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Housekeeping

1. NEXT WEEK (Wednesday 29 January 2014) class will begin at 12:00 (not 11:45) and there will be no office hours Wednesday (I have a job interview)! 

Agenda

The Fate of the Female Trickster 

• “Molly Whuppie,” ACFT.

Discussion Questions:

• Context 
• Who wrote this literary version of "Molly Whuppie"?
• When and where was it published?
• Summarize the narrative in a couple of sentences.
• Analysis (Close Reading)
• There are no illustrations included here for "Molly Whuppie." What does that (likely) indicate? 
• How is Molly Whuppie characterized?
• As a female?
• As a child?
• As a hero? 

• The Farmer's Clever Daughter  

Discussion Questions:

• Who wrote this literary version of "The Farmer's Clever Daughter"?
• When and where was it published?

• This fairy tale is rarely published in fairy tale collections. What is the significance of this omission?  
• How is the Clever Farmer's Daughter characterized here?
• What is her relationship with men (her father? the king?)?
• How does the Clever Farmer's Daughter negotiate her identity as a woman?  

• Stahl  

Discussion Questions:

• Who wrote this these tales?
• When and where were they published?

• How are women characterized in these fairy tale narratives.  

Group 4 Haase Introduction

Comparative Analysis:

Discussions:

• How are female trickster's characterized in these narratives?
• How is the female trickster's fate resemble that of the male tricksters like Tom Thumb and Jack (and the Beanstalk)? How is it different?
• Male tricksters typically follow the order established in Propp's "Thirty-One Functions," do female tricksters?  

In 1971, Alison Lurie argued that fairy tales could be empowering for women, emphasizing the strong female characters in the broad fairytale corpus (tales like "Clever Farmer's Daughter" and "Molly Whuppie"). In 1972, Marcia Lieberman challenged this claim. She argued that the culturally powerful (effective) fairy tales were those in the limited, popular canon (specifically those popularized by Disney). Feminist readings of fairy tales have oscillated between these two view points ever since.  Furthermore, this debate over the VALUE of fairy tales grew into a multifaceted exploration of the sociohistorical and sociopolitical development of a genre.

Among other things, the (more ambivalent) feminist debate surrounding fairy tales has argued that readers do not necessarily identify with the character who shares their gender/sexual identity. Women can identify with the Prince who wakens Sleeping Beauty as well as the Princess (and, by extension, men may identify with female characters).