For numerous, predominantly subconscious, reasons – although one of which I am consciously aware is the subject of the Dinosaur Comics of the past two days – I'd like to analyse some folk-tales, especially to highlight their amoral nature.
Le Petit Chaperon Rouge
We all know the story. Girl is warned not to talk to strangers. Girl talks to a wolf of whom she has no experience. Girl's entire family gets eaten, including herself.
Now, I'll be the first to say it. Wolves do not have such a great command over language. Therefore, the villain should instead be a cannibal. Now the story makes sense.
Girl is warned not to talk to strangers. Girl talks to a well-spoken cannibal of whom she does not suspect to be a cannibal. Girl's entire family gets eaten, including herself.
In this much more sensible version, one inescapably notices that, once again, the situation could have been escaped easily by Little Red Riding Hood – who is inexplicably named after her clothing. If Red had been prejudiced against all humans, believing them to be cannibals until proven otherwise, she would have escaped her tragic fate. As such, the moral of the story is:
Always believe people you've never met to be cannibals.
Granted, the cannibal could have just as easily been a regular, more wasteful of meat, murderer. If Red had suspected the wolf/cannibal/murderer to be a murderer, she would have refrained from detailing the whereabouts of her grandmother and nature of the package she was holding, therefore preventing her horrific ordeal. She could have avoided her distress simply by suspecting the villain to be a thief. Distrusting said villain in any way would have prevented the tragedy. So, the moral of that story is:
Always distrust people.
Of course, not every version of the story results in Red being consumed/murdered/robbed from. However, in other versions of the story, she is saved by a woodcutter, in a typically sexist damsel-in-distress manner that so frequently prevails throughout folk-tales, which leads me to my next tale:
Sleeping Beauty
I like this one. It involves prophecy. Prophecy always makes tales more interesting. Girl is born, some scorned witch – likely simply a misunderstood elderly woman to whom the world has not been kind, but I'll come to that later – makes a prophecy that this girl will prick her finger on a spindle and die, so, understandably, her father makes darned sure she cannot prick her finger on a spindle by destroying all the spindles in the land.
Unfortunately, spindles still exist in other lands, teenage rebellion kicks in and the damsel-in-distress pricks her finger, resulting in her falling asleep, not dying.
Supposedly, 100 years pass and, being comatose, she doesn't age†, hence when a prince/king/knight stumbles upon her lying asleep, he finds her youthfully attractive and instantly sexually assaults her.
†I think a Doctor would disagree with that supposition.
I'm struggling to find a moral to this story. Maybe it's about her father. If he'd let her prick her finger on any other spindle, maybe she would have died, and he could see to it that she gets a funeral instead of lying at the mercy of a lecherous nobleman of the following century.
Morals aside, this story clearly presents women either as young, attractive damsels-in-distress or as bitter, bedraggled, elderly outcasts, which, once again, brings me to my next – and final – folk-tale.
Hansel and Gretl
This one is spectacular. In addition to the usual stay away from strangers message, it also comes with this brilliant slice of sweet advice:
If it looks too good to be true, get the hell out of there.
Hansel actually commits murder in this tale. Why? At what point did the lonely, elderly woman pose a threat? Does he suffer no consequences? Is it okay to murder callously those who have no surviving relatives or friends? Perhaps it is acceptable, from a moral perspective, to kill anyone who lives in a house made from food, given that gingerbread is a natural resource in limited supply.
On top of that, Gretl presents herself as an utterly useless younger sister, whilst the old woman who painstakingly built a cottage made solely from confectionery – except for an oven, which is fair enough really. How else do you make gingerbread? – is presented as villainous and ill-meaning. Here's the life-lesson from that snippet of information:
If someone does something extraordinary, they must be a bad person.
Why are people so afraid of change? Of the different? Quite clearly, this elderly woman wanted to build something of which she could be proud. If the previous tales are anything to go by, she was likely traumatised as a child for being trustworthy, dependent upon men, victim to an over-protective father and fondled during her sleep by supposed heroes. If she is so sadistic as to want to entice children into her cottage, I'd imagine it is solely for the company of which the desire and lack thereof are undoubtedly a cause of societal disorder.
I find it somewhat disconcerting that, even given the blatant disregard for women that propagates every fairytale in existence, the ideal of a Prince Charming still prevails.
If it looks too good to be true, get the hell out of there.
