Folk and fairy tales have been an important aspect in cultures from all corners of the world. Not only do they provide entertainment but they also give insight into how values and morals differ or resemble one another despite differences in distance and time. Advisory tales of how satiating curiosity can be consequential are found in different and unalike cultures from across continents and different time periods. Although they all tell the same moral, the stories vary greatly from one another. The 17th century Bluebeard is infamous for its violence and gore, whilst the Tsuru no Ongaeshi from Japan is a stark contrast with its peaceful setting, and the Arabian nights tale of The History of Ajib is a fantastical mix of both. Although the morals are identical, each version is varied from one another at points and yet a universality is present within the subtle underlines of their narratives. Within each story, the protagonists find themselves bestowed upon fortune and luxury. In Bluebeard, when the young woman weds she moves into her husband’s extravagant house filled with fine furniture that all her friends envy; Tsuru no Ongaeshi has a young man graced with a beautiful crane wife who could weave breathtakingly beautiful silks; The History of Ajib is the …show more content…
They give insight into what values are shared and how people fabricate tales around them. The Japanese Tsuru no Ongaeshi is brief and melancholic, the French Bluebeard displays a violent and anti-feminist ideal to a woman’s disobedience, and the Middle Eastern The History of Ajib is a long, densely written narrative that exhibits a more complex handling of language and character. It is a mark of human ingenuity and human nature in how each civilisation has invented such divergent, yet not entirely dissimilar, tales that all revolve on the same
There were two men with the same name, who grew up in the same neighborhood, with different fates. One Wes Moore is in prison, and the other Wes Moore is an author and a decorated war vet. Wes 1 is the the author and war veteran, all the while Wes 2 is in prison for life. These two men grew up very near each other, but both men had different schools, different friends, and different living situations. Wes 1 had a great dad at the beginning of his life, but his dad passed away when he was 3 years old.
Amit Majmudar’s poem “Dothead” demonstrates the stigma that the speaker experienced—as well as what many foreigners still undergo—while living as a child in a different culture by utilizing figurative language and a shift in tone from descriptive to agitated. This poem begins with a discussion format to portray an expressive tone in which he tells both his grammar school peers and the reader what his mother’s “dot” truly is (1). Though the speaker sees this colorful mark as something beautiful, the speaker’s fellow classmates see the red dot as a figurative “Chernobyl baby” because it is so strange and unfamiliar to them (5). While this dot—more properly named a bindi—has a significant meaning that the speaker understands, the other schoolchildren are unaware of this knowledge and begin to laugh at the sight of such an absurd-looking object (11-12).
For generations, fairy tales have served as a source of wonder and horror in equal measure. For each moment of magical fantasy or romantic bliss, there is a terrifying monster or gruesome act of violence, and there are few monsters more terrifying than Bluebeard. On the surface, Bluebeard is the story of one man's gruesome test and the young girl who escapes the punishment of failing it, with a simple message of being careful with your curiosity. However, like all fairy tales, Bluebeard is a symbolic parable of larger, real-world ideas, specifically those dealing with obedience and gender politics. Bluebeard and his bride serve as representations of both the predator and the innocent, akin to the Grimm's tale of Little Red Riding Hood decades
In 2003, the motion picture, Kill Bill Volume 1, debuted in theaters. Set to a backdrop of bloodshed and violence, the film offers 112 minutes of savagery, as the main character attempts to get back at every person who has wronged her in the past four years. Kill Bill is only one of the many films in which violence is the number one attraction. “Kill or be killed,” seems to be the overarching motto, as millions of moviegoers flock into theaters each weekend to watch as characters fight to the death. In contrast, violence portrayed on the silver screen is no longer acceptable outside of the theater.
The world had it all against him, and he was born a burden. Well, this is what happened to Doodle from "The Scarlet Ibis" which James Hurst wrote. This story is about Doodle, a child that was born, and everybody thought he was going to die. During this story, Doodle’s brother wanted to kill him because he was a burden. He ended up not going through with it, and instead, he ended up trying to get his brother to do normal actions like walking and talking.
According to Martin Payne, narrative therapy encourages “richer, combined narratives to emerge from disparate descriptions” of experiences (Payne 7). The strong use of narrative in Half of a Yellow Sun is an essential aspect of the novel, with the narrative being interdependent on the mixture of many different stories being told by a variety of narrators. (De Mey 9). Adichie employs the intersections of these different narrative strategies within the novel as Ugwu writes the story of his experience of the Biafran War, while for Olanna; the narration of her traumas to Ugwu is central to being able to overcome its stifling affects. Through these characters’ experiences with narration, Adichie is able to illustrate its potentially therapeutic effect.
Many stereotypes of African culture have emerged due to western literature and media and first hand accounts of explorers. Things Fall Apart offers a view into the truth and reality of African cultures, which are often misconceptualized by these stereotypes. Acebe shows how African society functions well without assistance from foreign travelers. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe counters the imperialist stereotypes of Africa by keeping certain words in the Igbo language, as opposed to translating them into English, to fight back against the spreading western culture and to embrace their own way of life. He also counters the imperialist stereotypes of Africa by using Igbo proverbs to show how their culture values many of the same things that western
Mahfouz, as well as Said, shared a direct contact with the Arabian lifestyle because they grow up in that society. Mahfouz’s novel depicts the real world with the touches of the supernatural and mystic, but as a form of evil in the world not as exotic and uncivilized as the Europeans did. Mahfouz’s Arabian Nights and Days “takes new depths and insights as it picks up from where the ancient story ends” (Fayez 229). Mahfouz uses the Arabian Nights tales and Shahryar’s and Scheherazade’s society to portray the contemporary social and political issues of his people. Mahfouz aims to show various thematic concerns of the people of the East than the early versions left out.
Living Somewhere in Between Good and evil are present within every person one will encounter in his/her life. Is it better for to just solely focus on the good and live life blissfully ignorant, or to focus on just the bad and live life aware and depressed? Is it easier to focus on the bad in others and ignore its presence in oneself? Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays both of these situations in his stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil,” showing the reader that the world is not simply black and white. There is a grey, blended area for one to live in that allows him/her to live peaceful but not ignorant.
Many families have many traditions, but one tradition that is common among all households is that they read fairy tales to their children right before they put them to sleep. They do this to fill their minds with good positive thoughts and leave them with something to think about. Religion dictates the characteristics of familiar fairy tales as religion provides a moral and ethical framework for having a good life, an ideal goal parents want their children to have. On the whole, fairy tales are constantly changed to adhere to cultural or social beliefs that are deemed important by diverse people in a community.
Arab Open University Faculty of Language Studies Tutor Marked Assignment (TMA) EL121: The Short Story and Essay Writing Fall Semester 2015-2016 Part (I): STUDENT INFORMATION (to be completed by student) 1.
Princesses’ in Disney movies are tied down to a recurring theme: the princess that must be saved from the evil woman by the charming prince. A significant contrast to the usually weak and easily persuaded figure of the father. Even though the women are portrayed as weak, nobody stops to think how strong they have to be to carry the responsibility of an entire household on her shoulder, while the men always seem to be traveling or ill. Fairytales are based on a patriarchal way of thinking and as time passes by, it’s proven to be detrimental to society Women and men are constantly being bound to a series of stereotypes.
The single story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story to become the only story (Adichie:2009). In the speech with the same name, Adichie questions the ideas such as the potential of a single narrative to create stereotypes. Also, how the importance of bringing different several stories of representation to inform about the urgency of the search for knowledge, about the proper understanding of the 'other ' cultures not only about the West and European culture and literature.
Justyna Deszcz wrote an article based on Zipes’ political and socio-historical approach and added a variety of facts she had collected from many other authors and articles. Deszcz believes that the reason we have shifted into the submissive and “family-friendly” theme of fairy tales is because “the fairytale has been reduced to a mass-produced commodity, to be purchased and owned, and to bring in considerable profit. What is more, the fairytale is being used as a source and a vehicle of powerful self-mirroring images affirming the existing value system, and thus lulling audiences into passivity and compliance.” This point proves that the original thought of harsh realities needing to be exposed in story telling has converted to just being a profitable way to tell simple-minded children’s
The graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is an animated ‘identity crisis’ showing how she has trouble reconciling the Eastern and Western values that she has been influenced by. By ‘identity crisis’ I mean Marjane is uncertain about who she is and where she belongs to. The Eastern values would include hierarchy, restraint, collectivism and deference, whereas the Western values would include equality, freedom of expression, individualism and self-assertion. A graphic novel can be defined as a book containing a long story told mostly in pictures but with some writing. I intend to investigate why Satrapi has chosen to use the graphic novel instead of using other styles to present Marjane attempts to reconcile the different values and find