All right. It's time to do some catching up. I didn't get to do nearly as much reading this weekend as I had originally anticipated, but I can at least write about the stuff I have read. I thought Prof. Sexson's earlier comments about Arnold Friend and Prince Charming were very enlightening, especially when I looked at it through my own personal experience. Perhaps, we might reason, Arnold Friend is not the bad guy after all. Perhaps, as Prince Charming did, he has fallen for a beautiful girl and wants to free his lady love from the monotony and pain of her own life and bring her into a world where everything is brighter and beautiful. I am in no way suggesting that he did this—from the tone of the story I would say that it is not likely—but what if he had? What if he truly had Connie's best interest at heart? It gives food for thought. Perhaps, one could reason, it was only society that made him seem like the bad guy when he really wasn't. What if the evil stepmother had told Cinderella that the prince was up to no good, that she should stay away from him? Her rebellion might have been similar to Connie's then.
The Little Red Riding Hood series was interesting too. The disambiguation at the end found me quite boring, for I did not understand the superego and id and was quite confused by the explanation attempted by Red's Oedipal feelings for her father. The thing that bothered it the most was that someone was attempting to explain the story. I have always rather hated morals, and frequently skip over them—now I have some understanding of why. I do not want to be told what I should learn from the story. Instead, I would choose to learn what stands out to me the most, be it large or small. I did like the gradual change in the stories, though, from the wolf seeming to represent evil incarnate to becoming a part of human nature that we must battle against—or, as Anna the Matriarch did, embrace whole-heartedly, to throw ourselves into the world of darkness, sharp teeth, and warm blood spilling onto the snow. My personal favorite? One Beast and only one howls in the woods by night. This story directs us to parts of the tale we thought improbable. The huntsman and the wolf one and the same? It cannot be. And yet it is. And again we discover that the wolf is not as fierce as we once thought he was. All it takes is a little coaxing and he will curl up with the sweet lamb in his arms.
More updates to come as I have time.
No comments:
Post a Comment