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Works to Compare and Contrast with Hilda Bewildered
Hilda Bewildered is an illustrated short story book app published by Slap Happy Larry. Here are some other stories to compare and contrast. Non-fiction: Short: Walking Tall When You’re Not Tall At All Kids of all genders are highly rewarded for conforming to — and exaggerating — our own masculinities and femininities. For women that means: curvaceous […]
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Hop O’ My Thumb by Charles Perrault
Hop O’ My Thumb is so similar to Hansel and Gretel you might wonder how both co-existed. Both stories have: A time of famine In which the parents decide to leave their children in the woods A trail of pebbles A second abandonment, further into the woods A welcoming cottage in the woods A cannibalistic […]
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Charles Perrault’s Fairytale Morals: Rewritten For A Modern Audience
When Charles Perrault wrote down the fairy tales he’d collected from the wider culture, he ended each one with a summary which summed up the moral. In many cases, his take on the moral was pretty far from earlier tellings. Perrault wrote in a tongue-in-cheek manner — that much is clear. But as with any […]
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Breaking Bad And The Influence Of Classic Fairytales
Vince Gilligan broke new television ground by writing a series about a good man turned evil. He also borrowed from a long history of storytelling. Walt White is a modern superhero archetype, but Breaking Bad also borrows from classic fairytales. Most modern stories do. PUSS IN BOOTS The unnamed cat in Puss In Boots is determined […]
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The Foolish Wishes by Charles Perrault
The Foolish Wishes passed me by as a kid, but there are no shortage of tales about characters granted 3 wishes by some sort of genie/supernatural being.
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Bluebeard Fairy Tale Analysis
“Bluebeard” is a classic fairytale — the O.G. tale of domestic violence. Any story in which a fearsome husband murders his young wife is probably a “Bluebeard” descendent. The husband in this tale is monstrous, and related to the archetype of the ogre. If you’d like to listen to the tale, I recommend the (free) […]
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Puss In Boots by Charles Perrault Fairy Tale Analysis
These days, modern children are probably most likely to have encountered Puss In Boots in the second Shrek movie. The most resonant scene for us all is probably the bit where Puss is revealed to be a manipulative little bastard, making his eyes big and cute in order to get what he wants. I admit, it’s a real triumph of animation.
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Sleeping Beauty And Cannibalism
If you’ve already read Angela Carter’s short stories, in which she rewrites famous tales as feminist ones, you may well hear her scoffing silently in your head as you read these tales, mostly by Charles Perrault, who added his own paternalistic, misogynist morals as paragraphs at the ends. And if you’ve never read these tales […]
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Freaks and Geeks Storytelling Tips
Freaks and Geeks is a coming-of-age drama made in the late 1990s, set in 1980. Though it was cancelled after one season, that’s not because it wasn’t good. Perhaps the audience assumed this was yet another high school drama done badly. This show did a lot of stuff you’ll have seen before, but did it […]
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What’s behind the wide appeal of horrible, brooding, YA boyfriends?
THE RECIPE FOR A YOUNG ADULT DARK PARANORMAL ROMANCE BOYFRIEND Handsome In a white kind of way Muscled but not too muscled — not like he works at it Well groomed and fairly nubile — not much body hair Remarkable eyes and gaze A bit older than the female protagonist A bit taller Maybe a […]
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Purple Adjectives, Plain Adjectives; Every adjective has a home
ON PURPLE PROSE Apart from the fact that certain types of writing demand flowery language — a subset of the romance genre being a case in point — there are other uses for the sort of prose which otherwise reads so beautifully that it draws attention to itself. Sometimes such language has the unintended effect […]
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The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tale Analysis
Always remember that the crowd which applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show. Going Postal, Terry Pratchett If you’re here because you’ve been assigned to write an essay on emperors, be sure to double check which emperor you’re meant to be writing about. A BRIEF HISTORY […]
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What Is A Goth?
The word ‘goth’ is used in various ways in various contexts. When applied to a person, what does it mean?
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Boy Friendly, Girl Friendly
What is meant by boy friendly and girl friendly? Sometimes a Google search screenshot speaks a thousand words: Girl Friendly Links Strong Female Characters In Fiction from Common Sense Media 100 YA Books For The Feminist Reader from Bitch Media 9 FEMALE CHARACTERS WE WISH WE’D BEEN MORE LIKE IN HIGH SCHOOL from The Mary […]
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Harriet The Spy
Kate DiCamillo has this to say about Harriet The Spy: “Not too long ago, I remembered that I read and loved Harriet the Spy [as a kid], and so I went back to it as the adult me, with some trepidation. … And it’s even better and more subversive than I remembered. It’s basically a primer on how […]
