Bell Ringer Activity:
For today, you read to page 73 in our Norton Critical Editions of The Classic Fairy Tales (edited by Maria Tatar). In Maria Tatar's introduction to "Beauty and the Beast," she describes the role fairy tales played in providing a "socially acceptable channel for providing therapeutic advice, comfort, and consolation" to young women who might have been facing marriage "to a beast" (27).
Pick one of the stories from pages 32-74 and describe a) the beauty and b) the beast. Identify the beauty's virtues (moral standards) and the beast's deformities (malformations).
In the Swan Maiden The beauty is one of the swan maidens who is a female who can turn into a swan, and the beast is a hunter who falls in love with the swan maiden. The beauties virtues were accepting the hunter for a long time even though he stole her swan feathers, and the hunters deformities were stealing the swan feathers and hiding them from the swan maiden.
ReplyDeleteIn the version "The Pig King", the first two princesses were uptight, as they nearly refused to marry the king. But the third princess is described as fair and clearly has a huge heart, considering she was perfectly fine with not only the sloppiness and mess caused by her pig husband, but the fact that he's a pig, stating, "There are three wise sayings, gracious lady, which I remember having heard. The first is that it is folly to waste time in searching for that which cannot be found. The second is that we should believe nothing we hear, except those things which bear the marks of sense and reason. The third is that, when once you have got possession of some rare and precious treasure, prize it well and keep a firm hold upon it." The pig king is first described as needy, but unwanted, and paranoid. He kills his first to wives under suspicion that they were going to murder him in their sleep, but once the third queen is married to him, he falls in love with her, revealing his true feelings, and shedding his pig skin in secret to only her. The king definitely changes overtime throughout the story, going from greedy and unloved, to caring and kind.
ReplyDeletepgs. 42-47 *The Pig King*
ReplyDeletea) 'Beauty', Meldina: Meldina is the youngest of three sisters. She is the most beautiful and humble. She doesn't waste time searching for something she can't find, does not believe anything that she hears that is not reasonable, and holds what is dear to her very closely. She is the only one of her three sisters to truly accept the 'beast'.
b)'Beast', The Pig: The Pig Prince/King does not have a name in the story. As stated in the title, he is a pig that walks upright and is capable of human speech and thought. He often roots around in the mud, becoming filthy and stinky, and is a bit impulsive. He also kills two of his three brides only after hearing that they are plotting to kill him.
In The Frog King, the beauty is the youngest daughter of the king. She went into the woods every day to play with her ball, until it fell in a well one day. A frog told her he would get the ball if he could be her companion. She agreed, but ran away. The frog went to her house and the king made his daughter stay true to her word. Overall, the beauty in this story didn't have a lot of morals or virtues, although she did stay true to her word.
ReplyDeleteThe beast in the story was the frog king. He asked to be the princess' companion in return for fetching her lost ball. The princess didn't want anything to do with him, and threw him against the wall, where he was transformed into a human prince. He went from being an ugly frog to a human with "beautiful beaming eyes"(P. 50).
I decided to write about "The Frog Princess" by Alexander Afanasev. This story did not seem to follow the typical "Beauty and the Beast" impression. Ivan was the main male character in this story, representing beauty, and Elena the Fair being the beast, as a frog. Ivan's family and brothers wives caught onto the sneaky frog, claiming that "she is not a frog, but a cunning witch!" (69). The ladies came to this conclusion when they realized the frog was skilled in all tasks, and the wives found that their conclusion was correct at the ball when the frog showed up as a beautiful maiden. However, the story continues when Prince Ivan breaks the trust of the Maiden by opening a box. The majestic creature disappears, and this story turns into the male searching for his long lost bride to be.
ReplyDeleteThis story is very different from the regular Beauty and the Beast. Half of the story is an adventure to finding love, and then losing it once more. The only part that illustrates the typical story is when the frog shows her true self. This action revealed her appearance, but you could see she was always her true self, even in frog form. At the beginning of the story, she had to win the prince (Beauty) over by her requested skills, and succeeded and was able to show her true self to all later on.
pgs. 32-42
ReplyDeletea) The beauty is referred to as "the beautiful child." She has five siblings, and she is the youngest, most polite, and gracious out of them all. Beauty has much respect for her father, and acts almost like the wife of the house. She wakes up early to clean and help her father with his work.
b) The beast is described as extremely ugly, but with a good heart. He loves Beauty and treats her with respect. He even says to her during one part of the short story that he would "rather die myself than cause you pain" (39). He is constantly tearing himself down and has low self-esteem. He calls himself "horrible looking" (39).
a) The way Beauty is described in "Beauty and the Beast" by Jeanne-Marie Leprince De Beaumont, makes you wonder less how she ends up marrying a beast. She is what you might call the perfect bride. She is described as selfless, caring, accepting, intelligent, and not to mention beautiful. No wonder nearly every man in the village has asked her to marry him. However, she manages to marry a beast.
ReplyDeleteb) The beast is described as an ugly creature that no one would ever want to come in contact with. However, beneath his terrible looks is a lonely, caring heart who just wants to be loved for who he is.
The beast is incredibly lucky to have come across Beauty, who is everything he could possibly wish for in a woman. She was the best thing possible for him, not only did she break the spell keeping him a beast but also in a way completed him and allowed for him to be happy again.
In Giovanni Francesco Straparola's adaptation of Beauty and The Beast, "The Pig King," the prince takes form of a specific animal, a pig rather than just a beast. After a long time of not having children, a queen was protected when three fairies put spells on her. The last spell being that her child would be a pig. Though he was born a pig, after he grew up he would tell his mother that he wanted a wife. The queen convinced a mother to give her oldest daughter's hand in marriage and fulfilled the pig's demand. This shows he is somewhat spoiled as a Prince because he made a demand and expected it to be given to him. His new wife however did not enjoy his company. After he found out she was planning to get rid of him, he killed her violently. This shows that he has a violent nature. After the queen convinced the same lady to give her middle daughter, the same inevitable thing happened. When the lady gave up her only daughter left, the youngest and most beautiful daughter, Meldina, the queen expected the same outcome for her as her sisters, but she let the pig sleep with her because she saw him for what he was on the inside rather than the outside, this shows that she is truly unselfish and greedy. The pig later told Meldina his secret, that he can take the pig skin off and be his true self, a prince. When the Prince's dad, the King saw this, and had the pig hide torn to shreds. The Prince soon then became the King and started his reign with his beloved wife Meldina.
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ReplyDeleteJeanne-Marie Leprince De Beaumont
ReplyDeletea) admired by everyone, referred to as the "beautiful child", better behaved than her older sisters, "sweet and sincere", respected and honored her family but her father most of all
b) doesn't like "flattery", wants people to be completely honest, caring, thoughtful, extremely nice to beauty, wants her to be happy
Beauty had the upmost respect for her father, tried to her best to make her sisters feel jealous or envious, refused to let her father die because of her for her grief would break her heart, brave and courageous enough to offer her own life to save her fathers, very polite to the beast and appreciates everything he does for her even though she is technically a prisoner, is honest to the beast, beauty tries to comfort beast as he becomes very dear to her heart,
The first story didn't talk much about the beasts appearance but more about his moral. He thinks he is "nothing but a beast" and lacks intelligence. He has zero confidence, he is constantly talking himself and never allowing any credit to be given to him for his kindness
For my post I choose the first story "Beauty And The Beast" By Jeanne-Marie Leprince De Beaumont
ReplyDeleteA) In the story "Beauty And The Beast" By Jeanne-Marie Leprince De Beaumont when De Beaumont describes the merchants 3 daughters she tells us right away that Beauty is different from her sisters.She is the most beautiful one,the most behaved one and the most humbled even though is not said directly in the book.Just as her sister she was proposed to many times but she didn't feel like she was ready to get married as she was too young to do so and wanted to accompany her father for many years to go .Her sisters instead of not think about getting married didn't want to marry unless the men were in the same social class as them.After her family lost there fortune she was not which means she isn't a materialistic person.Even after losing her family fortune she was still not interested in getting married because as she said before she was to young and wanted to stay with her father
B)As always the beast is perceived as an angry person(which I would be too if I was turned into a beast).He isn't to nice to people who want to suck up too people.He like people who are 100% honest with him.He isn't described as a handsome man or a nice man.But he is very nice to Beauty.He describes himself as ugly.And lacking of intelligence
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A) A re-occuring number for beauties are three. One of the beauties are seemingly the kindest, purest, and most reasonable one than the others, proving that respectful behavior gets you noticed. However, in The Frog King, by Brothers Grimm, the youngest princess's morals are questionable. When she lost her golden ball, the frog kindly returned it to her with the hopes of becoming her companion. The youngest princess completely disregarded the beast's request and the promises that she made. The disgusting frog visited the castle and the princess was not pleased by this. The king, her father, constantly reproached her throughout the passage for her bad behavior and to remind her to always keep promises that are made. The frog was kind but the princess was squeamish allowing him to eat from the same plate she eats from and to sleep in the same bed she sleeps in. It became very intimate. The frog once threatened tell her father for not following her promise once more. The princess was so hateful towards him that she threw him against the wall. This part confuses me because the frog then turned into a handsome prince, which asserts that she has been rewarded from spiteful attitude. She was forced to accept this huge commitment that she had made to this frog, even though it was for a toy. She didn't respect the frog and was very misleading with her promise.
ReplyDeleteB) The Beast is represented by a low life form who lives murky conditions. The frog is very demanding that the princess would keep her promise of companionship. When the frog turned into a wonderful prince, the two moved into his kingdom after being picked up by the Faithful Heinrich whose heart had bursted with joy.