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Author
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Comment
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patricia
Unregistered User
(7/14/05 7:46 am)
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metaphors in fairytales
hi there,
I'm writing a study about the conceiling nature of metaphors (e.g. how they are used in political speeches to obscure, deny, to split the world in good and bad etc). Treating fairy tales as well, I got a bit confused about how the tales use metaphors?
I don't think there are many classical metaphoric references in the popular tales, are there?
Or are the figures (giants, stepmothers etc) in the tales or the tales themselves to be seen as general metaphors for real life? any ideas?
also, does anyone by any chance happen to know something about children's ability to actually understand metpahors?
thanks a lot!!
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DerekJ
Unregistered User
(7/14/05 12:42 pm)
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Re: metaphors in fairytales
Put it in the same category as Tolkien always angry at essayists who would suggest that "Lord of the Rings" was an allegory "about" WWII, or the bomb, or what-have-ye--
To him, although the personal-experience parallels and larger moral consequences of the story were there, he'd felt he'd written it as a story about the temptations of magic rings.
To extrapolate that idea out to fairytales, a giant in a story can be anything you want it to be, but until the hero safely escapes from one, FIRST it must be a story about giants...
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redtriskell
Registered User
(7/15/05 1:53 am)
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Re: metaphors in fairytales
I think where fairy tales are concerned, you kind of have to accept most of the story as a metaphor. For example, LRRH's red cloak can easily be viewed as a metaphor for her burgeoning sexuality. Also, Snow White's poisoned apple is, to my mind, a pretty obvious metaphor for all the ill will of people towards one another. As for children's understanding of metaphors... well, I feel they get the idea of the thing even if they aren't able to articulate it. Why do you suppose people recall fairy tales so vividly? Because the feelings of them are so intense; I think the feel of the story, which is obviously due in large part to metaphor, is what makes them so memorable. Just a thought...
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(7/15/05 4:04 am)
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Re: metaphors in fairytales
I doubt if anyone here would deny that the images in fairy tales are symbolic. Whether or not they're metaphors surely has to do with the intention of the tale-teller, which gets into murky philosophical waters. But I'm guessing from what you [Patricia] say, it's the use and abuse of the divide between intended and (different levels of) interpreted meaning that you're writing about.
I think there may well be an interesting comparison between the way fairy tales and rhetoric work, as much for their differences as similarities.
Edited by: DividedSelf at: 7/15/05 7:29 am
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Lamplighter
Registered User
(7/20/05 6:59 am)
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The nature of oral traditions
Let us not forget the oral traditions by which these stories were told. Children of different ages were told different versions of the same tale, in a similar fashion to the manner in which certain Classical myths and legends were pitched at different levels of understanding to advancing initiates.
When the Aboriginal people of Australia were written off as theologically ignorant and limited in their religious beliefs, what the western interviewers failed to note was that they were being told the children’s tales of creation!
So, in many cases, fairy tales would deliberately develop metaphors over several years of telling, with shifts in the emphasis of meaning. This use of metaphor is entirely different from the use of political rhetoric to drive home a point of view. A political point is underlined by the use of a metaphor; a metaphor in fairy tales can often be underlined by the tale itself.
Also worth noting that the interpretation of political metaphor is limited: the speechwriter assumes everybody will associate the same meaning with the words spoken, empowering the speaker. The diverse development of narrative strands in fairy tales allow the children to attach their own meaning to the situations presented, empowering the listener.
Another difference is that children are told that the stories they are told are just that: stories, fiction, not real, etc. Thus, the fairy tale metaphor can often strive to maintain this sense of fantasy; the blind “see” etc. On the other hand, political speech implores us that “this is the truth” and the metaphors employed help to drive home this point.
An aside to DereckJ’s Tolkien comments: does anybody else feel that the recent films portrayed the One Ring as a metaphor for opium addiction?
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(7/20/05 8:02 am)
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Re: The nature of oral traditions
Lamplighter - Manifestly rhetoric and fairy tales are different things, but they do have some interesting things in common.
Both rhetoric and story telling (I'm thinking really of oral story telling here) are to varying degrees spontaneous "speech acts", but also to varying degrees pre-prepared.
For instance, on the assumption that the motifs of fairy tales originate from various individual imaginations, they must be in their first instance not metaphors but symbols. An imagination generates meaningful symbols. These symbols become metaphors in the process of story telling - which is another level of creation (the umpteenth draft or retelling, if you like, when the tellers fully understand the symbols and can develop them intellectually, which is a kind of interpretation).
Political rhetoric is disingenuous, but I don't agree that it's interpretation is limited. Take for instance, a UK politician railing again the EU: "Let Britain stand firm and proud!" which could be interpreted on any number of levels:
(1) Don't let our country get pushed around.
(2) The implication that there is someone or something out there making our country weak and ashamed.
(3) The use of the word "Britain" as a symbol of erstwhile colonial "greatness". The use of the words "firm" and "proud" as phallic symbols. (Which may or may not be unconscious symbols rather than metaphors.)
(4) The limitless complexity of the context in which the speech is made. You can break this down pretty much infinitely - What does the politician hope to gain by making this speech? Are they really talking about Europe at all (or, say, about their own political career)? How does the meaning of the speech reflect and influence their standing among voters, among other members of their party? How does this speech reflect their reasons for taking such a stance, for becoming a politician in the first place, their relationship with their parents...
I'd agree though that a speechwriter does their damnedest to make sure that everyone associates the same meaning to the speaker's words. A political speech has the agenda which entirely about power - the power of an idea, sometimes power to the audience, always power to the speaker. It does this through context (the possibilities for a real future) and language, which is full of imperatives or one kind or another. A story has an agenda which is passive. It's about meaning, a framework to climb against - it doesn't give power to an audience, it gives the audience purchase with which to exercise their already existing power.
(The Tolkien aside - partly - but I think they messed up the structure by setting up Saruman as main structural baddy, then killing him off at the end of film 2 (or beginning of 3). Hence, the sense of complete anticlimax and multiple endings... in fact in the theatrical version, they didn't kill him off at all!)
Edited by: DividedSelf at: 7/20/05 8:48 am
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Lamplighter
Registered User
(7/20/05 10:03 am)
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Re: The nature of oral traditions
I see, that does make more sense if we take our viewpoint back to what underpins a metaphor itself.
What might be interesting to examine is why fairy tales and political speeches lean so heavily on metaphor compared with other styles of storytelling?
Do children respond to metaphor more readily than when they are older?
And what does it imply if politicians seemingly prefer to address us all as children?
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GreenMonk
Registered User
(7/27/05 9:16 am)
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Re: The nature of oral traditions
Another interesting point is the question of is the metaphor important because of the "speaker" or the audience. Where does the burden of association lie? If it lies with the speaker, then their knowledge of the audience is implied... if it lies with the audience, then is metapohoical interpretation even applicable, or is it a purely individual experience?
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deathcookie
Registered User
(7/27/05 10:32 am)
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re: the nature of oral traditions
Lamplighter,
Why Opium specifically? Why not drugs in general? The ring obviously had an addictive effect on Frodo, so I can see where the director could be pointing to addictive substances or addictions in general, but it didn't make me think of opium, per se.
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Lamplighter
Registered User
(7/29/05 6:22 am)
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Bad hobbits to adopt
Hello deathcookie, the One Ring struck me as heroin-like simply because of mixed memories for a missing decade of my "normal" life. I'm not going to condone illegality, nor play down the negative effects that I still drag around today, but please remeber folks, circumstances often overtake the individual.
The first film in particular, where Frodo slips on the ring in the confrontation with the Black Riders got it so right:
- The peculiar compulsion to indulge that becomes overwhelming when it is in your hand was particulary true
- The etheral hypnotic state that floods your senses
- The disassociation with the physical: Frodo is injured, but his pain is disjointed
Also there were running themes:
- The pale sweats and irrational mood swings
- The complete negation of appetite: food as sustinance is optional, and when you do eat, you taste little, so fresh hare would be as pallitable as cooked.
- The fact that your companions who also have indulged will knock you down to get at it
_ That some people cannot become corrupted by its allure, despite all the expectations to the contrary. They played the scene where Samwise hands the ring to Frodo like it was a friend who was helping him onto the path of recovery after one last go.
_ And finally, that the anti-social effects did not wear off of its users. The only hope for Frodo and Bilbo was withdrawl from the happy hobbit community that they could no longer engage and start a new life.
What is missing is the euphoria; the whole point of the experience, and the root of the addictive nature.
Of course, what sort of "ultimate weapon" this would make is debatable, and so why everyone was quite so intently involved in trying to gain it would not be accounted for. Also, wouldn't Sauron just sit and stare at the wall when he got his prize? If so, why hide it from him?
Anyway... not really a good metaphor then, and on reflection, without the euphoria, not really opium-like.
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Lamplighter
Registered User
(7/29/05 6:36 am)
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Metaphor in the mind's eye
Hello Green Monk, that is a good question. Perhaps we are in the territory of cross-cultural confusions, not less due to the differnce between the very structure of languages as well as traditional methods of storytelling.
At its basic level, there are the classic gaffs like " ***** brings your ancestors back from the dead", or the delightful www.engrish.com, to the more specific fur vs glass slipper, or the contentious translation of the word witch into the King James bible.
When we enter the realms of metaphor, these errors must multiply, particularly as stories age. Updates using modern signifers may not reflect the extact spirit of the original, and so-on for each new century or language the story resurfaces.
So, I would agree that politicians speak like they know their audience, but would appeciate the development of the idea for fairy tales and folklore.
Edited by: Lamplighter at: 8/4/05 9:13 am
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GreenMonk
Registered User
(7/29/05 11:18 am)
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Re: metaphors in fairytales
Lamplighter...
As for folklore, I think that the use of metaphor multi-fold. The "author" (for who can tell who that is with most of these tales) includes metaphor, but doesn't rely on it for a good tale. It seems to me that one of the characteristics of a good folktale is that the story is good without the metaphorical analysis that age brings to the stories. Much like the old Loony Toons cartoons (strange analogy, I know) they communicate on many levels for a broad scope of audiences and allow for the audience to "choose thier own" interpretation... It can be just a good story, a deep meaningful example, or even a life altering revelation, all dependant on the audience (reader) and thier maturity and what they are looking to get out of it. I think that part of the craft of folklore is to be able to create these stories without NEEDiNG the audience to look at it in a certain way, but allowing for it to communicate gracefully on all these levels at once.
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beautifulstars
Unregistered User
(8/1/05 5:24 pm)
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metaphors
DerekJ: You said : To extrapolate that idea out to fairytales, a giant in a story can be anything you want it to be, but until the hero safely escapes from one, FIRST it must be a story about giants..."
That is, in fact, a brilliant statement and one that was repeated, to some extent, repeatedly in any writing workshops given at my old alma matter in the fantasy/folklore genre. We were always told that, unless the story exists first, on it's own, as a story, that any meaning that is meant to be gleaned from it, metaphorical or otherwise, will not exist either.
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bielie
Unregistered User
(8/2/05 1:59 pm)
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opium euphoria
The euphoria of the One Ring is Absolute Power. The snake in Eden offered it to Eve: You will be like God.
The tower of Babel was build to be God. The quest for power runs like a red thread through human history. Peoples have been annihilated, fathers, brothers and mothers have been murdered.
Image the kick it will give you to be able to say "All ways are my way. Off with his head!"
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Lamplighter
Registered User
(8/3/05 2:02 am)
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Re: opium euphoria
Got it! You know - and I have never really had a forum to admit this - but I never did see what the fuss was about with the One Ring. Absolute Power, on the other hand, is worth the fuss that ensues.
You know, if they had all just sat around smoking pipeweed together...
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(8/3/05 6:53 am)
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Re: opium euphoria
Not really sure about the attractions of "absolute power" (whatever it means).
Howard Shore (composer for the films) reckoned it offered restored youth. Hence, lots of eerie choirboy voices etc.
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(8/6/05 11:11 pm)
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metaphors?
[[ Treating fairy tales as well, I got a bit confused about how the tales use metaphors?
I don't think there are many classical metaphoric references in the popular tales, are there? ]]
Could you give some examples of the sort of metaphors you're looking for in fairy tales? Or in political speeches?
In a fairy tale, the teller has to be careful about metaphors. If a politician says "The Prime Minister was hiding his head in the sand," we know he doesn't mean it literally. But in a fairy tale, many more things COULD be meant literally.
Sometimes some odd language is used about pregnancy, birth, and death; would that help your paper?
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mlcochova
Registered User
(8/7/05 11:07 am)
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metaphors or symbols?
helo there,
I was interested in this topic so much that I registered to the discussion.
When reading your discussion I was wondering if you speak about literary metaphors or symbols - symbolic language. I found symbolic language of fairy tales a challenging topic my diploma project and decided to concentrate on religous symblos and motifs in fairy tales. And ,of course, I agree that the story itself is first, but it sais something more than "the hero wanted to be rich and get married to a beautiful princess".
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(8/7/05 11:16 am)
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story makes the metaphor?
I'm still not sure what kind of metaphors the OP is looking for. But metaphors we use in real life, such as 'Procruste's bed' or 'a poisoned apple', take their meaning from the plot of the story they appeared in. If the plot didn't add up, the phrase would not have been picked out for real life use.
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