Tricksters in Fairy Tales


Return to Course

 

Housekeeping: 

  1. Rubrics for group projects and visual media project have been posted. 
  2. New resource for finding illustrations on the Fairy Tales in Visual Media Project 

 

Agenda:



Group Project: Illustrating the Trickster

Break into FOUR groups and consider one set of illustrations and answer the following discussion questions. All these illustrations were retrieved from SurLaLune Fairy Tales.

 

 

Red Riding Hood: Visualizing Innocence and Blame

How do these Walter Crane illustrations compare with Arthur Rackham's illustrations of Red Riding Hood. How do line, color, and body position function in these images to create MEANING? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Illustrating the Trickster and the Victim in "Rumpelstiltskin"

 

How do the bodies of the Miller's Daughter and Rumplestiltskin compare in this detail by Walter Cane or the full-page image by Folkard?

 

 

How does Nielsen's Rumplestilktskin compare with the court surrounding him?

 

What about this image by Price? How do color, line, and body position work here (as compared to other illustrations) to illustrate the difference between the trickster and his victim?

 

 


Hansel and Gretel: Tricked or Tricksters

 

How do the following images negotiate the identity of Hansel and Gretel as either the tricked or the tricksters? 

 

Can you find Hansel and Gretel in Nielsen's painting? How do they relate to the larger landscape?

 

 

 

 

How does Planck characterize Hansel and Gretel in relation to the Witch? 

 

 

 

The size and shape of Gretel and the witch varies in Arthur Rackham's illustrations. How does their relative characterization change with these visual modifications? 

 

 

 

 

Hansel's size and shape change in Smith's illustrations. What does this visually articulate about Hansel's changing identity (as victim and trickster). 

 


Fooling the King: A Just Joke or a Subversion of Authority?

 

How does Rackham deal with nudity (i.e. "the trick") in "The Emperor's New Clothes"? 

 

 

 

How does Clarke characterize the court's complicity in the trick? How do line and color specifically function to create this meaning?

 

How does Ford characterize the trickster (in comparison with the king)? What does this say about the undermining of royal authority?  

 

 

How does the king's age and body type impact our interpretation of the trick (his identity as a victim rather than a fool)? 

 

 


Theories of the Trickster

 

How do the fairy tale we have read so far characterize fairy tales as a genre

 

How would you characterize "the trickster" based on the fairy tales we've read so far?

 

How do trickster fairy tales relate to the SCHOLARSHIP we've read so far?