The Perilous Realm of Faërie: an Analysis of Constructions of Gender and Society in selected Fairy Tales by Marike Potgieter A dissertation submitted in accordance with the requirements for the Master’s degree in the Faculty of the Humanities (Department of English) at the University of the Free State. 30 November 2010 Supervisor: Professor M. M. Raftery Acknowledgements There are many people who deserve my gratitude. Firstly, I would like to thank my friends for all their moral support and guidance. A special thank you to the following: Thinus, who always listened and helped when I hit a mental snag; Danie and Hanta, who always had time to listen to and calm all my irrational fears; and most importantly André, who unknowingly taught me to look at things from different perspectives. I also wish to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. M. M. Raftery, for her patience and guidance. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their faith in me. Most especially I would like to thank my mother for her steadfast encouragement and financial support. I would also like to express my appreciation to my sisters, Leani and Janita, for their support and assistance in computer-related matters. Without the help of these people this dissertation could not have been attempted. The queene thanketh the kyng with al hir myght, And after this thus spak she to the knyght, Whan that she saugh hir tyme, upon a day: “Thou standest yet,” quod she, “in swich array That of thy lyf yet hastow no suretee. I grant thee lyf, if thou kanst tellen me What thyng is it that wommen moost desiren. .” Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales The Wife of Bath’s Tale Lines 899-905 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1: The Roots of it All ........................................................................................ 12 Chapter 2: The Forest of Lore ....................................................................................... 20 Folklore and Literature ............................................................................................... 22 Classifying folktales ................................................................................................... 29 The Folktale Type Index ......................................................................................... 31 Vladimir Propp’s Morphology ................................................................................. 38 The Psychological Approach .................................................................................. 43 Chapter 3: A Tree of Tales ............................................................................................ 50 Chapter 4: Branches from the same Tree ..................................................................... 66 Chapter 5: Petals on the Wet, Black Boughs ................................................................ 77 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 105 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 109 Illustrations .................................................................................................................. 115 Appendix ..................................................................................................................... 116 Mother Holle ............................................................................................................ 117 The Juniper Tree ..................................................................................................... 121 The Maiden without Hands ...................................................................................... 133 Bluebeard ................................................................................................................ 141 Abstract ....................................................................................................................... 148 Abstrak ........................................................................................................................ 150 Key Terms ................................................................................................................... 152 Introduction The question posed within the extract from “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is still valid. The knight sets out to find the answer to this question and meets with various possible answers, but nothing that he feels will save his life: Somme syde wommen loven best richesse, Somme syde honour, somme syde jolynesse, Somme riche array, somme syden lust abedde, And oftetyme to be wydwe and wedde. Somme syde that oure hertes been most esed Whan that we been yflatered and yplesed. He gooth ful ny the sothe, I wol nat lye. A man shal wynne us best with flatterye, And with attendance and with bisynesse (Chaucer, 1988: 177) Only the old woman whom he meets before his time limit elapses gives him the answer the queen is searching for: in a word, women desire “maistrie”. Thus, the answer to this question lies with women. In a sense, this dissertation also sets out to find an answer to this question, by investigating female characters within fairy tales. Setting out on a quest through fairy tales may seem rash and unwise. As Tolkien (1980: 2) states: “Faërie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold”. Fairy tales are something people usually associate with childhood, Introduction because of childhood memories, and they are inclined to push such tales aside when they grow older since they feel that fairy tales do not contain relevant subject matter for “grown-up” lives. They may wander through the fairy realm again when they have children of their own. Here they fall into one of the “pitfalls” and “dungeons”, for fairy tales in fact offer subject matter that instructs 1 (no matter the age of the audience/reader) and sometimes challenges. Some may find the tales too horrifying and graphic, and like to keep them away from their children. This is another of the traps of Faërie. These tales may be graphic, but they teach clear lessons. Furthermore, it should be remembered that they were originally intended for adult audiences, and that the concept of “childhood” as we understand it today did not exist when these tales were originally circulated. The emphasis in this dissertation is not on the intended audience of fairy tales, but on the gendered perspectives found within these tales. Thus, this dissertation’s methodology is rooted within feminist criticism. I will attempt to analyse the ways in which fairy tales have been shaped by political and social forces and how they provide gendered prescriptions for their audience. The focus on and glorification of feminine beauty in fairy tales may represent a way in which gender inequality (objectification, devaluation and subordination) is reproduced via cultural products. Thus, this study will use fairy tales to investigate societal values such as gender and class. It will pay special 1 These lessons may include societal norms, beliefs and/or morals. 7 Introduction attention to the way in which the ideal of feminine beauty – “the socially constructed notion that physical attractiveness is one of woman’s most important assets, and something all women should strive to achieve and maintain” (Baker-Sperry et al. , 2003: 711) – relates to power, economic privilege, class, and virtue, and how these aspects interact with one another. This goes hand-in-hand with how women were generally treated and how they reacted to their circumstances. A secondary objective of this study is to examine belief and social arrangements by investigating the way in which fairy tales structure society as well as notions of what is moral and ethical. An example of this may be found in the “Bluebeard” tale: Bluebeard is a captor, not only a physical captor but also an innate predator. “Bluebeard represents a deeply reclusive complex” (Pinkola Estés, 1998: 44) which lurks on the periphery of all human life, waiting for an opportunity to oppose and dominate human nature. In the tale Bluebeard marries the youngest of the sisters since she is naive and easily manipulated. She nevertheless becomes curious about her husband and discovers the cellar containing the remains of all his previous victims (the other curious wives he has murdered). This empowers her to take action against Bluebeard (keeping him at bay while she waits for her brothers to help her) and thus to free herself from imposed restrictions. Thus, societal ethics are, in a way, implicit in both the creation and the interpretation of fairy tales throughout the ages. The researcher faces certain obstacles: the first is the sheer number of fairy tales in existence. Fairy tales have been told for thousands of years in many cultures, thus the 8 Introduction researcher is confronted with a vast corpus of material. A related problem is that many other types of tales with some of the same characteristics may also be regarded as fairy tales. The Oxford Dictionary (2006: 527) provides the following definition for fairy tales: “a story about magic or fairies, usually for children”. According to this definition tales concerning travellers witnessing wonders and marvels