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The History And Influence Of Cinderella Fairy Tale Analysis
“Cinderella” is a classic rags-to-riches tale and can be found, written straight or subverted, throughout the history of literature. It’s worth pointing out that Cinderella wasn’t truly from ‘rags’. She was related to middle class people, so was at least middle class herself. No one wants to hear about actual starvation, rickets and whatnot at…
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A Rumour Of Otters
A Rumour of Otters by Deborah Savage is an out-of-print New Zealand book, published 1984, written by an author from Pennsylvania. I remember there was a class set of this book in my high school, studied by Year 9 students. I wonder if there’s still a box of them in the Burnside High School resource…
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Making Use Of The Miniature In Storytelling
Outside is the big world, and sometimes the little world succeeds in reflecting the big one so that we understand it better. Fanny and Alexander, Ingmar Bergman Stories featuring vast size differentials are as old as storytelling itself. These differentials can be created in various different ways, and are much utilised across children’s stories in…
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The Tale Of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter Analysis
As Marjery Hourihan points out in Deconstructing the Hero, Peter Rabbit is basically an Odyssean story. A male hero goes out, has an adventure, faces death and then arrives home, changed. Beatrix Potter was following a long tradition of storytelling when she wrote this one.
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Dragons In Children’s Literature
Dragons have always evoked a mixture of fear and attraction. They’re everywhere in The Bestiaries. Folkloric dragons always talk. They are semi-human and have wily intelligence. Sometimes they’re regal, sometimes cowardly.
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Domestic Dramas In Children’s Literature
While adventure stories were originally written for boys, domestic dramas were written for girls. DOMESTIC DRAMAS AND PLOT SHAPES Adventure stories are linear. The hero starts the story by leaving. He often finds himself in a new home after completing his journey. This is a linear plot. In contrast, domestic dramas are circular. Domestic stories are home-away-home stories, with…
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The Difference Between Folklore and Fable
Folklore refers to the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth. No one knows the origins of folklore. Fables are parables which star non-humans (animals). Contemporary speakers rarely make this distinction. Mostly nowadays ‘fable’ is sometimes used instead of ‘parable’. Commentators know the lines have blurred and will…
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Allegory Equals Extreme Metaphor
Allegory means, among many other things, that the characters, worlds, actions and objects in a work of fiction are highly metaphorical. That doesn’t mean they aren’t unique or created by the writer. It means the symbols have references that echo against previous symbols, often deep in the audience’s mind. Allegorical also means ‘applicable to our…
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A Brief History Of Horse Stories
Horses and horse-like supernatural creatures go way back in folklore. They don’t get much of a mention in Grimm’s fairytales, but I’m guessing that’s only because horses were simply assumed. Mentioning horses would be like us pointing out all the cars. The water-horse or kelpie was a creature from English folklore. This horse was a…
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Broadchurch Pilot Episode TV Writing
Broadchurch is a TV murder mystery in which a village is a miniature for society. As one reviewer points out, “the death which happens at the beginning incites all sorts of unexpected human behaviour, with repercussions all around the town. Initially the show seems to be making the banal point that the residents of this…
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An Affair Of The Heart by Frank Sargeson Analysis
“An Affair Of The Heart” is one of New Zealand author Frank Sargeson’s best-known short stories. Was Sargeson essentially misogynist? Frankly, I think not as there are positive women characters in some of his stories – including the wrenchingly sad one in An Affair of the Heart. But women-as-controlling-bitches is one recurrent motif. Review by…
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The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
In March 1907 Katherine Mansfield’s mother, Annie Beauchamp, held a garden party at their residence, 75 Tinakori Road. On the same day, a poverty-stricken neighbour was killed in a street accident. Later, KM wrote a story about it.
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Character Looks Into A Mirror Introduction
Before mirrors were invented, the earliest type of “mirror” used was nature – reflections in ponds, lakes and rivers when waters were calm enough to reveal a flat surface. But even then, we had never truly “seen” ourselves and, because of this, we had a very different concept of who we were. In his book Millennium: From Religion…
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Doppelgangers, Twins and Changelings In Fiction
A doppelganger is an apparition or double of a living person. It comes from German, and translates literally from ‘double walker’.
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The Magic Porridge Pot And Famine
The Magic Porridge Pot is also known as Sweet Porridge and goes by various similar titles. This is a fairytale borne of famine.