Lesson 2: Oral Tradition (Printer Friendly Format)
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Oral Tradition
Lesson Overview
What is a fairy tale? Before you start to read on, please take a piece of paper and write down the titles of fairy tales you can recall.
In an undergraduate children's literature course, students called out the following titles The Three Pigs, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rumplestilskin, The Frog Prince, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, The Emperor's New Clothes, Pinnocio, Aladdin, Princess and the Pea, Sword and the Stone, and Wizard of the Oz. Are these all categorized as fairy tales? What are the differences between myth, folktale, literary fairy tale, and legend?
For some of the titles above we can easily identify an author but others are really part of the oral tradition for which it is impossible to trace back the "original" versions and creators. Some popular tales, such as those collected by Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, are so well-known for their collectors that they are sometimes misconceived to be the authors of stories. Children and adults alike are oftentimes attached to the versions of tales they grew up with and believe them to be the best versions for children. It is not uncommon today to encounter children who would tell you that the Snow White or Cinderella you read to them from books didn't get the story right because that is not how Walt Disney told them. In this lesson we will be looking at some "myths" about fairy tales and understand the changing nature of folktales.
Lesson Objectives
In this lesson you will:
- Demonstrate an understanding of literary terms related to traditional literature such as "motif," "ontogenesis," and "monogenesis."
- Define the different sub-genres within traditional literature such as myth, legend, folktale, fairy tale, wonder tale, and fable.
- Understand how folktales were circulated and recorded in early times.
- Explore many versions of Little Red Riding Hood.
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Introduction to Myth and Folklore
"I asked myself, 'What is the myth you are living?' and found that I did not know." So... I took it upon myself to get to know "my" myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks... I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me." --- C. J. Jung |
Myths are neither relics nor quaint stories once told by ancient or primitive people. Myths are defining stories of our humanity. In this course we will be looking at myth as something alive in us and among us--a means by which we make sense of our lives and the workings of the cosmos.
For example, an ancient myth such as Gilgamesh once held great cultural value. But the culture that spawned this story no longer exists and the belief system that formed this story is no longer active. Gilgamesh ceases to have any religious significance. It also holds little cultural weight in shaping how people think about being with one another. The story is read and received as a secular story, in a sense, it has become a folktale.
On the other hand, Cinderella is a ubiquitous story in Western culture. The rags to riches, poor girl gets wealthy and unattainable boy or poor boy gets wealthy and unattainable girl story holds immense power in our cultural imagination. Most Hollywood movie romances fit this pattern. Two Julia Roberts' movies are good examples. In Pretty Woman Roberts plays a prostitute to Richard Gere's extraordinarily wealthy businessman. She wins her "prince" by being "good." There's also an element of Rapunzel in the movie with the final scene being one where Gere climbs the fire escape to reach Roberts. The gender roles are reversed in Notting Hill. In that film Roberts plays a well known movie star who, quite by accident, comes into a love relationship with a humble book store owner, played by Hugh Grant.
Many of us like to think that in life if we are good enough, true enough, sincere enough, patient enough, and work hard enough, we also will someday have our "prince," no matter what station in life we come from. Cinderella is a powerful story that helps shape how we believe human life ought to be lived. Its power is mythic, because the story and all its variations help shape how we think about ourselves and other people.
Fundamental Questions myths address:
- Where did I come from?
- Why is there something rather than nothing?
- Why is there evil in the world?
- What happens to me when I die?
- With whom do I belong?
- How close should I be to my mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband, cousin, son, daughter, lover, or friend?
- What are my duties and obligations?
- What is taboo, and what should I avoid?
- What is the purpose of my life, my vision?
- Whom should I imitate?
- Who are heroes and heroines?
- Who are the villains?
- Who is our enemy?
- What are the stages along life's way?
- Who are my helpers, guides, allies?
- What is disease?
- How can I be purified, healed?
- What should we do with bounty, wealth, and surplus?
- What is our relationship with animals, plants, water, and the rest of the cosmos?
At this point, you should review the PowerPoint presentation "Traditional Literature - Overview" It presents the definitions of some literary terms, such as motif, monogenesis, and polygenesis, and lists the main categories of traditional literature and some common characteristics of folktales. The categories, including myth, legend, epic, fable, wonder tale, beast tales, trickster tales, pourquoi tales, will give you a better understanding of what constitutes traditional stories. Keep in mind that scholars never agree on category names or whether certain stories belong to a certain category. This list is mostly a tool for introducing you to the stories constituting this genre. Please note that it will only be available online during the week of this lesson, so please print the pages in order to keep a copy.
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Reading Highlights
The following may not cover all of the assigned readings for the lesson. Always be sure to check your syllabus schedule for reading specifics.
Maria Tatar | Hugh Crago | Marina Warner | Robert Darnton | Jack Zipes |
Maria Tatar -- Little Red Riding Hood
We each shared the version of Little Red Riding Hood we recalled from memory in the first lesson, and in this lesson we will be reading different versions and variants of the same tale. Tatar's The Classic Fairy Tales includes eight different versions and Tatar's introduction gives a great overview of the history and evolvement of this type AT 333 tales. In the next lesson we will discuss a bit more about tale types, but for now just know that Little Red Riding Hood is classified by folklorists as being of tale type 333. You can also find some more versions in D. L. Ashliman's Web site (http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0333.html).
When you read the tales, note the similarities as well as differences between these versions and identify which one might be the source of your retelling last week. The appearance of the picturebook form also adds to the variation of the tale. Although artists' pictorial interpretation of tales is not the main focus of this course, you are encouraged to find and read as many different versions in illustrated form as possible. The SurLaLune Web site has a thorough bibliography of Little Red Riding Hood picture books that are still in print today (http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/ridinghood/books.html). Click the image of a book cover and you will be linked to more information about the book, which might help you to find copies owned by your local library or bookstore. Pay special attention to
The African-American tale and the Chinese variant are similar to the early European recording, The Story of Grandmother, in the way that the young girl (or girls) in the story is shrewd and outfoxes the wolf (or fox) and escapes successfully, as opposed to the seemingly stupid and naïve girl in Perrault's and Brothers Grimm's versions.
Hugh Crago
The Australian psychologist Crago's essay What Is a Fairy Tale in the last issue of the UK children's literature journal Signal does a nice job of setting out the groundwork and raising some important issues. He clarifies some common misconceptions about fairy tales and gives a nice overview on some scholars' ideas, including the taxonomic, psychoanalytic, historical views and most interestingly an exploration of associating fairy tales with children from several perspectives. Finally he defines fairy tale as "a narrative form which represents a society's collective concerns with some aspect of 'growing up,' and it explores these concerns at the level of magical thought."
Marina Warner
In this excerpt from a chapter of Warner's book From the Beast to the Blonde, she gives credits to women storytellers and creators and reclaims that the sources behind some popular collectors, such as Perrault and Brothers Grimm, were often women relatives and acquaintances. She also deconstructs the terms "fairy tale" and "old wives' tale" which carry negative connotations and attempts to reinterpret and give new meanings to them.
Robert Darnton
Darnton's Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose criticizes the psychoanalysis way of interpreting fairy tales, which is based on a single version of a single tale and fails to recognize the historical and contextual factors of folklore. Although the article focuses more on the traditional French tales, Darnton offers a good account of how folklorists understand early peasant mentalities and look at the tendencies and patterns in a collection of tales within one culture and compare the styles and structures of similar types of tales across cultures. Many tales discussed in this article can be found online, for example,
Jack Zipes
Zipes is best known as a cultural critic and he frequently brings a sociological or social history point of view to folk and fairy tales. This essay, Once There Was a Time, is an early one in Zipes" career and he sets out his framework for understanding folk tales. Zipes concentrates on class issues, the lower classes from which the stories originated and the middle and ruling classes who later appropriated the stories and massaged them into promoting ruling class values and sentiments. We will be encountering Zipes throughout this course, so spend a little time with this essay and please ask questions if you are confused.
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Activities & Assignments
Threaded Discussions
- Participate in the Revisit - Little Red Riding Hood discussion forum. To access this discussion forum, go to the Threaded Discussions folder under the Lesson tab, and choose the Lesson 2 - Oral Tradition folder.
- Revisit the Little Red Riding Hood you retold in Course Introduction. If you haven't participated in the Lesson 1 discussion yet, here's another chance for you to write down the story of Red Riding Hood as best you remember it. Post your story to the First Visit - Red Riding Hood threaded discussion before you proceed.
- Discuss which version might be the source of your retelling and which version is more appealing to you and why.
- Think about how the scholarly essays challenge or add to your understanding of fairy tale. (By scholarly, we are referring to the essays written about the stories and not the stories themselves.
- Post your thoughts in the Understanding - Fairy Tale discussion forum. To access this discussion forum, go to the Threaded Discussions folder under the Lesson tab, and choose the Lesson 2 - Oral Tradition folder.
- Read others students' postings, and comment on their understandings of fairy tale.
Reflections
- Take a final look at the Revisit - Little Red Riding Hood discussion forum toward the end of the discussions. Make a comparison between the version that your classmates preferred best and the version that your classmates chose least. Post them to the Reflection - Little Red Riding Hood Revisit discussion forum. To access this discussion forum, go to the Threaded Discussions folder under the Lesson tab, and choose the Lesson 2 - Oral Tradition folder.
- Review the Understanding - Fairy Tale discussion forum. Reflect on whether your understanding of fairy tale has been changed through the discussions. Post your reflections to Reflection - Understanding of Fairy Tale discussion forum. To access this discussion forum, go to the Threaded Discussions folder under the Lesson tab, and choose the Lesson 2 - Oral Tradition folder.