Essay for Week 13:

This week I chose to read the Hans Christian Anderson unit. I chose this one at random so I did not have any idea what the reading unit entailed. I really enjoyed this unit though and I wasn't sure that I was going to. I especially liked the fact that it contained The Little Mermaid. I had only seen the Disney movie and so I was interested to see how this version was different. I did not have any expectations before reading this unit so I was glad that I enjoyed it.

I really liked how all the stories did not have the same type of ending. Some of the stories had happy endings and some of the stories had sad endings and some had a mixture of happy and sad. It would have been a little depressing if all the ending would have ended sadly and boring if they all had happy endings. Overall, I really enjoyed this unit.

My favorite story from the unit was The Little Match-Seller. It was such a beautifully tragic story. The little girl dies in the end but she was so happy at the final seconds of her life. She was no longer feeling pain. It was very sad but I loved the story. My least favorite story would have to be The Brave Tin Soldier. I just could not get interested in it. I really enjoyed all the other stories in this unit though, so this was the only one that I did not enjoy.

Overall, this unit is one of my favorites. I liked how some of the stories were familiar and exactly like I had already known. One of those stories is The Princess and the Pea. The story was exactly as I remembered. I also liked how some of the stories were nothing like I remembered. The Little Mermaid was completely different than I had every heard. I knew some of the differences between this version and the Disney version but I did not know exactly how the story went so it was nice to have a completely different view of it. This was a really good unit in my opinion.

Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Essay: Family Can Be Evil Too

When I was reading the English Fairy Tales unit, a common theme that I noticed was that many of the bad things that were done, were done by family members. This is a hard concept for people to understand. Family is supposed to be the ones who love and protect you more than anyone in the world. It is always harder to hear about family members turning on each other and doing things that you would expect strangers to be able to do, but you would not expect it from family.

In Binnorie, a man falls in love with a woman, until he sees her younger sister. He then decides that he wants the younger one and the older sister feels betrayed by her younger sister. She did not think it was fair since she had seen the man first. The older sister then pushes the younger sister into the millstream of Binnorie. The younger sister tries to beg the older one for help but to no avail. The older sister has too much hatred and jealously towards the younger one for her to ever help save her younger sister's life.

Another example of family members being cruel is in The Rose Tree. In this story, it is the step-mother who does the horrible crime. She is oddly jealous of the girl and so she kills her. This is only part of the horrible things that she does. After she kills the girl, she cooks her and feeds her to the rest of the family. This crime is just too horrible to fathom. The girl trusted her step-mother and the step-mother betrayed her trust.

The last example that I am going to use is not as gruesome as the stories that I have mentioned already. In the story, Cap o' Rushes, the father does not think that one of his daughters loves him as much as he thinks that she should, so he sends her away. He is able to disown one of his own children. I do not think that is how family members should treat each other.

This unit had a way of using the most unlikely people as the villains. By using the family members, I think the stories are more memorable than they would have been by just using strangers as the bad guys. It uses the people that you would never suspect to harm their own family members. It shows that family can be just as cruel, if not more than, strangers.

A family tree. Created by: Dženan Zukić. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Essay: Bad guys in Native American Marriage Tales

A common theme that I have noticed, not just in the Native American Marriage Tales Unit, but many different units. In this particular one, the bad guys all seem to have things in common. They intend to get whatever they want no matter what it does to other people. This appears to be a common theme for the bad guys in general. They are always wanting what they can't have and so they make it a point to do whatever it takes to get it.

I noticed this many times in the story Splinter Foot Girl. It appears as if everyone in that story was dying to marry the girl. The bone-bull was the first bad guy. He had the magpie ask the Splinter foot girl's fathers if he could marry her. He seemed fine at first until the fathers denied his request. It appeared that being told no was something that bad guys do not tolerate. If they want something, they must get it no matter the cost. So he remained persistent until they finally agreed to allow their daughter to marry him.

They became lonely though and decided that they wanted her back. The bone-bull refused to let her go and so they had to sneak her away. This angered the bull and he went after them. He attacked the tree for not allowing him to get to the girl. Like most bad guys, I think he would have been willing to hurt anyone who came in the way of him finding his bride. The bull, however, was unsuccessful as most bad guys are in the end.

One main issue that a lot of the bad guys run into is not being able to defeat love. The Splinter foot girl's fathers were determined to have her returned to them. They loved her so much that they were willing to fight in order to have her back. Love is a difficult thing to beat because if you truly love someone, then you will fight like hell to keep them safe. Most bad guys can't compete with that.

Bull. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Essay: Bravery in American Indian Fairytales

A common theme that I noticed while reading this unit was bravery. These stories were told by Iagoo which tells me that he remembered them for the bravery and that was an important feature for him. I also think that it is a good quality to have. Not everyone is willing to be brave because there is always a risk factor to being brave. There is always something that you have to be willing to lose in order to try to gain something. In these stories, there were many brave characters.

One of the characters whom I feel showed bravery was Shin-ge-bis. He is a character from the story Shin-ge-bis Fools the North Wind. In the story, everyone flees when they realize the North Wind is coming. The North Wind is one of the things that everyone fears. Everyone left except Shin-ge-bis. He refused to let the North Wind win. Eventually he overtakes the North wind and becomes a hero. He risks his life in order to help the group as a whole. The North Wind is stunned that anyone is willing to stand up to him. Shin-ge-bis was the only one who was willing to stay and fight. That didn't make everyone else bad people for going because they were scared so no one would have blamed Shin-ge-bis for fleeing. Not everyone is able to conquer their fear and stay but he refused to give up and stayed to fight. It worked out for him in the end.

Another character that had to have been my favorite was O-jeeg from the story How the Summer Came. It was a time when the North Wind controlled everything and it was winter all the time. O-jeeg's son was tired of the winter. It was not a pleasant time, with everything always being so cold. O-jeeg decided to try and make it summer by breaking into the sky. He took some animals with him and went to the top of a mountain to break through the sky. He was able to break through and he freed a couple of the seasons. The animals were able to return but O-jeeg got trapped. He was never able to return so he truly did risk his life for the good of the rest of the people. He did not manage to keep his life but he traded it for something that he felt was worth it. That is truly what bravery is about.

Snow-covered Trees. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Essay: Bad guy in The Crab and the Monkey

This story is from the Japanese Fairy Tales Unit. In the story, The Crab and the Monkey, the monkey is not a very nice animal. He starts off not seeming to be too bad. He makes a trade with the crab. He gives her a kernel of a sweet red kaki fruit in exchange for some rice. The crab, being a generous animal, makes the trade and everything seems fine. She uses the seed to grow a fruit tree and the monkey comes back. This is where we really start seeing the monkey's true character. The monkey asks if he can climb up the tree and get some fruit for himself and he will also get some fruit for the crab. He only throws down the rotten fruit though. He tries to keep all the good fruit for himself.

When he gets down, the crab convinces him to do a somersault and all the fruit falls out and the crab tries to grab some. The monkey gets mad and beats the crab so bad that it nearly kills her. The crab kills the monkey in the end but the monkey shows how horrible he is when he tries to kill the crab.

At no time did I feel sorry for the monkey. The crab was being extremely polite and letting the monkey share what she had but that was not good enough for the monkey. That tends to be the problem with the villains in any story. It does not matter how much other people do for them, it only matters how they can get more. The villains are never satisfied and they don't ever care about anyone but themselves.

The monkey ended up getting what he deserved, the crab kills him in the end. I think this is how the story needed to end because it did not seem as if the monkey would have learned his lesson. He even tries to steal things from the crabs hole when he thinks that the crab is dead. He never showed any remorse and therefore would not have been able to learn his lesson and change. The monkey was just evil and there was no fixing that.

Monkey. Photo taken by Lea Maimone. Wikimedia Commons

This story is from the Japanese Fairy Tales Unit

Essay- Tricksters and Fools in the Wizard and His Pupil

In the story The Wizard and His Pupil, the trickster and the fool are combined in both of the main characters. The wizard spends his time tricking people and stealing there money. He turns himself into different animals and has his pupil sell him. After he is sold, the runs away from the owners and turns himself back into his natural form. He was a fool in some aspects because he trusted his pupil when he should not have trusted him. His pupil turned him into the fool when his pupil decided to trick his master. The master made the mistake of teaching the pupil what he knew and it ended up backfiring on him.

The interaction in this story is pretty minimal. The two characters mainly interact with each other and they seem as if they are balancing each other pretty well in the beginning. The wizard tricks the boy's mother into giving him the key when the boy turns himself into a bathing establishment. The boy is turned into the fool in this case but later on in the story, the boy turns himself into a bird and the wizard turns himself into a falcon and chased him. The story alternates between who is being the trickster and who is being the fool. It ends with the master thinking he has succeeded in tricking the boy but when he leaves one grain, the boy turns back into himself and he kills his master.

I think that the two characters balance each other out throughout the story, each one capable of fooling the other. In the end, the story showed that there can only be one trickster and the pupil turned out to be it while the master turned out to be the fool. I think that the wizard made the mistake of trusting someone whom he was teaching to take over tricking people. The pupil learned the lessons well and was able to out trick the original trickster.

The Wizard and his pupil.

Essay: Bad Guys in Saints and Animals

The bad guys that caught my attention the most was the boys from the story of Kentigern. The boys in this story were so jealous of Kentigern that they tried numerous things to cause him to get in trouble. They all felt the need to get revenge on Kentigern even though he did not actually do anything to them. Kentigern studied hard and was a good student. He was also a good person and because of this, he gained the attention of the teacher. The boys were jealous that Kentigern was so loved.

Jealous alone did not make the boys "bad guys". It is how they acted with their jealous. They first try and make the fire go out so that Kentigern would get in trouble. They did this even though it might cause them trouble too. If the fire went out, then they would also have to suffer the consequences of not having that warmth. When that didn't work, they went as far as to kill an innocent animals just to get revenge on Kentigern. They did not care that the bird did nothing to them. All they wanted to do was get Kentigern in trouble.

I don't feel sympathetic to the bad guys. I could feel sympathetic if they didn't do such horrible things. It is one thing to be jealous of someone, but another to use that jealous as a reason to hurt people. That is never okay and so they do not deserve sympathy.

In the end, after Kentigern is able to pray the bird back alive, the boys develop a different attitude towards Kentigern. I think that the majority of this was because they were now mesmerized by what he was able to do. I like that the way Kentigern was able to defeat them was just by doing exactly what he had always done. He showed them what a good person acts like and they eventually began to follow his lead. I think that they learned their lesson in the end because they realized that trying to hurt him did not benefit them whatsoever. The story ended without Kentigern ever retaliating and I think that is what made this story so good.

A Robin

From the Saints and Animals Unit.

Essay- What is a Hero?

My definition of a hero is someone who strives to be the best person that they can be. Not everybody has these huge obstacles to overcome. Not everyone is in a position to make a huge impact in the world or sacrifice themselves for the good of others. These are qualities of a hero but I don't think that just because you have not accomplished these things, that you could not be considered a hero. I think that a hero is defined by how they interact with people and the things that they do. A hero is a person who cares about other people just as much, if not more, than themselves. A hero is also someone who does not go against what they believe in no matter what the consequence is.

There is were many examples of what I would consider to be a hero in the readings, Bible Women. The one that sticks out the most to me would have to be Joseph. I think that Joseph was a hero in the story of Potiphar's wife. He was not a typical hero and he did not defeat evil. He was actually punished for doing good. Potiphar's wife tried to seduce Joseph. Joseph refused because it would have been a sin. Potiphar's wife then told people that Joseph had tried to seduce her. Joseph was sent to prison. He was not rewarded for his acts. Potiphar's wife was the one who committed a wrong and yet she went unpunished.

Being a hero does not exclude you from having bad things happen. It also does not necessarily mean that you will be rewarded either. Being a hero simply means doing what you believe is right no matter what the consequences may be. I believe that everyone can be a hero if they truly want to be. It may not be easy but it is possible for everyone.

 

Joseph running from Potiphar's wife by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Wikimedia Commons