Comments on: Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child http://shootthemoose.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/sometimes-i-feel-like-a-motherless-child/ Smart is easy. Good is Hard. Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:34:11 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Katherine Coble http://shootthemoose.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/sometimes-i-feel-like-a-motherless-child/#comment-9521 Katherine Coble Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:21:52 +0000 http://shootthemoose.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/sometimes-i-feel-like-a-motherless-child/#comment-9521 <i>Smarter people than me could try to explain why the mothers all die in fairy tales,</i> There are many ways to interpret fairy tales. Depending on which of a half-dozen Rosetta Stones you use, you will get a different answer. <i>Psychosexual</i> In the Freudian interpretation (See Bruno Bettelheim), the death of the mother represents the protagonist's awakening into sexual awareness. <i>Historical</i> For hundreds of years it was deemed that the mother was the true caregiver of the child. Fathers brought home food and mothers cooked it. The mother was also the nuturer who saw that the child got to school, got their chores done and even got a spouse when the time was right. The loss of the mother represents the protagonist's utter alone-ness and need to face the challenges in the world. <i>Literary</i> Most fairy tales are a thumbnail view of the Hero's Journey. The quickest way to get a hero off the ground is to kick him out of the nest and remove anyone who would keep the hero locked in the normalverse. Can you imagine Frodo's mommy insisting that he stay in the shire? The Greeks kept the mother around, because in most Hero stories from Greece the mother was the human half of the hero. Saving her and/or her honour was the highest aspiration of the Greek. As sexual mores changed, other societies found it simpler to kill off the mother. <i>Feminist</i> You've accidentally, I presume, stumbled across one of the Feminist interpreters of Fairy Tales. A fairly new form of FT analysis, Feminist deconstructors have been around for several decades. <i>Folklorist</i> These folks attempt to use fairy tales as a key to deciphering the folkways of the society where the story originated. <i>Structural</i> Like Music Theorists, structural analysts of the fairy tale attempt to discern overall meaning by analysing the patterns. Fairy tales are very similar to one another, yet very different from other narratives in some key ways. I'm so glad the dozen and a half college hours I have in Fairy Tale analysis can be put to good use somewhere. ;-p I'd provide sources, because I have about a half dozen for each point, but i don't want Akismet to eat my post. The short of the long is that those feminist criticisms you link to are nothing new at all in the world of fairy tale analysis, but they're not the be-all and end-all, either. Smarter people than me could try to explain why the mothers all die in fairy tales,

There are many ways to interpret fairy tales. Depending on which of a half-dozen Rosetta Stones you use, you will get a different answer.

Psychosexual
In the Freudian interpretation (See Bruno Bettelheim), the death of the mother represents the protagonist’s awakening into sexual awareness.

Historical
For hundreds of years it was deemed that the mother was the true caregiver of the child. Fathers brought home food and mothers cooked it. The mother was also the nuturer who saw that the child got to school, got their chores done and even got a spouse when the time was right. The loss of the mother represents the protagonist’s utter alone-ness and need to face the challenges in the world.

Literary
Most fairy tales are a thumbnail view of the Hero’s Journey. The quickest way to get a hero off the ground is to kick him out of the nest and remove anyone who would keep the hero locked in the normalverse. Can you imagine Frodo’s mommy insisting that he stay in the shire?
The Greeks kept the mother around, because in most Hero stories from Greece the mother was the human half of the hero. Saving her and/or her honour was the highest aspiration of the Greek. As sexual mores changed, other societies found it simpler to kill off the mother.

Feminist
You’ve accidentally, I presume, stumbled across one of the Feminist interpreters of Fairy Tales. A fairly new form of FT analysis, Feminist deconstructors have been around for several decades.

Folklorist
These folks attempt to use fairy tales as a key to deciphering the folkways of the society where the story originated.

Structural

Like Music Theorists, structural analysts of the fairy tale attempt to discern overall meaning by analysing the patterns. Fairy tales are very similar to one another, yet very different from other narratives in some key ways.

I’m so glad the dozen and a half college hours I have in Fairy Tale analysis can be put to good use somewhere. ;-p

I’d provide sources, because I have about a half dozen for each point, but i don’t want Akismet to eat my post.

The short of the long is that those feminist criticisms you link to are nothing new at all in the world of fairy tale analysis, but they’re not the be-all and end-all, either.

]]> By: nm http://shootthemoose.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/sometimes-i-feel-like-a-motherless-child/#comment-9520 nm Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:43:12 +0000 http://shootthemoose.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/sometimes-i-feel-like-a-motherless-child/#comment-9520 OK, then, a little backing up for you: take a look at Diane Owen Hughes's "From Bride Price to Dowry in Mediterranean Europe," or Christiane Klapisch-Zuber's classic article, "The Cruel Mother: Motherhood, Widowhood, and Dowry in Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century Florence." Feminist theory didn't invent patriarchy, it just helps to explain why it works the way it does. Or would you complain about people designing catapults before Newton had come up with the formula to explain the theory of gravity? OK, then, a little backing up for you: take a look at Diane Owen Hughes’s “From Bride Price to Dowry in Mediterranean Europe,” or Christiane Klapisch-Zuber’s classic article, “The Cruel Mother: Motherhood, Widowhood, and Dowry in Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century Florence.” Feminist theory didn’t invent patriarchy, it just helps to explain why it works the way it does. Or would you complain about people designing catapults before Newton had come up with the formula to explain the theory of gravity?

]]> By: Busy Mom http://shootthemoose.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/sometimes-i-feel-like-a-motherless-child/#comment-9519 Busy Mom Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:02:22 +0000 http://shootthemoose.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/sometimes-i-feel-like-a-motherless-child/#comment-9519 <blockquote>(hello? not everything is political. In fact, few things that matter in life are). </blockquote> I want that on a t-shirt.

(hello? not everything is political. In fact, few things that matter in life are).

I want that on a t-shirt.

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