Sunday, February 4, 2007
Ch. 5 Zipes
In chapter 5, Zipes introduced a woman name Wanda Gag. Zipes notes her on her work, which played a major role with the Grimm's fairy tales. He seemed inform about how Wanda changed the view of fairy tales. He notes that the original stories from Germany were gory. Zipe questioned about whether creators can "appropriately" write for children or actually write for children (p.88). I think it was a great question to be brought up because it does raise many of the questions we had about the earlier chapters. That is that the stories are for children or adults, and how publishers will modify the stories. Zipes explained about how Wanda contaminated some of the Grimm's Stories by changing a few things, but it did still follow the storyline. As for the Hansel and Gretel variants, they all had the same actions about returning a favor. I liked how the story about Molly Whuppie and The Rose Tree. They both had like a revenge type of ending. "What goes around, comes around", sums it up for me.
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After reading chapter 5 I was a little more impressed by Zipes, he actually made sense and didn’t repeat himself over and over again as it seems he usually does. He talks about a woman named Wanda Gag who had been read the Grimm Brothers stories when she was a young girl and enjoyed them so much she pursued a career in rewriting these stories. She stayed true to the Grimm brothers but added her own creativity to the stories. This is what Zipes says is contamination, he says that her stories “while pleasing to the eye, they do not add depth to the texts. In fact, they take away from her translations and even contradict them.” Pg. 91 But everybody is entitled to their own opinions. I love where Gag was coming from, she said on pg. 86, “You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book for children for-if you are honest-you have, in fact, no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins.”
As for the variants, they were once again very disturbing. The first one, by the Grimm Brothers, is the only one I was completely familiar with. Molly Whuppie was very strange, It was a great story about how a young girl outsmarted a large giant but I still don’t understand why she would have to sacrifice so many other lives just for her sisters and her to be married into wealth, it seems so shallow. The other two were very much alike, both were stepmothers who got bit by the jealousy bug and killed their children, who came back as birds and got revenge somehow, still not a good message, but the stories were very interesting and fun to read.
I agree that chapter 6 was more interesting and easier to read because it was not as repetitive. I was interested in reading Zipes opinion regarding the Grimm Brothers, I never really thought about the hundreds of authors that have written "different versions" of Grimm Brothers texts. I never thought about the re creations as contamination. I believed that as a reader you understood the difference between t contemporaryhe original text and the various re writes of the text. Although many times you ma read a newer version of a text in order to refresh your memory of that text, therefore your last memory of the text is the newer version. This is when Zipes' idea of contamination makes sense, "In the process, contemporary writers who use the Grimm tales as their pre texts are contaminating the Grimm legacy while enriching it and forging new concepts in the fairy tale world".
Although chapter 5 is more entertaining than zipes' previous chapters, i still failed to see the overall point he is trying to make. Throughout the chapter he criticizes Gag's interpretations of the Grimms' fairy tales. He argues that Gag was writing these fairy tales for herself rather than for children, and that she simplifies and romanticizes the stories making them more appealing to the public. He also critices her artwork, stating that it is dull and misleading, and that it takes away from the text. By the end of the chapter however, Zipes begins sticking up for Gag and stating that her fairytales are signifigant and valuable to young readers.
Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with the changes Gag has made to the Grimms fairy tales. She took something foreign and changed it into something Americans were able to relate to at that time. She wasn't trying to preserve the specific fairy tale texts so much as she was trying to preserve the feeling they gave her when she read them as a child. Even if she was writing for herself instead of for children, she was writing with hopes that her stories would reach other children just as they had reached her.
I would like to start the discussion since there is no lead blog yet, I have really enjoyed reading Briar Rose. It is easy to read and entertaining. I thought it was very important in the beginning of the story when the narrarator Becca discusses her childhood, she mentions that she was angry at a friend that was going to sleep over. While Gemma is telling the story of sleeping Beauty the friend says "that is not the way it goes" the friend is shocked that Gemma is changing the story and must speakup and say that it is not the way she has been told. Becca gets angry because that is how the story has always been told by her grandmother and she has always known it to be told that way. This part stood out to me because it shows how these stories are memorized by chidren and that everything turns out well in the stories, everyone lives happily ever after. The child was alarmed when Gemma stated that not everyone woke up once the spell was lifted that just she and the prince did. Just wondering what everyone else thought about that part.
Briar Rose has been a great book so far. I did also like the part about Becca going off at her friend about the story. I was surprised that Becca's friend never came back to stay at her house again. It is truely incredible how two of the children can be friends and just stop being friends. The book has a great story to it, but I think that sometimes it confuses me because some of the chapters are short and some are longer. Everytime a new chapter appears, it always changes from the past and the present. It is akward for me at the same time, it gives me a great time to think about it. This is something that is continuous throughout the book. I never really got the see the sleeping beauty movie or read the book, so The story is not too familiar to me. Is the snow white similar to the part about going to the party and making everyone fall asleep?
Briar Rose was a really hard book to get into at the beginning but as I read on it was hard to put it down. This is the story of a young girl, Becca, who goes on a journey to figure out the mystery of her Grandmother’s life. Gemma, who is supposedly the Grandmother, has told her grandchildren a fairy tale through out their lives, and when Gemma is dying she asks Becca to promise to find the castle and many other things as well. The reason I believe she asked Becca is because she is the youngest and the most like her. Becca then goes t o Poland and is following clues to carry out her Grandmother’s last wishes.
It is so interesting how it switches from the past to present; you are always on the edge of your seat. This is a story that Zipes would claim is contamination, but it is very well done and is appealing to not only youth but adults as well. This is the type of book I would have never thought to read on my own but now that I have picked it up I can’t stop. I am really excited to read on and see if Becca really does find all the things her Grandmother asked her to.
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