John Fowles, utilizes classic fairy tale as portrayed by other literary works to structure his narration in The Collector. He tells his version of a fairy tale by creating the characters of Clegg and Miranda to mirror Ferdinand and Miranda in The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, the Prince and Belle in Beauty and the Beast. The Collector and the aforementioned tales are similar not in the circumstances of the narrative, but the traditional dichotomy of captor and captive, good and evil, love and hate, that the characters of Clegg and Miranda portray. Fowles draws upon the classic Beauty and the Beast story of a delightful princess put in captivity by her malevolent admirer. He also infers a similarity to The Tempest: The protagonist is named Miranda and Clegg’s character sees himself as Ferdinand although his tendencies points more to a Caliban. According to Sherrill E. Grace, Fowles explored the Bluebeard tale and it influenced the dynamics of his writings. She states that “in reading Fowles and Atwood we court Bluebeards who continuously escape our reforming urges, in castles which are subtle verbal traps” (Grace 247). The theme of female imprisonment by a male which the Bluebeard story alludes, is adopted to narrate The Collector. Fowles retells and refines the Bluebeard story by structuring The Collector around characters with genuinely misshaped perspectives of good and bad and along these lines indicate a breakdown of the moral and social frameworks in the social order they depict.
In The Tempest, Prospero is the one who lives for the arts whereas, in Fowles’s novel, Miranda is the one dedicated to the arts. Clegg’s lust for power and control is depicted by the aristocrats in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Fowle...
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...or the character, Miranda, her tendencies of undaunted optimism and superiority best explain her reason for speaking to Clegg in fairy tale. As Zipes says, “old wonder tales” often portrayed the strife to overcome or to humanize the scary monsters that terrified individuals and societies (Zipes 1).
Works Cited
Cooper, Pamela. "The Fictions of John Fowles: Power, Creativity, Femininity." Hutcheon, Linda. Foreword. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1991. 241.
Fowles, John. The Collector. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc, 1963.
—. The Collector. Vintage. New York: Random House, 2010.
Grace, Sherrill E. "Courting Bluebeard with Bartók, Atwood, and Fowles: Modern Treatment of the Bluebeard Theme." Journal of Modern Literature , Vol. 11, No. 2 (1984): 245-262.
Zipes, Jack. When Dreams Came: True:Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition. New York: CRC Press, 1999.
Fairytales share similar themes in the manner in which they approach storytelling for the individual. In “The Great Fairy Tale Tradition”, Jack Zipes has selected and edited stories and categorized them by their respective themes, illustrating the different thematic elements found in each story. Every chapter includes a short introduction to the literary history of the selected stories and their themes. In the “Three Brother’s Who Become Wealthy Wandering the World”, “The Three Brothers”, and “The Four Skillful Brothers” each story explores the adventures and pursuits of brothers who venture into the outside world and are later faced with a test of skills in which they must prove their worth and courage. Although the three tales are incorporated into the thematic chapter of “Competitive Brothers” and share similar characteristics, there are contrasts between their respective stories.
Perkins, Geroge, and Barbara Perkins. The American Tradition in Literature. 12th ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
Hermansson, Casie E. (2009). Bluebeard: A Reader's Guide to the English Tradition. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi.
Perkins, George, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991. Print.
Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blond on Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. New York: Chatto & Windus, 1994. Print.
The simplicity of fairy tales and non-specific details renders them ideal for manipulation allowing writers to add their own comments often reflecting social convention and ideology. Theref...
Through his portrayal of characters and unorthodox style of writing throughout the fairy tale, Goldman pokes fun at the literary process and ordinary fairy tales. Through his fairy tale, The Princess Bride, Goldman ridicules numerous tropes of fairy tales and simultaneously critiques overdone expositions. Every character represents an archetype of a common fairy tale, but they all have glaring flaws that directly contradict how they are supposed to act. William Goldman sets forth his satirical theme that the literary industry’s rigid rules reflect its inability to adapt in an ever changing society.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
“The fairy tale, which to this day is the first tutor of children because it was once the first tutor of mankind, secretly lives on in the story. The first true storyteller is, and will continue to be, the teller of fairy tales. Whenever good counsel was at a premium, the fairy tale had it, and where the need was greatest, its aid was nearest. This need was created by myth. The fairy tale tells us of the earliest arrangements that mankind made to shake off the nightmare which myth had placed upon its chest.”(Walter Benjamin). For generations fairy tales have brought happiness to hundreds of people. Through childhood to adults, people still enjoy the mysteries of fairytales. In society, fairytales are a great way of connecting
The fairy tales that we have become so familiar with are embedded with love, imagination and enchantment. In truth, these are just common archetypes; originally fairy tales had a much darker backdrop. They were once symbols of sexualisation and brutality as not everything ended happily ever after. Deriving from promiscuous and overlooked on goings from the 19th century (such as molestation), these ideas were later suppressed when they became children’s tales. John Updike described traditional fairy tales as ‘The pornography of their day’, hence they contained elements of wish-fulfilment and gratification such as rape, pleasure and attainment. This is true to a certain extent but they also consisted of violence, mutiny and injustice. An exploration
Zipes, Jack, Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tale (London: Heinemann, 1979).
Lüthe, Max. Once Upon a Time on the Nature of Fairy Tales. New York: Ungar, 1970.
Fairy tales have been a big part of learning and childhood for many of us. They may seem childish to us, but they are full of life lessons and intelligent turnings. Components of fairy tales may even include violence, but always with the aim to provide a moral to the story. Hansel and Gretel is in itself a very interesting story to analyze. It demonstrates the way that children should not stray too far from their benchmarks and rely on appearances. In 2013, a film adaptation was produced. This film is produced for an older public and has picked up the story to turn it into a more mature and violent version. Hansel and Gretel is a German fairy tale written by the Grimm Brothers which has undergone several changes over the years and across the cultures which it touched, but for the purposes of this essay, I will stick to the original story. In the development of this essay, I will analyze the components of this tale by the Brothers Grimm based on the factors listed in the course syllabus (violence, interpersonal relationships, the function of magic and the ending), and I will then do a summary and comparison between the story and the film which was released in theaters recently.
Zipes, Jack. Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.
Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” is a twisted and broken fairytale.* Although this short story does embody some elements of fantasy, there is not merely enough evidence to support the claim that it is in fact a “ modern fairytale.” Fairytales often include themes such as enchantment, which is shown when the main character dreams, but is this really such an enchanting thing? Another theme found in fairytales is an encounter with the main struggle, in “The Necklace,” the main character also comes to face with a challenge, but this challenge does not accurately fit the characteristics of an encounter. A third example of an element of a fairytale is the presence of a weak male figure. In this case, there is a weak man but he does not remain weak throughout the story. One final characteristic of a fairytale is the journey that is taken, in “The Necklace,” the main character does take certain steps, but are these steps really considered a ‘journey’? As will be learned, none of these elements found in fairytales truly conform to “The Necklace,” therefore not making it a “modern fairytale.”+