The Bloody Chamber. Loneliness and Man Power!

What surprised me the most while reading these few pages is the journey of her turning from a teenage girl into a woman, she still sees herself a giggling schoolgirl, but the emptiness of her husband not being with her makes her realize that she is isolated from human contact, on page 21 she say's that she would be happy to talk to the maid or even the piano tuner as she felt lonely with nobody to comfort her. An interesting point is when she hears the voice of her mother she begins to cry as a child would being homesick, the scary truth is that she knows as a wife that she has to fulfill her duties and hearing the sound of her mothers voice breaks her up inside. Back on page 20 the narrator tells us that she is to visit the piano player (who is blind), and decides to dress in her own chosen clothes rather than any of her new clothes given to her after her marriage. "I pulled on my old serge skirt and flannel blouse, costume of a student, in which I felt far more at ease with myself than in any of my new fine clothes". She clearly feels at comfort when wearing clothes that remind of her independence of being a teenage girl, rather than wearing clothes that have been given to her, to make her feel as though she isn't herself (male- control). On the other hand she could be acting like a child to put on a facade in front of her husband, even though she has slept with him and become a woman, she could well be acting naive, innocent and childlike to attract him. Her childlike mind comes into practice as she is asked what she wants to eat, she has the freedom to choose anything she likes "but surprise me for desert with every single ice-cream in the box", whichever way we interpret the text there is always something signifying the male dominance, and in this case it is the reversal of gender roles and how the male is causing the female character to change for him whether its clothing or jewelery or even the mindset of a female, MEN ARE IN POWER!

Bluebeard in exactly 314 words!

There once lived a very wealthy French man that had a blue beard, this blue beard made him very ugly and unattractive despite all the previous wives he had, he wanted another. To lure a new wife into his palms he asked his neighbour to ask her two daughters if they were to marry him. After having been rejected due to his status and appearance he thought of a better, cunning and tempting plan, this was by giving eight whole days to the two girls, their mother and close friends in his castle, they would fish, hunt and play pranks on each other. However, these eight days made the entire difference and lead one of the sisters to announce that she was to marry Blueeard. After arriving at the castle as his wife, Bluebeard announced that he was to leave the castle for a few week’s, he gave his wife every single key in the castle to her, including a key to a small room that she was forbidden to enter even after her sister warned her not to enter, she did. She opened the door and found the wives of Bluebeard hanging and dripping with blood everywhere, shocked with fear she drooped the entire set of keys on the floor, stained with blood that would not wash off. She told her sister and they decided to run away, however, Bluebeard returned and found that his wife had disobeyed him he decided that he was now to behead her. She was allowed 15 minutes on her own to pray asking her sister to call her two brothers, they arrived just in time and killed Bluebeard, as Bluebeard didn’t have an heirs the wife inherited his vast wealth and gave some in return to her sister and brothers. She married a worthy man whose kind treatment led her to forget about evil Bluebeards cruelty. End.

Second wave feminism Piccys

Aarne–Thompson classification system

So, sir asked to blog on something that we found interesting in the lesson on Tuesday! When he mentioned the Aarne-Thompson classification system I found it quite interesting that such thing existed. So from looking at what I have read so far the system was started by a woman named Antti Aarne, the actual system was published in 1910. Whats so interesting about it is that the system was designed to help folkorists could identify and organize recurring plot patterns and narrative structures so that they could analyze them put together. The classification simply works by dividing tales into sections with an "AT" number for each entry. The names given are typical, but usage varies; the same tale type number may be referred to by its central motif or by one of the variant folktales of that type, which can also vary, especially when used in different countries and cultures. The tale type does not have to be accurate for every folktale. For example, The Cat as Helper (545B) also includes tales where a fox helps the hero.
However, there is difficulty using the system as it is sometimes hard to classify a certain tale, for example, Rapunzel is classified as 310 (as there is a maiden stuck in the tower) but the story opens with a child being demanded in return for stolen food, as does the fairytale Puddocky, but Puddocky is not a maiden in the tower tale like Rapunzel. So the system does have its disadvantages like folklorists can describe two tales to be classed as the same but this eliminates the details in the actual story turning it into something else. This analysis has been criticized for ignoring tone, mood, characters and, indeed, anything that differentiates one fairy tale from another.