scholarly journals The typology of backstory inter-character conflicts as a core action in the plot

Ars Aeterna ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-90
Author(s):  
Mariana Čechová

Abstract Using material from classic fairy tales, the author defines three fundamental types of conflict between literary characters in the text model of the fairy-tale world: overt, covert and potential. Their attributes are evidenced and demonstrated via specific texts and their universal (transcultural) analogues are shown in the archnarratives, which go beyond the classic fairy tale genre. At the end of the interpretation, the author proposes a (hypo)thesis that the presented typology could be a starting point for creating a backstory of conflicts as an action-formative factor also in other art genres, and that it can be used as a source for a much broader and modern (and current in contemporary art) diapason of “dramatic” storylines.

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Kaliszewska-Henczel

The aim of the article is to present meanings associated with fairy tale places by teacher candidates. The research data came from interviews with 57 early childhood pedagogy students, analysed through a qualitative method. The competences of candidates for teachers in perceiving the symbolism of places, wandering, world layout, reveal not only the level of cultural and literary knowledge (because they are a “showcase” of previous school experiences of fairy-tale themed lessons), but also indicate their future strategies for designing children’s activity based on fairy tales. These strategies may turn out to be so durable and resistant to change that they might survive university literary education and remain the starting point for students’ teaching practice. The research shows that the fairy tale can remain in them as the starting point for fun or a “background” for science, mathematics and language.


Legal Studies ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Rackley

The story of the woman judge as one of exclusion and isolation plagued with allegations of bias is well documented. Interestingly, despite significant differences in time and place, a common theme unites these tales: the woman judge is a dangerous outsider, a threat to the aesthetic norm. The judicial climate, at least in most of the common law world, is somewhat chilly: reactions to her presence on the bench vary from the largely indifferent to the downright hostile. Why is this? After all, most people, perhaps acknowledging the political and democratic gains underlying calls for a more representative judiciary, would wish to encourage – or at least not discourage – judicial diversity.Taking the stories of the woman judge as its starting point, this paper contends that underlying these tales is an image of the judge that is as much intuitive as it is reasoned; that our understanding of the judge and judging is as much derived from the imagination as from what is conventionally considered as rational thought. Thus, the paper deploys the narrative strategies of fairy tales in an attempt to disrupt the imaginative hold of familiar yet particular images that infuse and distort current discourses on adjudication. It suggests that despite the Department for Constitutional Affairs’ ongoing quest to increase diversity within the judiciary, current initiatives do not confront fully these instinctive images. As a result, their narrative of inclusiveness and difference fails. In response, the paper appeals to the imagination as a route toward engendering new conceptions on the judge and judging, the possibility of truly diverse judiciaries and, perhaps, a fairy tale ending to the woman judge’s story.


2021 ◽  
Vol 82 (6) ◽  
pp. 79-86
Author(s):  
E. V. Beshenkova

This article aims to create a rule explaining the choice of a lower-case or upper-case letter to spell literary characters’ names. The rule should be unambiguous, intrinsically logical, and it should not contradict the codified lexical material. Several formulations of the rule given in reference books were analysed; discrepancies between the rule and dictionary codifications were identified. Additionally, questions and answers related to this issue and obtained from the Russian language query services were studied. As a result, the research revealed types of discrepancies in the recommendations given in the rule and in dictionaries, ambiguous rule formulations that can be interpreted in two ways, and textual conditions that permit different understandings of proper name boundaries. The analysis of the real usage of proper names and their combinations with appositions, attributes, and accompanying words in different types of texts (i. e. in texts created by authors, in fairy tales, byliny, and other authorless texts) resulted in determining several textual conditions which permit or prohibit using this or that combination in the function of a proper name. As for authorless texts, it turned out important to consider the character’s name not only in the work under analysis, but also in the cultural context in its entirety, in the entire fairy tale or heroic epic world. Another significant factor is understanding the boundaries of the proper name and the common nouns accompanying it accepted in this world. Authors are free from the tradition of naming a character in the texts they produce, but at the same time they should take into account the intratextual conditions governing the choice of either a proper name or a common noun. As a result, a special note to the general rule concerning proper name spelling was formulated for the new edition of "The academic rules of orthography". This note identifies different options to understand the boundaries of proper names for various structures. The choice of spelling proper names with a lower-case or a capital letter in a given text depends on the chosen way of understanding the proper name boundaries.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-152
Author(s):  
Magdalena Kaliszewska-Henczel

Summary The paper explores the nature of fairy tales’ protagonists in a traditional literary fairy tale and in the modern one from the perspective of pupils who are from seven to ten years old. The fairy tales are often being used in the early childhood education field as the starting point for school plays, as play themes or as a ‘background’for language, science or mathematics activity. Children’s symbolic perception of the fairy tales’ characters and their relationships reveals that there is a way of pupils’ reception of texts in which those texts are treated (and analysed) as a work of literary art. The article presents the results of research, in which – through the application of a non-verbal method – children indicated the interactions between Cinderella from the traditional literary fairy tale and a daisy from Hans Christian Andersen’s story (The Daisy).


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-184
Author(s):  
Željka Flegar

This article discusses the implied ‘vulgarity’ and playfulness of children's literature within the broader concept of the carnivalesque as defined by Mikhail Bakhtin in Rabelais and His World (1965) and further contextualised by John Stephens in Language and Ideology in Children's Fiction (1992). Carnivalesque adaptations of fairy tales are examined by situating them within Cristina Bacchilega's contemporary construct of the ‘fairy-tale web’, focusing on the arenas of parody and intertextuality for the purpose of detecting crucial changes in children's culture in relation to the social construct and ideology of adulthood from the Golden Age of children's literature onward. The analysis is primarily concerned with Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes (1982) and J. K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard (2007/2008) as representative examples of the historically conditioned empowerment of the child consumer. Marked by ambivalent laughter, mockery and the degradation of ‘high culture’, the interrogative, subversive and ‘time out’ nature of the carnivalesque adaptations of fairy tales reveals the striking allure of contemporary children's culture, which not only accommodates children's needs and preferences, but also is evidently desirable to everybody.


Author(s):  
Jack Zipes

This book explores the legacy of the Brothers Grimm in Europe and North America, from the nineteenth century to the present. The book reveals how the Grimms came to play a pivotal and unusual role in the evolution of Western folklore and in the history of the most significant cultural genre in the world—the fairy tale. Folklorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm sought to discover and preserve a rich abundance of stories emanating from an oral tradition, and encouraged friends, colleagues, and strangers to gather and share these tales. As a result, hundreds of thousands of wonderful folk and fairy tales poured into books throughout Europe and have kept coming. The book looks at the transformation of the Grimms' tales into children's literature, the Americanization of the tales, the “Grimm” aspects of contemporary tales, and the tales' utopian impulses. It shows that the Grimms were not the first scholars to turn their attention to folk tales, but were vital in expanding readership and setting the high standards for folk-tale collecting that continue through the current era. The book concludes with a look at contemporary adaptations of the tales and raises questions about authenticity, target audience, and consumerism. The book examines the lasting universal influence of two brothers and their collected tales on today's storytelling world.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 168
Author(s):  
Rian Damariswara

ABSTRAKTokoh utama dalam dongeng Jawa Timur memiliki sisi lain yang perlu diungkap. Sisi lain tersebut, yakni kecakapan hidup yang dimiliki tokoh utama dalam menyelesaikan masalah yang dihadapinya. Kecakapan hidup tersebut, memiliki relevansi dengan kecakapan hidup di abad ke-21. Jadi, dengan menganalisis kecakapan hidup tokoh utama secara otomatis peneliti dan pembaca dapat mengetahui bahwa tokoh-tokoh dongeng yang terdapat di Jawa Timur memiliki budaya hidup yang baik untuk dijadikan contoh dan motivasi.Untuk mengungkap kecakapan hidup abad ke-21 pada tokoh utama dongeng Jawa Timur menggunakan kajian antropologi sastra.Penelitian ini termasuk deskriptif kualitatif. Sumber data adalah teks dongeng Jawa Timur. Teknik yang digunakan adalah studi dokumenter. Kecakapan hidup abad ke-21 yang ditemukan pada dongeng Jawa Timur sebagai berikut. Pertama, berpikir kritis dan pemecahan masalah. Semua tokoh utama dalam dongeng memiliki pemikiran kritis sehingga dapat memecahkan masalah. Kedua, kreativitas dan inovasi yang ditemukan yakni jenis pengembangan dan sintesis. Inovasi pengembangan yang ditemukan adalah adanya alat bajak sawah dari batu menjadi kayu dan ditarik sapi serta dapat dipergunakan sebagai sarana hiburan. Alat tersebut diberi nama karapan sapi.  Inovasi sintesis adalah menggabungkan segala sesuatu yang dimiliki untuk dijadikan sesuatu yang baru. Seperti pada dongeng Asal Mula Reog Ponorogo,yakni menggabungkan kepala tokoh Singabarong dengan burung merak sehingga dinamakan reog ponorogo. Ketiga, kolaborasi antaranggota dan pemimpin dengan bawahan. Keempat, komunikasi yakni berupa diskusi, pengarahan, berkeluh kesah, dan perintah.Kata kunci: Kecakapan hidup abad ke-21, Tokoh utama, DongengABSTRACTThe main character in the East Java fable has another side that needs to be revealed. The other side, namely the life skills possessed by the main character in solving the problems they face. Life skills, have relevance to 21st century life skills. Therefore, by analyzing the life skills of the main characters automatically the researcher and reader can find out that the fairy tale figures in East Java which have a good life culture to be used as an example and motivation. To uncover 21st century life skills in the main characters of the East Javanese fable, the study of literary anthropology is used. This research is descriptive qualitative. The data source is the text of a fairy tale in East Java. The technique used is documentary study. The 21st century life skills found in the East Java fable are as follows. First, critical thinking and problem solving. All the main characters in fairy tales have critical thinking so they can solve problems. Second, the creativity and innovation found are types of development and synthesis. Development innovation that was found was the existence of a rice plow from stone to wood and pulled by cows and could be used as a means of entertainment. The tool is named Karapan Sapi. Synthesis of innovation is to combine everything that is owned to be something new. As in the fable of Reog Ponorogo, which combines the head of the Singabarong character with a peacock so it is called Reog Ponorogo. Third, collaboration between members and leaders with subordinates. Fourth, communication in the form of discussion, direction, complaints, and orders.Keyword: 21st century life skills, The main character, Fairy tale


Author(s):  
Надежда Степановна Коровина

Глубокая и прочная связь коми и русской сказочных традиций отмечалась неоднократно, вместе с тем конкретных разысканий по данной проблеме недостаточно. По этой причине в статье предпринята попытка исследовать особенности взаимодействия сказок соседних народов, принадлежащих к разным языковым семьям, но имеющих близкие культурные традиции. Материалом стал сказочный сюжет СУС 502 «Медный лоб». Проанализировав пять вариантов коми сказки, можно заметить, что в них реализованы все значимые эпизоды этого сюжетного типа. Однако наблюдения над коми региональным материалом меняют представление о стабильности законов народной сказки. При современном процессе затухания сказочной фольклорной традиции произошли изменения в наиболее устойчивой ее составляющей - сюжетно-композиционном строении. Широкое варьирование коми сказочниками сюжетов, образов, их трансформация привели к «новеллизации» некоторой части коми сказок, превращению их в авантюрно-фантастические устные повести. Традиционные сюжеты переосмыслялись прежде всего путем контаминации, а также путем сближения фольклорных сказок с русскими книжными произведениями. Приведенные примеры закономерных изменений отнюдь не говорят о полном разрушении его глубинной традиционной основы. Исследование показало, что коми сказочники имели представление о традиционной сказочной обрядности, широко ими пользовались, что во многом способствовало сохранению волшебной сказки как жанра. The strong connection between the Komi and Russian fairy tale traditions has been noted repeatedly, yet research on this issue is clearly insufficient. In this article the author attempts to define the interaction of fairy tales of these neighboring peoples which belong to different linguistic families but which have closely related cultural traditions. Its specific focus is fairy tale SUS number 502 “Copper Forehead.” It examines five Komi variants of the fairy tale that contain all of the significant elements of this plot type. Examination of the Komi material challenges the idea that the laws governing folktales are stable. With the fading of folkloric traditions, there have been changes in fairy tales’ most stable components, their plot and compositional structure. Komi storytellers have introduced changes that transform Komi fairy tales in the direction of “novelization,” turning them to some extent into oral tales of adventure and fantasy. Traditional stories are reinterpreted primarily due to contamination, including bringing folklore tales closer to those from Russian books. At the same time, these normal changes by no means indicate the complete destruction of Komi folklore’s deep traditional basis. The study also demonstrates that Komi storytellers have had a clear notion of traditional fairy-tale patterns and made wide use of them, which has largely contributed to the preservation of the fairy tale as a genre.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-193
Author(s):  
Jeana Jorgensen

Abstract Transgender identities in fairy tale retellings are rare, but can reveal much about gender fluidity. Helen Oyeyemi’s novel Boy, Snow, Bird conflates transgender identities with mirrored falsehoods and fairy-tale spells, pathologizing a trauma victim who turns out to also become an abuser, while Gabriel Vidrine’s novella “A Pair of Raven Wings” depicts a queer transgender man with dignity, making it clear that the trauma he suffers is at the hands of bigots rather than being an invention of a sick mind or the cause of his transition. Pairing these fairy-tale retellings illuminates the topic of gender fluidity in fairy tales by demonstrating that gender is indeed fluid, but that representations of gender fluidity due to trauma are misguided at best and harmful at worst, while those representations that assert the dignity of transgender people, even as they face trauma at the hands of bigoted people, are another stellar example of the genre’s potential to represent people who are culturally marginalized, connecting identity to power in a classic magical fairy-tale move.


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