From the Archives: Marina Warner on the Silence of Women in Fairy Tales

Fairy tales are often accused of portraying negative female stereotypes, encouraging young girls to become passive and silent and obedient to men. 

In one sense this is true-when men such as the brothers Grimm collected fairy tales, they tended not to include stories which existed in folklore that featured strong, clever female heroines, and instead gravitated (however consciously) towards stories with active males and passive females. Not only that, but as Marina Warner cites from Ruth Bottigheimer's analysis of speech patterns in the Grimms, as the Grimms published their later editions, the female heroines used less and less words and the female villains spoke more. Thus girls tend to subconsciously receive the message that to be good and desirable like the female heroines in the stories, they must be quiet.

There are two famous examples of females who aren't simply reserved, but are completely unable to speak--Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid, and the sister from "The Wild Swans" and its variants. 

The Little Mermaid stands in direct contrast to the sea maidens of antiquity, the sirens. Sirens used their voices, beautiful and alluring, to draw men to them and cause their death. Their voices are therefore powerful, and evil. The Little Mermaid gives up her voice willingly for the chance to win the love of a prince and her immortal soul. Now the desire is hers, but it is she who is forsaken. 

The Disney version makes Ariel, in Warner's words, "a fairytale heroine of our time." She knows what she wants (another word count fun fact-the word "want" is spoken by Ariel more than any other verb) and will go through anything to get it, but this time hers is a happy ending. But in this version, according to Warner, "female eloquence, the siren's song, is not presented as fatal any longer, unless it rises in the wrong place and is aimed at the wrong target." The female voice is now powerful like the siren's, but not inherently evil.

The sister in the Wild Swans is silent by choice (in a way)--if she speaks one word before the shirts of nettles are made and placed on her enchanted brothers, they will stay swans forever. In one sense, this can be seen as yet another example of encouraging women to be quiet and submissive, but although she is rewarded for enduring, the silence is clearly meant as a hardship--the happy ending includes a return of her voice. Other tales have forms of silenced heroines as well, such as the heroine from Goose Girl, who gave her word (under pressure) not to tell the truth of her situation to a living being--but she is able to find a clever way for her to reveal the truth anyway.

It's possible that, as women throughout the centuries were frustrated at their own lack of voice within the community and family, they told stories such as "Wild Swans" to express their own frustration. Yet there is also something to be admired in the self control and determination of the heroines. This is Warner's personal memories of reading the Wild Swans, one of her favorite childhood stories: "it still seemed to me to tell a story of female heroism, generosity, staunchness; I had no brothers, but I fantasized, at night, as I waited to go to sleep, that I had, perhaps even as many tall and handsome youths as the girl in the story, and that I would do something magnificent for them that would make them realize I was one of them, as it were, their equal in courage and determination and grace". The actions of the sister are indeed impressive-there are different forms of heroism, not all that are as easy to recognize. 

Fortunately, we are not as constrained by the severe gender expectations of the Victorian times, but that doesn't mean these stories or even these particular versions have to be thrown out and completely replaced with new "girl power" tales. There are times when we all feel silenced-we don't feel like our opinions are being taken seriously at work, we feel overlooked in a certain relationship, etc.--and even today people of many races, faiths, and sexual orientation are still being denied basic rights. It can be encouraging to read stories that give us hope that there will come a time when we will be able to speak again and the truth will be revealed.

Illustrations of Little Mermaid by Margaret Tarrant, Six Swans by Elenore Abbott
Information from Marina Warner's From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers

Basile's The Seven Doves

The "Wild Swans" tale type, mostly known now through the stories of Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimms, has an older literary precedent in Basile's "The Seven Doves" (1634-6).

Adam of Fairy Tale Fandom had done a post not too long ago on Basile's Tale of Tales and how they are much cruder than fairy tale versions we're usually familiar with, which is certainly true (for example, at one point in this tale a cat doesn't just put out a fire, it pisses on the fire to put it out). But I never really realized how Basile is often very funny, in his specific yet delightful imagery. Some of my favorite examples:

   -The tale opens: "Once upon a time...there was a good woman who gave birth to a son every year so that, when the number reached seven, the boys resembled the flute of Pan with seven holes each a little bigger than the next. As soon as the sons had grown and lost their first set of ears..." (Zipes notes that this implies that children lose sets of ears like they do teeth)

   -"Finally, one morning, when the sun was using his penknife to scratch out the mistakes that the night had made on heaven's papers..."

   -[the heroine] "felt like a plucked quail for the mistake she had made"

   -"...the sea was beating the rocks with the stick of the waves because they did not want to do the Latin homework that had been assigned them"

   -"she arrived at the foot of a killjoy mountain that poked its head through the clouds just to annoy them"

Basile seemed to have an imaginative, almost childlike way in which he viewed the world with humor and personification.

The tale itself begins with the seven brothers demanding that their mother, who is again pregnant (Heaven help her), give birth to a girl this time, or else they will leave. This element of the tale always perplexes me-in the Grimms' "Twelve Brothers," they changed their original plot in which the King threatens to kill his wife is she gives birth to a girl, to the King desiring a daughter and threatening to kill his sons if he doesn't get one. And here we see the brothers themselves determined not to have an eighth boy. I'm not sure what the intention of each author was in each of those strange and sad scenarios, but I'm beginning to wonder, given the extremity of each threat and how different each one is, if maybe this scene could represent the foolishness of putting pressure on a woman to give birth to any gender?

Anyway, the mother does give birth to a girl, but it's the midwife who was distracted and gave the boys the wrong signal, so they left. As the girl grew up, she demanded to go find news of her brother, and went on a journey. She finally found her brothers, who had taken up residence with an ogre who was friendly towards them, but hated women, since a woman had blinded him. So they put her in a room and instructed her to never show herself to the ogre.

Yet, one day, her fire was put out by her cat companion since she didn't share half of a nut that she ate with it (she usually gave it exactly half of all of her food), and she went to ask the ogre for fire. When she realized the ogre was going to harm her, she barricaded herself in her room, and when the brothers returned, they shoved the ogre into a pit, where he died. They scolded their sister for neglecting her instructions, and told her never to gather grass near the spot where the ogre was buried, or else they would be turned into doves.

But of course...one day the sister, Cianna, came across an injured man, and used rosemary from that spot to make him a healing salve. The brothers-turned-doves came and berated her, going on and on about how foolish she had been and how there was no hope for them unless she found the Mother of Time.

So Cianna went on another journey, this time to find the Mother of Time. She came across many creatures who all pointed her in the right direction, if in turn she would ask a favor of the Mother of Time for them-a whale, a mouse, an army of ants, and an oak tree. Eventually she came across the same man she had helped with the rosemary from the ogre's resting place, who gave her final instructions and then decayed away as soon as he told her everything she needed to know.

This time Cianna followed the instructions perfectly, although the Mother of Time tried to deceive her. She received an answer for all of the friends who helped her along her journey as well as the solution for her brothers to regain their human form-they must "make their nest on the column of wealth," which they unintentionally did anyway when they landed on the horn of an ox, since the horn, Basile tells us, is a symbol of plenty.

From there they journeyed backwards. The oak told them to take the gold treasure that was buried underneath him in thanks, but theives took their gold and tied them all up. The other animals all helped rescue the siblings and get them their treasure and to safety.

Although on the surface, the tale seems to have a strong message about Cianna learning to follow instructions, the plot seems to contradict this a bit. And frankly, just reading the tale, there are so many sets of specific instructions she gets, it's almost tiring to read them. If she hadn't showed herself to the ogre the brothers wouldn't have become the lords of his castle (and she would never have been free). And the old man she helped heal with the rosemary was instrumental in freeing her brothers later, although that was helping to solve the problem she created by helping him-but clearly compassion was credited to her as a virtue and not a weakness, both in her desire to help him and then all of the other creatures who repaid them with help. In fact, the story ends: "Thanks to Cianna's goodness, they enjoyed a happy life proving the truth of the old proverb: Good things happen to those who forget the good they've done."

The text of this tale can be found in Jack Zipes' The Great Fairy Tale Tradition. There is an online text at Surlalune although some of the translation is different

Illustrations-Giambattista Basile (from wikipedia); "The Seven Doves," Warwick Goble

Artist Feature: Anna and Elena Balbusso

Enjoy some beautiful artwork by sisters Anna and Elena Balbusso:

Ekaterina and the Firebird

"The Too-clever Fox"

Wild Swans

The Nutcracker

Men Who Wish to Drown

Fairy Tale Fashion: Swan Maidens

One of the things I love about my new obsession, the book Fairy Tale Fashion by Colleen Hill, is that not only does she discuss some of the obvious fairy tales with fashion connections (Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood), but some lesser knowns, especially ones that I wouldn't have necessarily thought of in terms of clothing being significant. She has sections on Diamonds and Toads, Snow Queen, and Swan Maidens.

There are countless variations of Swan Maiden tales (and some other related mermaid tales)-stories about an enchanted maiden who takes off her swan feathers and becomes human, only to have a man steal that feather dress and take her as his wife. After years go by, one of her children eventually finds the feather dress, and their mother takes it and returns to her swan form and leaves. Different tales have various endings at this point-sometimes she just never comes back, other times her husband searches for her and gets her back.

Obviously, the dress of feathers is a central part of this fairy tale. It has the power to change her form, which in turn influences where she lives and with whom.

Mikhail Vrubel, The Swan Princess, 1900

Some tales tell not of enchanted female swans, but males, whose sisters must undergo trials to bring them back to their original form. One thing I never noticed before was how, in the most commonly known versions of these stories, they all seem to emphasize the burden of making clothes.

In both the Grimms' "Six Swans" and Andersen's similar "Wild Swans," the sister must fulfill two things in order to bring her brothers back: maintain silence, and make them each enchanted shirts. In "Six Swans," the process is a little more idealized; she must make them out of the fictional starflowers, but she spends six years laboring over those shirts for her six brothers. Interestingly, the curse was achieved when their stepmother threw enchanted white shirts over each of them. I this case, clothing was the key to both cursing and restoring their rightful human forms.

"The Wild Swans", Gordon Robinson

In "Wild Swans," the process is described even more painfully, for Elisa must make her brothers' shirts from fabric made from stinging nettles. The painful nettles give her hands blisters.

Interestingly, Joseph Jacobs' "Swan Maidens", although it belongs to the first tale type mentioned, hints at this burden of clothes making as well. After the swan wife has resumed her form, her husband seeks her out, and is told he can only get her back if he can identify his wife from among a group of identical sisters. He touches each of their hands, and knows his wife by the indentation of a needle on her forefinger, caused by making clothes for their children. The very act of clothing a family leaves its mark on a woman.

Catlait

Jacobs' tale is a little more ambiguous. Given that his wife immediately returned to the sea upon finding her swan feathers, one wonders if returning to her human life is really a happy ending for her. Her husband stole her feathers, and also used trickery to steal enchanted objects in order to find her again, so he isn't exactly a flawless character. As Hill points out, the fact that the swan maiden is willing to leave her children "may be unfathomable to many readers," but for all we know she could have had children in her former life too-in some related tales it's her former lover that she wants to return to. Her husband apparently gives no thought to her past, and clearly not to her wishes on the matter.

These tales, while bittersweet, are really powerful tales with modern feminist messages: women are more than just means to produce children and clothing for their husbands. They often have their own hopes and dreams and longings. The life of a wife and mother, whether it's wanted or unwanted, is quite painful-from bearing children, to all the tasks involved with raising the family.

Anna and Elena Balbusso

When I imagine what it might have been like to live as a woman in pre-industrial society, I often think of the cooking and cleaning, which can be a burden even now, and even more so before modern conveniences. But I rarely even think of how difficult the task of making clothing would have been. Women would often have done the whole process themselves-from making the fabric, to sewing the clothes together. Tales that address spinning really all serve to point out how unwanted the chore was, and these swan tales make us sympathize with the time and discomfort it took to make the clothes.

And although modern machines have certainly made the process of making clothes easier, it's still by no means a simple, instantaneous process. The process of growing and spinning and sewing and embellishing are simply more hidden from us today, yet even the clothes we buy and wear were often made at the cost of other people's comforts and even basic human rights. I've been learning and reading more about the fast fashion industry and the fact that, despite getting some publicity, most of our clothes still end up being made in sweatshops. I can recommend some resources if anyone else is interested in learning more about that (this documentary is currently on Netflix), but maybe these swan tales can help us think a little more about who makes our clothes, and sympathize a little more with the hours of work it takes.

Heinrich Lefler

In the process of putting together a recent Guest Post in which Lissa Sloan explored religious/immortal characters in fairy tales, I discovered a new-to-me fairy tale illustrator with some gorgeous images, Heinrich Lefler (1863-1919). These images seem to have such a wide variety of styles that I was inclined to doubt they were all done by the same artist (such as the two illustrations of the final scene of "Six Swans"-very different, but both attributed to Lefler). Unfortunately I had a hard time tracking down more authoritative sources than Pinterest, so if anyone knows better, please let me know in the comments! He did often work with his brother in law, Joseph Urban, so maybe that explains some of the differences. In any case, enjoy some eye candy!



Six Swans



Snow White


Andersen's "Princess and the Swineherd"


Godfather Death


Little Mermaid





Sleeping Beauty


Goose Girl


Hansel and Gretel


The Nightingale


Cinderella

Michael Cunningham's A Wild Swan

I saw a copy of A Wild Swan And Other Tales by Michael Cunningham at my library and picked it up. Book summary:

A poisoned apple and a monkey's paw with the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair causes catastrophe; a man with one human arm and one swan's wing; and a house deep in the forest, constructed of gumdrops and gingerbread, vanilla frosting and boiled sugar. In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away―the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder―are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation. 
Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: the years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half cured of a curse. The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother's basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans.
Reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.

To be honest, I wasn't too hopeful after reading the book's blurb. Yet another author trying to shock the audience by making fairy tales dark and perverse-by now the concept is the new cliche, yet publishers (or whoever writes book jacket blurbs) try to pass it off as new.

Yet, I really found myself enjoying the stories. Cunningham doesn't just try to twist fairy tales by throwing in extra adult themes, he seems to really understand not only many fairy tale themes, but human nature. While many of the tales are indeed dark (there is sexual content), there's a bittersweetness about them, and almost a refreshing air of truth to them. Cunningham makes minor changes to the fairy tale plots, but really explores certain traditional components. How did the witch from Hansel and Gretel end up in the forest in a candy house to begin with? What was life like for the twelfth brother who was left with one arm and one wing?

The stories are set in a modern world, but a world in which being touched by magic is nothing out of the ordinary. While bringing into question certain aspects of fairy tales (why does the giant's wife allow Jack to steal from them-three times?), he also manages to ground fairy tale plots and characters in actual life, and makes them seem very realistic. The motivations behind crazy fairy tale plots are actually motivations behind people we encounter in life. In all, the writing is very well done, and thought provoking. Even the stories that weren't my favorite would still provide interesting discussions. The stories themselves aren't super long, so it's a great book for busy people to tackle.

Also, isn't Yuko Shimizu's art provokative yet beautiful? (There are more images I would have liked to add, but they aren't necessarily safe for work...) If you look at the cover art at the top, not only are the words formed out of braided hair, but if you look at the background, there's an image of a swan there.

RovinaCai

Beauty and the Beast

Beautiful art by RovinaCai

Inspired by Black Swan

The Grimms' Six Swans

Gordon Laite Fairy Tale Illustrations

Some eye candy for your Thursday, courtesy of illustrator Gordon Laite (1925-1978)


Rapunzel




Beauty and the Beast












Wild Swans

Snow White and Rose Red