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Blog Entry #10

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By: Erin Gillespie Cartoons I found this cartoon online and thought it was funny. In the cartoon, it shows three separate windows with three separate braids coming down with the caption “Rapunzel keeps her options open” implying that three different princes could climb up instead of just one. In the fairy tale, one prince is lucky enough to find the tower and climb up and meet the princess, although she is weary of the intruder at first, she ends up falling in love with him just because he’s the only other human she has seen in years and happens to be handsome. I think it’s an interesting idea though is what if he wasn’t handsome? What then? Maybe she could have three different choices to choose from. This cartoon puts a modern-day spin on relationships and dating connected to Rapunzel. Today, you don’t just fall in love with whoever climbs in you window, you explore different people and date around until you meet the right one. This cartoon illustrates that through Rapunzel. I th
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Blog Entry #6

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The Greek myth “Cupid and Psyche” came before “The Frog King” and even though they are extremely different, there are some similarities between the two. The first similarity is in the beginning of the story, they talk about the youngest daughter who is beautiful and loved by all. Another similarity is the parent figures. In “The Frog King” the king tells his daughter that she must keep her promise to the frog. In “Cupid and Psyche”, Psyche’s parents make her go to the mountain and await her fate. In both stories, both parents make their child do the right thing and own up to the consequences whether they be good or bad. Finally, the last similarity the share is a happy ending. Psyche finally becomes untied to cupid and the frog turns into a handsome prince. While the stories at heart are quite different, they still share some common similarities.
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Blog Entry #5

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Similarities between the Grimm tale and the Disney movie include the “Mirror, Mirror, On the wall…” phrase always stays the same along with the fact that the mirrors answer always reveals that Snow White is fairer than the queen. In both the movie and fairytale as well, the queen orders the huntsman to go and kill Snow White and, in both versions, he ends up killing a wild animal instead. When she gets to the cottage in both versions, the cottage is empty and she falls asleep their beds. When Snow White falls dead in both versions, she is placed in a glass coffin and the Prince and Snow-White end up marrying. Differences between the tales is in Grimm’s version, Snow White is actually the Queen’s biological daughter and in the Disney version, she is the Queen’s step-daughter. Another huge difference, is in the fairytale, the Queen tries on three separate occasions to kill Snow White whereas the Queen only tries to kill her once in the movie. A main reason Disney
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Blog Entry #9

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“The Robber Bridegroom”, “Fitcher’s Bird” and “Bluebeard” are all fairytales with similar storylines. In all of them, a young bride arrives to her husband or soon-to-be-husbands house. Where she then comes to discover that her husband has actually murdered many other women. But through her own cleverness, she is always able to escape and the husband ends up dead in the end. “Fitcher’s Bird” and “Bluebeard” are the most similar, as the young bride is given a set of keys to every room in the house and told that she can enter any room except one. But of course, temptation begets the best of her and she discovers the dead bodies of the former wives. She is shocked and drops the key in “Bluebeard” and the egg in the ‘Fitcher’s Bird” and it becomes stained with blood that marks her guilty. When her husband comes home and asks for the object back, he discovers it covered in blood and is enraged and wants to kill her. But this is where the stories divert. In “Bluebeard”, the
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Blog Entry #8

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A big change in between the MGM adaption of “Hansel and Gretel” and the Grimm Brothers version is the mother/stepmother. In the fairy tale, the stepmother tries to convince the father that they need to get rid of the children in order to survive. She keeps trying to get rid of them back taking them on walks in the forest, twice. In the story, she dies before the children return home from the gingerbread house and they end up living happily ever after with their father.   In the movie though, the mother gets angry at the children for leaving the donkey in the house and makes them go pick berries when they suddenly get lost. Upon discovering this in the movie, the mother becomes very concerned and feels guilty. But when they return home, she is ecstatic with relief and embraces them with love. And in the movie version, it’s the whole family that lives happily ever after.         Although, a similarity between both versions is that the witch is always evil, and the children are al
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Blog Entry #4

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The idea of “rags to riches” has been a central idea in America since the early beginning. People from all over the world would travel here to get a chance at the “American Dream”. The thought of working from the bottom to the top. In Cinderella she goes from rags to riches by magic and marriage. On the realistic side of things, I’m not sure quite how realistic reaching riches by magic in the real world is because it’s simply impossible. However, reaching riches by marriage is much more common  in today’s society . We call them ‘gold  diggers’ . You see it quite a lot in celebrities with young wives especially when the age gap is quite significant. Some rare cases can be done out of love but mostly it's for the money. The rich person usually goes along with it as well because they get something out of it such as some nice arm candy. I think people can most certainly reach success and riches by marriage but not by magic. In Cinderella’s case of course, she reached the success with t
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Blog Entry #3

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The  definition  of a fairy tale according to Stith Thompson is a “tale of some length involving a succession of motifs or episodes. It moves an unreal world wi thout definite creatures and is filled with the marvelous. In this never-never ending land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdom and marry princesses.” (The  Folktale, 8)    My  definition  of a fairytale must include a hero,  villain , conflict and magic. It must  include  a hero of some sort , because that is the point of a fairytale ,  to inspire hope.  Fairytales  are  an abstraction from reality. A cheerful and hopeful tale that lets you escape into a  fantasy  w orld.  A long with that, you must include a  villain   in order for  a hero to exist. The  villain's  job is to  cause  mayhem or a problem for the hero to solve.  In the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty, we see  Maleficent   as the  villain  who didn’t get invited to the  ceremony  celebrating the birth of Aurora. Which caused her to b
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