Female Cannibalism in Folk & Fairy Tales

Folk & Fairy Tales includes a collection of fairy tales recorded by different people at different times. In reading different versions of the same tale, readers can track the variations that exist across all of the selections. These variations offer some insight into the audience reading the tales and their expectations. At the same time, the changes also say something about the values of those responsible for recording the tales. It is interesting to witness which elements are altered and which are kept the same. For instance, the Grimms’ tales tend to be less violent in nature than their predecessors. In the Grimms’ Little Red Cap, the wolf devours LRRH but a hunter, who happens to pass by the cottage, ultimately saves her, allowing for a “happy ending.” However, in Charles Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood, published over a hundred years earlier, the wolf devours LRRH and the tale ends on this harsh instance of death. Why do these stark differences exist? Folk & Fairy Tales draws some awareness to such variations. The Grimm brothers, as opposed to Perrault, were writing to a child-centered audience: “the Grimms endeavored to select and edit [the tales] with desirable educational principles in mind” (23). Thus, the Grimms’ tales are less harsh in nature and appear to be more lighthearted. Perrault, however, catered to a French elitist society; the elements in his tales reflect on that society. For instance, in Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood, we are told that the “pretty little girl” wears a “red hood like the ones that fine ladies wear when they go riding” (26). Clearly, he is addressing the “pretty little girls” in 18^th century French elitist society.

One interesting variation that exists across the tales revolves around the issue of cannibalism. I am especially interested in how Perrault chooses to keep this element in some of his tales and then omit it in others. In some of the older tales of LRRH, the wolf, dressed as the grandmother, fools LRRH into eating her grandmother’s flesh and drinking her blood. In Perrault’s version, however, this instance of cannibalism does not exist. In “Tales at the Borders,” Tracy Willard says, “Revisions are instructive as they show, in this case, the evolution of meaning and importance of the maternal cannibal figure” (Willard).

Willard argues that the reason Perrault leaves out the cannibalism perpetuated by the child is not simply because his audience is the French Royal Court and that cannibalistic nature of the old LRRH tale is “crude,” but rather because of “the context in which the cannibalism occurs.” The innocent and good female character who eats her grandmother’s flesh and drinks her blood “endangers the clearly set boundaries of expected and appropriate behavior…The well-loved and pretty (desirable) Little Red should not count cannibalism among her charms; it would make her too dangerous (and empowered).” While I agree that it is important to consider the context in which the cannibalism occurs, I am interested in learning how Willard defines “dangerous” in this context. Is LRRH dangerous because she simply “endangers” traditional roles for women, or is she dangerous because her deviation from standard roles threatens male desire? I think it is less about maintaining “appropriate behavior” and more about catering to the desires of the male audience, especially since other tales by Perrault do in fact include cannibalistic females. Omitting this detail from LRRH also exposes the aesthetic tastes of Perrault’s audience. I think that Perrault’s decision not to include cannibalism in LRRH is not simply because the French Court will find it crude but because LRRH will no longer be a desired body for which the male can “devour.” Instead, cannibalism is a trait attributed to female characters who have lost their desirability, unlike the youthful and innocent LRRH.
          This concept becomes clearer as you read Perrault’s other versions of classic fairy tales. For instance, in The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood it is the prince’s mother who is the cannibal. When the prince leaves for the battlefield, his mother, who is now a widow, decides to eat her grandchildren, Dawn and Day. The context in which this cannibalism exists requires investigation. The queen comes from ogre decent, and although ogres have the reputation of eating children, we are never told that the queen has actually eaten a child. It is only after her husband dies and she is left without a patriarchal counterpart that she is exposed as a cannibal. She is also older in age, unlike Sleeping Beauty. This, paired with her new position as an unmarried woman lacking an authoritative male figure in her life, makes her the perfect candidate for cannibalistic tendencies. Attributing cannibalistic tendencies on an already undesirable, flawed character will not shock the audience; instead, it is a safe maneuver. However, giving LRRH, a desirable body, that same tendency is a challenge to male desire and thus, Perrault omits this from his tale. Interestingly enough, by the end of The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, when the queen has made her cannibalistic desires obvious, Perrault refers to her as “the ogress” and not the queen (Folk & Fairy Tales 59). We know that the queen’s appeal was in her economic power alone. We are told the king “married her only because she was very, very rich” (57). In the end, before her ultimate death, she is stripped of her title and thus, her power, and any appeal she may have had. It is safe then to rid of her character entirely because she is essentially “useless.” So, in the end, the queen’s desire to eat is thrown back at her as the prince, who has now returned from war, orders that his mother is thrown into the vat, “head-first,” and is “devoured” by “vile beats.”

Hallet, Martin, and Barbara Karasek. Folk & Fairy Tales. 4^th edition. Ontario: Broadview, 2011. Print.

Willard, Tracy. “Tales at the Borders: Fairy Tales and Maternal Cannibalism.” Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture Online – Only Journal 2.2 (2002): n. pag. Web.

"Truth" in Travel Narratives: Drawing on The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

We read several travel narratives this semester, including Aphra Behn’s Oronooko, Lady Mary’s The Turkish Embassy Letters, and finally, Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative. A topic that we debated across all of these texts is whether the authors have given true accounts of what they experienced.

It is interesting to me how the genre of a piece of work influences how an audience receives it.  Because these works are regarded as travel narratives, readers expect truth from them. I can understand why authors would choose this genre. By attaching “truth” to the work, an author might be able to influence readers more easily. This is especially clear in Equiano’s case, where he writes his narrative in order to encourage abolition amongst an English audience. Not only do readers expect truth, but also closely inspect the text, examining its minute details, in order to determine just how much of it is factual and how much of it is fiction. I wonder if this sort of reading strays away from giving the text the attention it deserves. I also wonder how different our reading might be if these texts were not advertised as travel narratives, or “histories” like in Aphra Behn’s case. My interest, and concern, is in reading a work for the sole purpose of dissecting it in order to determine how much of it is valid.

I located an article titled “Facts into Fiction: Equiano’s Narrative Reconsidered” by S.E. Ogude, a scholar in African literature, who views Equiano’s Narrative as being largely fictional.  Ogude makes a fascinating distinction between the narrator Equiano and the commentator Equiano, referring to them as two different characters. Ogude says, “The narrator tends to be fictional in his accounts, while the commentator shows evidence of the historical man” (Ogude 31). Ogude essentially claims, “much to [his] disappointment,” that most of the “facts” in Equiano’s narrative were collected from his readings of travel literature (33). Ogude doubts that Equiano, kidnapped at the age of 10, would have such a clear and detailed memory of the life and customs of his people in Africa. Ogude writes, “Equiano’s geography is directly derived from eighteenth century geography of Africa as it was then conceived by European writers” (33). Several scholars have examined Equiano’s Narrative in similar fashion to Ogude, (refer to our secondary reading of John Bugg’s discussion of Vincent Carretta’s claim that Equiano was actually born in South Carolina, not Africa).

My question is, does it really matter? If Equiano was indeed born in South Carolina, does the value of his experience diminish? Equiano is a voice for silenced slaves; his story is indicative of the struggle that all slaves were subject to. If he had the opportunity to draw awareness to a revolting and inhumane institution, possibly resulting in an increase of abolitionists, why not craft a fictional story? No doubt, there is still truth in fiction! We read plenty of fictional novels and regard the concepts, experiences, characters, etc., as mirrors of true human experience. Why should the genre of a text eradicate the value of an experience?

Personally, I am more interested in what the author has written and not whether what she/he has written actually happened. If readers are skeptical of a text’s validity, instead of tying the book to a chair and beating the “truth” out of it, I think it is more beneficial that they question why the author decided to sell the story in that genre. Then we might understand the text from a broader and more important context.

Interestingly enough, as I was writing this blog entry, I decided to check Facebook (that’s not the interesting part). At the top of the page was a photo submitted by HONY (Humans of New York) that showcases a woman reading a Maya Angelou novel. The caption reads: "I tend to be cynical about a lot of things, but Maya Angelou is somebody that no matter how much I pick her apart, she still has integrity. She was a victim of incest and rape, and she worked as a stripper. And now she's a literary icon and Nobel Laureate. It goes to show that life is cumulative, and you can't devalue any type of experience." 

Way too relevant! Interesting timing, too. I had to share : )

Ogude, S. E. "Facts into Fiction: Equiano's Narrative Reconsidered." Research in African Literatures 13.1 (1982): 31-43.

Final Project Prospectus - Lady Mary's Travel Blog

Melanie and I are interested in working with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s The Turkish Embassy Letters. We thought of ways we could bring her experience “to life” for a 21^st century reader. Lady Mary recorded her experiences and later crafted these recordings into epistles. We decided we will have Lady Mary blog and tweet her experiences as if she was traveling in the 21st century. This is why we decided that our digital project would mostly consist of a travel blog and that we would experiment with various medias, like Twitter, YouTube, and Google maps, to track Lady Mary’s travels to and in Turkey. We will use a 21^st century “voice” while making sure that all the facts and details remain true to the letters.

In the travel blog, we will devote a small portion to blogging Lady Mary’s travels in Europe before she arrives in Turkey. The rest of the blogs will be detailed accounts of her adventures in Turkey. In these blogs, we will add links to any images, music samples, information, etc., that Lady Mary references so that readers can see and hear what Lady Mary would have experienced herself. The blogs will be “reflections” of Lady Mary’s trip, whereas Twitter will be more of an “in the moment” experience. We will be using the letters in the edition we’ve been reading for class.

We feel that this project is necessary because from a 21^st century reader’s perspective, it’s difficult to comprehend an 18^th century experience without understanding the references being made. We know that Lady Mary traveled around a lot, so we want to track where she traveled, which places she visits, the people she meets, the music she hears, the food she eats, the art she sees, etc., in order to visualize her travels. When we visualize Lady Mary’s travels within a 21^st century medium, we’re allowing her experiences to come to life in the way that we would understand traveling today. Our project then might bring light to an experience that has been only read in the past, and not “experienced” interactively. This is why we think this project is uniquely suited for an Internet environment. The English discipline is headed towards a very digital future, and the way we are reading today is different from how we have read in the past. We hope that by bringing Lady Mary’s experience to “life” in a way that 21^st century readers would understand it, we draw awareness to the fact that 18^th century novels were also forms of experience for contemporary readers. Lady Mary’s record of her travels is equivalent to the 21^st century travel blog.

We’ve done some research and we couldn’t find anything similar to our project. We couldn’t even find a Lady Mary literary profile on Twitter…except someone apparently named their cat after Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and created a Twitter account for her – and she is now following us on Twitter. We’re still angry at the cat for taking our username!

Please see Melanie’s blog post for more information on this project! :) 

The Epistolary Form and the Act of Copying in Francis Burney's Evelina

Since our last class meeting, I became more interested in the epistolary form of Evelina. We wondered why Francis Burney’s Evelina is an epistolary novel and whether telling a story in letters implies the story is more truthful. Nonetheless, the letterform is an art form. There are many instances in Evelina that reveal epistolary writing as a craft, but I am especially interested in the act of “copying.”

There is a moment in the novel where Evelina admits to “copying” a note into one of her letters. In letter XXVII, Evelina inserts a note written to her by Lord Orville. The act of “copying” begs some attention. I think it calls forth the idea that writing is a craft, and even letter writing is an art form driven by intention and conscious choices. Evelina admits to copying Lord Orville’s words into the letter herself: “What a letter! how has my proud heart swelled every line I have copied!” (214). Perhaps I am influenced by my own 21^st century bias when I say that the act of copying is not an act I necessarily trust. I don’t think it’s because I feel that Evelina is a deceitful character, but because I can’t assume that what Evelina has copied is what was actually there. She admits that her “heart swelled” as she copied every line, which makes me question whether her excitement hindered her from possibly “copying” correctly.

Whether Evelina really copied Lord Orville’s note as he had written it (if he had written one at all) or not, seems less important to me than the actual act of copying. The act of copying throws me out of this mindset where I assume that letters are indeed reflections of interiority and thus, reflections of truth and instead, draws awareness to the craft of letter writing. This in turn puts Evelina in a position of authority because she is a conscious character, making authorial decisions and moving the plot forward.

I think that 18^th century novels, and especially those we have read this semester, have complicated my notion of “truth.” If we think back to Lady Mary’s letters, for example, we know that the letters she writes to friends and family back home were just notes she recorded from her experiences that she later turned into epistles. The events occurred, but how Lady Mary or Evelina choose to craft the events seem more important to me than the events themselves.