to marry his own daughter, has married the princess.

In these fairy tales, women are passive, while men are active and adventurous. Males take journeys freely, but a female has to disguise herself to escape and consent to domestic drudgery upon escaping. In Grimm’s version, Cinderella witnesses the punishment of the stepsisters when their eyes are pecked by doves,[3] but Cinderella shows no reaction. The docility and passivity are treated as Cinderella’s virtue.

There is more than a century between the first publication of these two versions. Donkeyskin may reflect gender roles of the French court, while some changes in Cinderella imply that Perrault’s stereotype belongs to the past. In Donkeyskin the prince comes to rescue Cinderella while in Grimm’s version the mother and daughter come together to overcome the situation, but the prince recognises Cinderella in the end. This is the result of a change in social attitude throughout the time that requires critical reading.

The representation and construction of gender roles in each time are subject to the purposes of that particular era. Therefore, the ability of children to look critically at all versions of those fairy tales is very important.

References:

Collett, Michael. “Fairy tale sexism: Is political correctness getting in the way of good stories?” ABC. Accessed September 1, 2018. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-06/fairy-tale-sexism-and-political-correctness/8420948

Grimm, Brothers. “Cinderella.” In The Classic Fairy Tales: Texts, Criticism. edited by Maria Tatar, M. 1st Edition, 117-122. New York: Norton, 1999.

Perrault, Charles. “Donkeyskin.” In The Classic Fairy Tales: Texts, Criticism. edited by Maria Tatar, M. 1st Edition, 109-116. New York: Norton, 1999.

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[1] Collett, “Fairy tale sexism”.

[2] Perrault, “Donkeyskin,” 116.

[3] Grimm, “Cinderella,” 122.

The Complexity of the Concept of Child

In I Was a Rat
In the story, I Was a Rat (Pullman, 1999) the child is depicted as having a lower agency, therefore, must understand and practise various signifying norms in order to achieve his own identity. Despite his insistence on that he was a rat, Roger has to attain the quality of being an individual person. This starts from the outset of the story when Bob and Joan first encounter him and ask, “who are you?”[1] The word ‘who’ sighnifies that his initial recognition is intrinsically subject to the assumption of personhood. The story says that as a social identity the boy is moved by the “powerful vehicle”[2] of ideology to naming, manners, school, orphanage, cave, and cobbling.

The story provides some definitions of Roger, from various angles by different people, but more importantly, it leaves Roger uncertain about the definition of himself. For Bob and Joan, he is “the little boy”[3], for the doctor “normal healthy boy”[4], for the Philosopher Royal “insane, paranoid”[5], for The Daily Scourge “the monster”[6], and for the princes “Ratty.”[7] Buckingham defines childhood as “the outcome of social and discursive processes,”[8] likewise, in I Was a Rat some contradictory definitions discursively engage in shaping Roger’s identity.

Through dissimilar definitions of Roger, the story reflects upon the idea of childhood as a social construction as well as its various aspects of biological determination as a child. Although Roger decides to be a cobbler, he still admits having “less trouble being a rat.”[9] This uncertainty implies that the story is to explore the further ontological question of ‘who am I?’ Roger’s childhood seems more complex than originally assumed, but when the story blends this complexity to eternal questions of being, it problematise the concept of the child even more.

Bibliography 

Buckingham, David. After the Death of Childhood: Growing Up in the Age of Electronic Media, Polity Press, Oxford, 2000.

Pullman, Philip, and Bailey, Peter, Illustrator. I Was a Rat: Or, The Scarlet Slippers. London: Doubleday. 1999.

Rudd, David. The Routledge Companion to Children's Literature. Florence: Routledge Companions. 2010.

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[1] Pullman, I Was a Rat, 2.

[2] Rudd, The Routledge Companion to Children's Literature, 192.

[3] Ibid., I Was a Rat, 8.

[4] Ibid., 32.

[5] Ibid., 63.

[6] Ibid., 143.

[7] Ibid., 196.

[8] Buckingham, After the Death of Childhood, 7.

[9] Ibid., I Was a Rat, 207.