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Author
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Comment
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dorothygale
Registered User
(7/13/05 9:41 pm)
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types of mothers
Hey guys,
I'm wondering about the types of mothers usually portrayed in Grimms tales (for an english paper I'm doing). My dad, who has read alot of Grimms and Bettelhiem, ran me through the different types of 'mothers' in these tales, but I can't quite remember... something along the lines of 'good mothers,' (who usually died at birth??), 'bad mothers,' (or were bad mothers always step-mothers?) and evil step-mothers. And then I guess there would be absent mothers.. And were there passive mothers?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
dorothygale
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Writerpatrick
Registered User
(7/14/05 9:52 am)
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Re: types of mothers
The characters in fairy tales are often architypal, that is, they have predictable traits and behave according to expectations.
Not all good mother's die. Snow White and Rose Red's mother is a good mother who doesn't die, though she doesn't play a major part in the story past the beginning. Then there's characters such as "Mother Hulda" who acts like a mother to the younger characters.
Bad mothers are often stepmothers simply because it's hard to accept a birthmother as mean.
From what can think of, I would be inclined to classify them as:
birthmothers (often good)
stepmothers (often bad)
grandmothers (like Red Riding Hood's)
acting mothers or grandmothers (like Mother Hulda, who would act more like a grandmother)
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DawnReiser
Registered User
(7/14/05 3:22 pm)
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mothers
The Grimm brothers altered tales making evil mothers into evil stepmothers partly because a mother killing her own child was unpalatable; I believe in the original Snow White it was her mother and not her stepmother who ordered Snow's death.
Note also the almost complete lack of fathers in many tales or if not the lack of then the ambiguity of same: Hansel & Gretel's, Snow White's, Beauty's, etc.
Though there are evil father's in also - not mind stepfathers but fathers.
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MusicOfTheNight
Unregistered User
(7/20/05 1:53 pm)
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East of the Sun and West of the Moon
It's true that Snow White's stepmother was originally her mother. Also the case for Cinderella. But, I was wondering, where would a mother like the one in "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" fall? She is well-intentioned, but gives her daughter bad advice anyway.
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Lamplighter
Registered User
(7/21/05 6:11 am)
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Re: East of the Sun and West of the Moon
www.surlalunefairytales.com/introduction/womenfairytales.html has a host of excellent background reading, and a series of links to archived threads that deal with this subject.
In the case of East of... does it actually matter which parent gives the poor advice, i.e. is it really a gender question? Can not the plot progress with a male relative in that role?
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midori snyder
Registered User
(7/21/05 8:38 am)
ezSupporter
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Re: East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Perhaps instead of thinking so much about classifications of particular maternal roles...consider the function of the character in relationship to the child. The stories you are looking at are about the rites of passage of the child from adolescence to adulthood...a journey that is a little different for males (who generally return home with a new bride and assume the roles of their fathers) than females (in exogamous societies, girls travel outward, to the house of marriage and don't usually return home--at least to stay).
In that situation, the role of the mother in the narrative can have a variety of functions, depending on what is needed by the child to move forward in the rite of passage. Often the evil stepmother (like the incestuous father or brother...or in one of my favorite Zulu tales, a cannibalistic brother) are there to shatter the life of the girl home--forcing her out into the world where she can begin her rite. But as the fantastic is ambiguous--offering creative solutions as well as destructive forces, the fantastic maternal energy is also often split into two characters (or like a Baba Yaga contain both possiblities). In the Goose Girl, the princess has the protective drops of blood from her mother--but the serving girl (there in loco parentis) forces the girl out of her comfortable role...and into servitude. In Cinderella the cruel stepmother is countered by the Fairy Godmother (one to push her out, the other to push her forward) in Untombi Yapansi (the Zulu "Goose Girl") the Imbulumakisana takes away the girl's identity while the girl carries a magic stick from her mother that produces food when she needs it. (there by protecting her from violating the taboo of eating food at her future husband's house until claimed as a bride)
I don't mean to suggest its always that neat...sometimes the cruel maternal figure is countered by a protective stand in (a non human helper, Falda's head for example, the dwarves,). Since narratives can have such similiar structures, I am cautious when giving a lot of weight to the specific cultural implications of a surface image. The role of the wicked stepmother--as the explusive catalyst for the child undergoing rites of passage--is as often handled by cruel or inattentive fathers, brothers, and pissed off fairy godmothers. Equally the protective, nurturing role is just often performed by animals (and humans in animal enchantments), serving men, giants, cannibal mothers, the Usilusimapundu (a walking mountain in a fabulous Xhosa story), various elements and so on.
On the other hand, Marina Warner's From the Beast to the Blonde is still one of the best and most provocative studies on the interpretation and social history of female characters in European oral narrative traditions...you might want to have a quick look at her work if you haven't already.
(hmmm...as a side bar, one might make an interesting study of the little objects that stand in for the mother...an identity the girl emulates--until she can find her own...like the drops of blood of the mother, or the ring in Tattercoats that the husband uses to trap his daughter in marriage. )
Edited by: midori snyder at: 7/21/05 8:40 am
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(7/22/05 4:42 pm)
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Re: East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Sorry, I know this is crossing threads, but it obviously does connect...
I know there are weak nurturing figures and helper figures of both sexes, but it does seem to be the case that, in general, the major nurturing figures (either true as in the good mother or inverted as in the wicked stepmother) are female and the major power figures (politically/economically) are male.
When you talk about exogamous societies are you referring just to African cultures? To me it seems that it's important for adolescents of both sexes to "move out of the family home" in the figurative sense at the very least. Also that this figurative sense is probably more fundamental than any physical separation, so at least on this ground, I'm not sure that the male and female child-to-adult journeys are so very different.
In fact, if one is (in the literal sense) expected to stay within, or within spitting distance of, the parental environment, isn't it all the more important to know how to assert oneself as an independent adult?
(Aside - sounding, I'm afraid, not very assertively independent - can you recommend a good and/or comprehensive collection of African tales???)
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midori
snyder
Registered User
(7/22/05 6:29 pm)
ezSupporter
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Re: East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Many (at least traditionally patriarchial...) traditional societies are exogamous societies. So my reference isn't just to African cultures. Campbell's traditional hero's journey is "separation, initiation, return." It describes the male journey from adolescence to adulthood...the hero leaving home, engaging in a confrontation with the fantastic, acquiring knowledge or gifts (the water of life and the apples of youth, or a magic bride)...then returns home with these gifts and often assumes kingship. This is certainly the pattern in most of the Russian hero narratives in Afanasnev's collection, many of the Grimms...even embedded in the smaller narrative of Telemechus...making a parallel, but adolescent version of his father, Odysseus' journey.
On the other hand...in the corresponding female hero stories...they end at the groom-to-be's house: East of the Sun, West of the Moon...she travels to find her future husband at the Troll Castle, the Armless Maiden's narratives involve a perilous journey in the woods and concludes at the Prince's home...as does Tattercoats (and its variants, Sapsorrow, Peau d'ane, Rushie Coat, Katie Woodencloak). In the very oldest variants of Sleeping Beauty...after she wakes to discover she's been raped and given birth in her sleep, she is taken to the Prince's home (some versions have an ogre mother-in-law who take an interest in stewing up the bride and children) The story doesn't end until she has secured her position from the Ogre mother-in-law in this new house. Maxine Hong Kingston talks about the Chinese saying that girls have an "outward tendency"...the meaning however, isn't as positive or liberated as it might sound. It's part of the long Chinese tradition of discrimination against girls...one is raising children whose gifts, talents, abilities will benefit other families when they leave to become wives (hence a waste of the family's resources) as opposed to sons who will remain in the home and insure its continued prosperity and filial obligations.
I think the whole phenomena of leaving home, and striking out on one's own (both sexes) is really a much more recent (as in the last century) activity. Even now in Europe, it's no where near as common as it is in the States where we seem to expect it. Italians for instance stay pretty dang close to home for a long time--with the added benefit that they share more wealth and advantages by doing so (even a modest middle class extended family will share in addition to their apartment in the city, a little place on the beach in Liguoria and a little place in the Dolemites for skiing.)
Yet my remarks were really more about the narratives and the traditional world that inspired those narratives. For all the brave heroines, the stories are in many way conservative--there to reinforce and affirm traditional expectations for young men and women's social roles. The journeys are done for those young women when they reach the threshold of marriage. (except perhaps for animal and fantastic brides. I have an essay about that on Endicott).
I have to respectfully disagree with your assertion that the majority of nurturing figures are females and the power figures are more often male. If we want to confine this hypothesis to a select collection of European narratives (say just Grimm's) perhaps I could be convinced. But I think once we begin to read more broadly (even adding in Afanasev's Russian Collection) I think there are too many exceptions to this division.
I tend to think of it more in terms of the importance of the role of the fantastic...that ambiguous force and energy that acts on characters to provide the dialectical transformations that occur in the narrative. Narratives may open in the human world (of castles, family politcs and tragedies) but they quickly move to the world out there--the woods, the ocean, the veld...that world where the fantastic enthusiastically operates. Here it becomes the task of the hero or heroine to wrestle from the fantastic its creative capacity, and survive its destructive capacity. "Nuturing figures" for me, are those characters who function to offer the creative potential of the fantastic...and they are not necessarily gender (or even human!) specific: the gray wolf in Vasilisa the Wise, the Puss in Boots, the Black Horse (in the Irish tale of the same name..who's the brother of the bride but transformed..he makes it possible for the hero to surive the magic tasks and free his sister). The destructive (sometimes seen as political power run amok) side of the fantastic also ranges in gender and species..from ogre mother-in-laws, black magic queens, nasty sorcerers (who are often fathers of the fantastic brides to be won by the hero...suggesting in the father/daughter relationship the duality of the fantastic) Hera on a bad day, wicked shoes, deadly rings, poisoned apples, Sirens, (and their sister Circe and her potions). And then there are some who are simply powerhouses of ambiguity: Baba Yaga who can help or destroy, gift wealth and her daughters, or show you to the ovens. Swallowing creatures of all kinds, dragons, whales who appear often to return the balance of power and nature to the world: Beowulf's dragon who allows him to confront his death as a hero, Jonah's whale that allows him time to reflect, the dragon in the clouds in the Mwindo Epic of the Congo, that beats the conceited hero to teach him he must not try and overstep his power (without consequences anyway.)
Whew...sorry for the length. I hope I haven't been too confusing...I am jamming alot of my ideas all at once here!
As for African narratives. There's lots out there but I would start with almost anything by Harold Scheub...especially his new book African Tales. Although he specializes in South African narratives (he speaks fluently eight different South African languages), his knowledge is encyclopedic. He has done a couple of other books you might find useful:
Story: a collection of 25 African tales along with essays which he uses for his undergraduate courses and The Dictionary of African Mythology. Most of his work should be available at a university or even a public library.
Edited by: midori snyder at: 7/22/05 6:41 pm
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(7/25/05 7:54 am)
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Re: East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Thanks for all that! Harold Scheub is now definitely on my reading list!
Yes, of course I don't at all dispute the point about the sex/species of helpers. But by the vague "major nurturing figures" I meant specifically those societally charged with the care of the hero. There are male examples, such as the single father at the end of Hansel and Gretel, but these generally seem rather redundant (in that instance seeming rather more a loved-and-loving-one than a caring-one).
While I agree a sense of fantasy/the strange/the inner is essential to whatever it is a fairy tale is, I feel the representation of the social/conventional/outer is its logical counterpart. Usually both elements seem to contain the helpful and the threatening, and the tale itself often seems to depict the process of synthesis between the two to arrive at a stable sense of personal (and/or political) identity. So, for me, this conventional aspect is also essential.
I agree that questions of nurture and power probably belong to a secondary level of conflict in fairy tales, but they are nevertheless recurrent. One of the main reasons why I've been braying on about asymmetry is the way western culture seems to be going through a state of collective adolescence (and arguably has been for much of the 20th century). For instance, in the terms you put it - it still has patriarchal hangovers aplenty, but is it exogamous? And how is this reflected in mass communal story telling (tv and multiplex)?
I understand your point that the stories are conservative - but as you tell in your monkey girl essay, what is conservative in one context may be radical in another. Fairy tales are supposed to be enjoying an increase in popularity - perhaps this is a reason why. Maybe the culture itself wants to leave the patriarchal home.
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midori
snyder
Registered User
(7/25/05 8:44 am)
ezSupporter
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Contemporary Reinterpretations
Ah...ok, I see your point. It's interesting to examine the contemporary renterpretation of traditional tales (and all their modern variations--the fabulous thread a while back on the use of Fairy Tales in modern advertising is a great example of that.) and determine how the social lessons of the stories have changed. I confess to being amused (as well as delighted!) by the recent collections now that celebrate the "brave heroines"...specifically for their "outward tendencies"--as though they were of acts of independence and self determination--regardless that those same tales were part of a very traditional society relying on what we would consider a very conservative interpretation-- that girls leave home...not to have their own lives, but because the rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood demands a movement from the home of birth to the home of marriage--and it is marriage that defines the girl as an adult woman.
I think we are still an exogamous society--except where it was once a mostly and uniquely female movement in marriage--it now seems to be an expectation of both sexes (at least in the US)--to leave home and not return (neither to the family compound, the farm, the business.). Whether that's statistically true or not, I don't know...but it seems to be a desire and an expectation of late teens, early twenty somethings to want to function "on their own." (as the mother of a 23 yr old son and a 20 yr old daughter I can tell you that such rejection is bittersweet. Happy that they are forging their own way, miserable that it seems to involve getting as far away from home/parents as possible to prove themselves.)
So it becomes something of an interesting question--especially for contemporary writers working with fairytale materials--how do we mainpulate the traditional structures and functions of characters, but then skew them to address contemporary angsts and axieties? Where is the evocative power in the images and journeys, and how do we layer the experience of the reader to recognize at once the old versions and the creative tension raised by the descrepencies in the new versions? Alice Hoffman's recent Snow Queen is a fabulous example: issues of nuturing are paramount in the story (an ambiguous mother, a father who abandons them, a brother who fills in the role of both parents, a daughter who refuses all love--frozen in "adolescence" well past the age because she can not love and must relearn how--not for the purpose of marriage, but to simply mature in her identity). The point of Hoffman's novel is not the traditional version, to create an evocative journey to adulthood and marriage for a young adult, but to mature past the traumas of childhood and become a nurturing/nonalienated adult (marriage ceases to be an issue here at all.)
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(8/4/05 12:02 pm)
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Re: Contemporary Reinterpretations
I think one of the things that's been confusing me is the spaghetti tangle of culture and psychology. There are powerful symbols which transcend gender and gender politics, which relate the self (the home) to other selves (the world). They are as independent of culture or the prejudices of any particular story teller as we want them to be. Interpretation is a matter for the interpreter - Meaningful symbols appear everywhere, even in the politically reactionary, just as you can see faces in river pollution as well as clouds. When interpreting what is given, it is up to the interpreter to decide the bounds of what is given - which could be the fairy tale as presented, or it could be the fairy tale with all its social/historical ramifications. Both are useful. In fact, it's probably essential to try and give an interpretation of the fairy tale as far as possible WITHOUT its historical context in order to separate the spaghetti a little. (That is, to give an interpretation within a contemporary context.)
I think, in one sense, fairy tale parents (good, evil and step) are secondary to the narrative elements of hero and problem. And I'm wondering now if the idea of evil itself (in fairy tales) is also secondary to the idea of problem. If you think of it as problem rather than evil, then probably fairy tales begin with as many problem-making fathers as (step)mothers. Looking at stories like The Three Feathers or The Firebird, you might not call the fathers evil, but they do present the problem the hero must overcome, as does the stepmother in Cinderella.
Nurture and power roles are one way of breaking this down. Fairy tales often show characters in fairly stark relation to one or other of these, and the heroes usually deficient in one somehow acquiring a balance with the other, albeit expressed in outmoded terms. Fathers in fairy tales are generally power figures, remote from the business of child rearing. Mothers tend to represent nurture.
The problem-setting parents mentioned above all seem to be power-heavy and nurture-light. But the female characters, who are also in the conventional nurturing role, are depicted as evil for that very reason, I'm thinking. The father in Cinderella is a power role, and so, even though he represents an imbalance, he isn't depicted as evil because he's consistent with his role. Conversely, a nurture-heavy/power-light mother, though of little practical use to the hero, is represented as good, because she is fulfilling her "proper" role.
When a power-heavy father does take a hands-on approach to his children's welfare, it also turns out evil, as in Donkeyskin.
So maybe this whole good/evil parents business can be explained in formal terms?
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(8/6/05 4:59 pm)
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problem rather than evil
[[ I think, in one sense, fairy tale parents (good, evil and step) are secondary to the narrative elements of hero and problem. And I'm wondering now if the idea of evil itself (in fairy tales) is also secondary to the idea of problem. If you think of it as problem rather than evil, then probably fairy tales begin with as many problem-making fathers as (step)mothers. Looking at stories like The Three Feathers or The Firebird, you might not call the fathers evil, but they do present the problem the hero must overcome, as does the stepmother in Cinderella. ]]
Yes. And it's the non-evilness of the father in Beauty and the Beast which MAKES him a problem -- ie makes her want to protect him.
I think this is a productive way to look at story elements. Collections of European folktales include comic tales about a wife and lover outwitting her husband; some early versions of Rapunzel consist of the same sort of incidents, with the witch to be outwitted. That same problem role -- out-wittee :)-- can be assigned to a duenna ('ogress' was a term for duenna or chaperone at one time), a well-meaning parent, even perhaps a little brother whose innocence should be protected.
We're used to protagonist=good, so it's natural to think of antagonist/problem=evil. So if a traditional romantic treatment is wanted, the out-wittee may be presented as evil (a greedy uncle who wants to force the heroine to marry some rich patron) so the heroine and lover can be altogether 'good'.
Of course there are some stories (such as a Russian version of The Water of Life iirc) in which a main point is the protag learning that the person who raised him is a foster-parent, and finding his true parent. But in many stories, for the purpose of a storyteller, changing 'father' to 'uncle' or 'land baron' can be a minor tweak from one audience to the next.
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(8/8/05 6:10 am)
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Re: problem rather than evil
Quote:
Yes. And it's the non-evilness of the father in Beauty and the Beast which MAKES him a problem -- ie makes her want to protect him.
Maybe an example of a nurture-heavy, power-light character in a conventionally power role?
Don't know how far this way of talking works, but it does seem to highlight a mathematical structure to these tales.
But - if you can isolate such forms from fairy tales, I think it would make sense to do so, and to do it prior to any kind of contextual analysis. For instance, it should show clearly whether a problem posed by someone in a story was in virtue of him/her being in a conventional role or not.
Also interesting to compare characters like Cruella de Vil, who on the face of it is has a character perfectly consistent with her role - power-heavy, power role - and (on this way of looking at it) her evil might betray some assumptions on our part and/or Dodie Smith about the "proper" role for a woman. (Although in seeking to buy the puppies, she's coming close to a conventional nurture-role, maybe...)
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(8/8/05 4:05 pm)
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mathematical structure
I certainly enjoy looking for structures like that!
Let's see, on one level it's still the same story no matter what good deed Beauty is doing by staying with the Beast. Any relative or friend could have gotten in trouble with the Beast, not just her father. Or she could have moved in to nurse the Beast in the first place. (Hm, that means she has the power over whether she stays; she isn't just there taking refuge or something.)
The pattern that would be different if it had been a mother or sister in trouble, is to me almost like an overlay. I'd miss the pattern of unexpectedly nice father + nice girl + unexpectedly nice beast (ie the pre-Disney version). What you said does relate to this level of pattern. Her father shows weakness, so she has to be strong enough to subjugate herself, to a Beast who turns out to be nicer than he looks.
Otoh, if the mother or sister had got in trouble, not by being weak but by being too pushy -- that would be quite a different overlay pattern, for me. I'd expect the Beast to be more pushy too, for balance; there would be more conflict, Beauty would outwit him repeatedly, there might be a sort of respectful rivalry.... (I wouldn't expect him to be abusive, like Disney's Beast, tho).
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