Modern Cinderella

There's Someone In My Bed?!

What are the chance of some stranger coming into your house and falling asleep in a bed. I know, I know, one in three. But still, I would have freaked. I never use to look for fairy tale characteristics in things until now, and now it seems they are everywhere you look. Especially in real life. What on earth will happen next?!

Class Notes From September 19 - 26

So for the last few days, everyone has been reading aloud their fairy tale displacements. There has been quite a variety of displacements from being humorous to serious. By doing this whole thing, I think it has presented us with the idea that fairy tales are everywhere. You just have to look for them.

Few Announcements Made Throughout the Days...

• Check out Taylor Moorman's blog. She posted an article from the Billings newspaper. Post your opinion to it on your blog.
• Also, take a look at Sutter's blog as well.
  

A Quick History of Annelies

A Quick History of Annelies

Annelies Marie Frank was born on 12 June 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany. Unbeknownst to Anne, as she was called by her family and friends, she was about to become a very famous person in history where many articles would be written about her and her family.
Anne and her family were living in Germany when World War II began and moved to the Netherlands in order to get away from the fighting that was beginning. While living in the Netherlands, the Germany’s Nazi’s began their occupation of the country. With the Nazi’s in the Netherlands, Anne and her family began to worry about what might happen to them. They were Jewish, and the Nazi’s were beginning to round up all the Jews in order to send them away to the concentration camps. Anne’s father knew that if his family were to survive, they must go into hiding for they had no way to escape the country.
Anne’s father explained to his family that in order for them to go into hiding, they would have to leave behind many things, with hopes that they might be able to resume their lives after the war was over. The one thing Anne could not leave behind though was her red diary with its gold clasp that had been given to her for her 13th birthday. It would be this diary that made her and her story famous across the world. So, in July of 1942, the family went into hiding.
There was one major requirement that the family and the few others living with them would have to follow: remaining absolutely quiet for most hours of the day. Their hiding spot was on a hidden third floor of a business building that Anne’s father used to own, and if someone came in and heard them moving about, then their secret would be revealed and there arrest would soon follow.
Anne and her family managed to keep quiet without fail for nearly two years. However, it all came crashing down. One night a burglar came into the building. He had a key and was able to come in undetected. Anne and her family tried to remain as quiet as they possibly could, but at some point one of them made a noise of some sort. The burglar, thinking he was all alone, was frightened by the noise and ran out of the building. Anne and her family were frightened by this event. If the intruder reported what he had heard, then her family would more than likely be arrested by the Nazi’s.
Time passed and nothing happen. Anne and the others continued living in their small cramped spaces. The people on the outside that were helping them came less and less. Worry and anxiety started to build inside those cramped walls. However, on 6 June 1944, D-Day occurred. The Allies invasion was going well and this started to give Anne, her family, and their friends hope. Maybe they would reach the end of the path where their freedom was waiting.
In August of 1944, German police stormed the building, discovered Anne, her family, the Van Pelz and Fritz Pfeffer and immediately arrested them. They were held in a detention unit for a few days before being shipped off to Auschwitz. From there, they were all separated and all of them died, with the exception of Anne’s father. He was the only remaining survivor. Anne’s journal was given to him by a close friend who had been holding on to it with the hopes of returning it to Anne. Because of her diary, Anne’s story, as well as her families and friends became known throughout the world.

My displacement was of "Little Red Riding Hood."

17 September 2008 Class Notes

• Added a few more books to the working bibliography list.
• Talked a little bit about Jim Henson's "The Storyteller." I have never even heard of this movie so it will be interesting to see a part of it.

• Google Iron John (A Book) and the word hysterical.
• Rapunzel vs. Jane Eyre...how alike the two stories seem.
• Take a look at William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" - "To see a world in a grain of sand..." http://www.artofeurope.com/blake/bla3.htm Go to this website to see it if you want...
• Check out the Mississippi Review for and article written by Sexson entitled "Man Reading" http://www.mississippireview.com/1996/msexson.html Here's the website for it.
• Mentioning of Dante and the "Divine Comedy"
• Talked about Thompson and his four levels. The first being literal, the second structural, the third anthropological, and last is cosmological.
• In the end of Disney's Aladdin, when the genie is taking off, he say's that he is mythology...hmm. To see this (last 5 minutes of the film) go to this website at You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nISrLus-mA
• Craving for something that isn't in you realm/reach/society...
• White Goddess (google this) by Robert Graves. There are three parts to a goddess: maiden, mother, and crone/old lady.
• Asexual vs. Sexual...Something that has no need for men or introducing an element of uncertainty/ unstability...

15 September 2008 Class Notes

• Sadie did her fairytale displacement today. Talk about setting the bar high and making everyone else nervous. She chose to do a recipe for her displacement of Rapunzel. It was very creative.
• Talked about how fairy tales peek through everything such as: the story of Patty Hearst or the Greek goddess Persephone.
• Something important to remember - there is no original version. The stories started out as oral versions and then were written down so which one is the original? There isn't one. The Grimm Brothers' fairy tales are not the original version.
• Added a few books to our working bibliography list.

12 September 2008 Class Notes

• Group presentations will consist of your take on the book "Wizard of Oz." It can be a graphic novel, short film, whatever your group comes up with...but whatever you do, your group must keep it a secret! Sexson wants to be surprised!
• Talked about how children's skip/jump rope songs talk about fairy tales..."Cinderella dressed in yella, went downstairs to kiss her fella, made a mistake and kissed a snake, how many doctors did it take?"
• Poems, instead of asking what do they mean, ask HOW?
• Universal Quest - Separation, Initiation, Return. Deals with this idea of having to go somplace else to find the treasure, even if it's in your own backyard. You won't realize it's there unless you go somewhere else to look for it. (Like in the Wizard of Oz)
• Freud and fairy tales, physcoanalyzing fairy tales
• Aarne-Thompson Folktale Index

Fractured Fairytales

When we were talking in class about "fractured fairy tales," this was the first thing that popped into my mind, "The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales." At first I couldn't quite remember it so I had to do some digging but when I found it I instantly remember it. Did anyone else ever have this read to them? I thought it was hilarious. One story that I really laughed at was "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs." This book is just a really interesting take on the whole idea of fractured of twisted fairy tales.

10 September 2008 Class Notes

• Important Dates to Remember: 1) October 13 - First Test 2) October 23 - World Premiere Film at Emerson Cultural Center 3) November 12 - Second Test 4) December 15 - Final at 8AM
• We will have both individual and group presentations coming up throughout the term.
• Read an excerpt from "Finnegan's Wake" by James Joyce. *It sound like a very complicated book to read! (Check out MSU Bookstore's Top 100) Also talked a bit about Joyce Carol Oates - "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
• Looked at children's rhymes..."Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed to see such a sport and the dish ran away with the spoon." What's interesting is how many version there are of this rhyme AND what scandalous meaning it might have. When I looked it up to make sure I was typing all the right words, the questionable Wikipedia poped up. There are four different versions, one in the UK, another in Canada, one in Australia and then the US version. And, to top it off, the rhyme is supposedly about Queen Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley the Earl of Leicester, and two servants who secretly eloped. Who knew?
• Didactic - designed or intended to teach, pedogogical teaching
• Sexson read some example of displaced fairytales, or were they fractured/twisted fairtales?
• Also, we numbered off and picked groups for our group presentations at the end of the semester.

8 September 2008 Class Notes

• Continued passing around books for the working bibliography out of the CSI CRIME SCENE bag!
• IMPORTANT DATE: On Thursday, October 23 at the Emerson Cultural Center, the world premiere showing of "My Book and Heart Shall Never Part." Tickets will be provided and the class is expected to attend.
• Discussed which fairy tales we will be reading from Maria Tatar's book. So far the list includes: The Little Mermaid, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Hansel & Gretel, Beauty & the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel, Bluebeard, and East of the Sun & West of the Moon.
• Talked a little about the Norton's Anthology of English Literature.
• We ended class with the Anguish Languish. I have never even heard of this before but it was hysterical. We read "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut." Who knew people even came up with this kind of thing
• Also, we were assigned a 1 pg Fairy Tale displacement that is due on September 19.

Red Shoes?!

So who knew that two simple words, red shoes, could have so many meanings. The one things that jumped out the most was two different movies made that are both "loosely" based on Hans Christian Anderson's The Red Shoes. One movie, titled "The Red Shoes" is about ballet and a ballerina performing in a ballet entitled "Red Shoes". The film was made in 1948 and won 2 Oscars. The other film is a Korean horror flick called "Bunhongsin" or Red Shoes in english. It is about a coveted pair of red shoes that carry a curse along with them that end up causing whoever has them to more than likely loose their feet. Then if you go to read Hans Christian Anderson's tale, it's about a little girl and a pair of red dancing shoes. Hmm, very interesting indeed. Fairy tales can be found in the strangest places! Here is a hyperlink to a website where you can read "The Red Shoes" by Hans Christian Anderson if you would like. http://hca.gilead.org.il/red_shoe.html

5 September 2008 Class Notes

• "All literature is displaced myth." This one quote holds true to most literature. Somewhere there is always a fairytale lurking, even in your own life.


• Fairy Tales and Memory -- before fairy tales were written down, how were they remembered or passed down? It was all oral and memory. How does someone go about remembering so many things. *Snaps to Prof. Sexson for knowing every single person's name in class after only a day!*


• One thing easyily remembered...Dorothy's shoes. Try googling it and see what you get!


• Children love fairy tales and they love to hear them over and over again. As adults, we tend to get tired of doing that same thing over and over again but children are different. They love hearing that same story over and over again. You can't change anything either, because if you do, they notice and point it out to you.


• Don't question if things are possible in a fairy tale. It is a fairy tale, anything is possible!


• Began compiling a working bibliography of suggested books.

Never in my life have I heard of the fairy tale "The Juniper Tree." It was a very interesting tale. After hearing it in class, I had to go home and finish the story because I wanted to know what happened. It has been a pretty long time since I read a fairy tale. I think what surprises me the most is how dark they are. Growing up I always seemed to get the fairy tales with the happy endings. I never knew that Little Red Riding Hood gets eaten by the wolf or the Cinderella's step-sisters cut off part of their feet to fit there shoes in the glass slipper. I'm trying to figure out how I would have reacted to a fairy tale like that when I was young. Would I have thought it was cool or would it have grossed me out?