The Use of Isolation in Two Fairy Tales
The social evolution from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Age altered the usage of reason in literature by instituting elements of imagination and mysticism. Likewise, the usages of certain concepts in literature can reflect social attitudes of the author’s environment. One such concept that is common to both Ludwig Tieck’s “Fair-Haired Eckbert” and Wilhelm Wackenroder’s “A Wondrous Oriental Fairy Tale of a Naked Saint” is the isolation of characters. Isolation, as the cause, or simply as an indicator, of suffering in these two literary fairy tales is a notion that is successfully used to dictate the spiritual fates of the characters in each story.
There are several manifestations of isolation as the cause of suffering in “Fair-Haired Eckbert”. The first manifestation is literally separation anxiety. Despite the fact that character interactions in this story only lead to trouble, the characters yearn for solidarity with one another. Subsequently, their isolation inevitably leads to misery. After running away from home, Bertha’s lonely voyage is filled with tears and is self-described as “utterly comfortless,” and she longs “but to see one [other] human creature” (33). Upon discovering the green valleys that imply potential cohabitants, Bertha claims, “my loneliness and helplessness no longer frightened me” and she is “joyfully surprised” (34) to see the old woman. Bertha overcomes the pains of isolation by living with the old woman; however, this relationship soon falls apart and Bertha once again runs away. Bertha voyages “amid tears and sobs” (39) and stumbles back upon her home town. After finding out her parents had passed away, Bertha “drew back quickly and left the village ...
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... strong religious overtones present in both texts. Isolation is utilized as a cause of suffering for the characters in Tieck’s “Fair-Haired Eckbert.” It serves as punishment for these characters as a result of bearing the burden of original sin, and thus conveys the pessimistic view of human spirituality as a downward spiral from the Garden of Eden. Conversely, in Wackenroder’s “A Wondrous Oriental Fairy Tale of a Naked Saint,” the concept of redemption from isolation (the indicator of suffering) represents the optimistic stance of human spirituality as ascension to Heaven. It follows that the dichotomy between isolation as an indicator or the cause of suffering in these two stories reflects the larger dichotomy between optimistic and pessimistic tones taken in Romantic literature, specifically those taken by Tieck and Wackenroder in these two literary fairy tales.
This story represents the suffering induced by the isolation. In the time period on which this history was reflected, it was socially tolerable for wives to be
Isobelle Carmody’s short story, “The Pumpkin-Eater”, portrays a middle eastern woman, a lone rider and former princess in the days of the crusades, retelling her story of her childhood living in a tower with her mother and maid, leaving to accept the engagement proposed by a prince, only to discover that in this, she is to be exchanging one prison for another. The discovery of self-reliance is seen through her leaving to take care of herself, to not be locked up and kept hidden away to preserve beauty. Foreshadowing of her journey is utilised through the drawing of tarot cards to set the story in motion. “I remember drawing the card of long journeying the year my firstblood came. The bird of my heart, caged for so long, beat its wings against my chest” The mention of her “firstblood”, a significant component to becoming a woman, as a normally hidden bodily function attends to the process of maturity, and the metaphor of the caged bird of her heart symbolises the anticipation and excitement to escape her tower prison to find love of her own. The drawing of this particular card acts as a catalyst to the protagonist’s story, providing reason for her to leave and start anew. The world the protagonist is confined to the tower, with her mother and her maid warning her from love, therefore, forming her basis of rebellion, challenging the views of the world seen through other’s eyes. “ ‘Was it love then?’
Everyone remembers the nasty villains that terrorize the happy people in fairy tales. Indeed, many of these fairy tales are defined by their clearly defined good and bad archetypes, using clichéd physical stereotypes. What is noteworthy is that these fairy tales are predominately either old themselves or based on stories of antiquity. Modern stories and epics do not offer these clear definitions; they force the reader to continually redefine the definitions of morality to the hero that is not fully good and the villain that is not so despicable. From Dante’s Inferno, through the winding mental visions in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, spiraling through the labyrinth in Kafka’s The Trial, and culminating in Joyce’s abstract realization of morality in “The Dead,” authors grapple with this development. In the literary progression to the modern world, the increasing abstraction of evil from its classic archetype to a foreign, supernatural entity without bounds or cure is strongly suggestive of the pugnacious assault on individualism in the face of literature’s dualistic, thematically oligopolistic heritage.
...n” is a great example of an old myth or tale reconstructed and adapted for a modern audience in a new medium. It is a progression on one hand in its use of modern language, setting, and style but it is also the product of the old myths in that it is essentially the same on the thematic level. In addition, the level of self-awareness on the part of the narrator and, by extension, the author marks it out as an illustration of the very notion of evolutionary changes of myths and fairy tales. Adaptation is the solution to the fairy tale, and fairy tales have been endlessly changing themselves throughout history and, by some strange transforming or enchanting power endlessly staying the same.”
Interpretations: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
Snow, Nancy. “Stem Cell Research New Frontiers in Sciences and Ethics”. Houston Community College Library. 2004. Print. 10 Nov 2011.
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