SJNY100-Fairytales/Folk Tales

The story I selected that features familiar parallels with the Cinderella fairy tale is “The Rough-Face Girl”, which takes place in an Algonquin setting. The protagonist was selected to take care of a fire for years upon years, inflicting a plethora of scars upon her face and arms. She was one of three sisters, with the other two being described as beautiful, yet cruel. All of them desired to marry the “invisible being”, as he is described as being “rich, powerful, and very handsome.” However, the only way to marry him would be to prove that they could see him. Is the beauty of the two sisters enough, or is there, perhaps, more required to witness the invisible being?

https://www.rafemartin.com/bk_roughface.html

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1322980.The_Rough_Face_Girl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REv5iCESpyg

This commercial ad for Aldi in “Cendrillon” (French for Cinderella) shows a guy looking for the shoe owner of the woman he saw at a club in the modern world, sharing photos of the shoe online but also the classic method of asking girls to try the shoe on. The shoe won’t fit this one pretty girl he knew from a party, but he does not want to give up. So, he heads to Aldi, buys a pair of pliers, and cuts the shoe open so it fits the love interest’s foot. The ad ends with “Welcome to today’s life. Welcome to the new consumers.”

Jordan Gellert, Natalie Chudecki, & Angelina Veverka

Use this image to create a fairy tale to share with others…  we will do this in class

We all recall the fairy tales that entranced us when we were young… and maybe still do.  Before they were called “fairy tales,” they were folk tales.  Where do fairy tales come from?  What makes a story a “fairy tale?”  How are they related to myths, if they are?

In our freshmen seminar and on this site, we will explore how fairy and folk tales captivate our imaginations, their history, their meaning and the many ways that scholars have attempted to “tame” them and unpack their influence on us.  Welcome!

What fascinates you most about these kinds of tales?