Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are only some that can come to mind when thinking of characters who only do good in the stories they are in. Many classic protagonists are portrayed as the embodiment of pure good. They always do the right thing and are successful in the end. The exceptions to this archetype can always produce great stories with developed characters that interest readers. It is a universal fact that no one in stories is perfect, but authors can make a bold choice when they decide to have the main character less perfect, or even villainous. When flaws are present in a protagonist, readers are drawn to the story, given a new point of view, bringing new concepts and ideas to the audience that they may not have thought of before. ***Flawed protagonists can differ from how imperfect …show more content…
In “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, the protagonist tries to help his disabled brother, Doodle, learn to walk and run. It is explained, “When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn’t walk, so I set out to teach him” (Hurst 418). Doodle’s brother helps slightly for personal gain, but has a good heart trying to help his brother learn to walk. After Doodle has begun to walk, his brother tries to get him to do more. The two get caught in the rain one afternoon and trying to get home, the narrator explains that “the faster I walked, the faster he walked, so I began to run...I heard Doodle, who had fallen behind, cry out, ‘Brother, Brother, don’t leave me!’...He didn’t answer so I placed my hand on his forehead and lifted his head. Limply, he fell backward onto the earth” (Hurst 426). The narrator has good intentions, trying to help his brother learn to more dependent, but he pushes Doodle too far, resulting in Doodle’s death. Both Doodle’s brother and Montresor are flawed and have their own problems that wouldn’t be present in the stories of characters like
In “the Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, Brother’s motivation to teach Doodle to walk and to try and teach him to run, climb, swim, and row a boat is because of his pride- he’s ashamed to have a crippled little brother. Brother was pride’s slave, “Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having as crippled brother” (Hurst, 319). This shows that Brother only taught Doodle to walk because he was ashamed of having a crippled brother. Brother cries when people hug him for teaching Dooble to walk because he’s embarrassed that he was embarrassed of Doodle and that’s the only reason that Doodle can walk. Brother successfully taught Dooble to walk but felt shameful that pride was the only reason that Doodle knew how to walk but when he fails to teach
James Hurst is the author of the short story “The Scarlet Ibis.” In this short story, the Narrator has a little brother, which he has always wanted, but his brother is a little off. Over time, the narrator tries to pull his little brother, who he named Doodle, out of his “not all there” state. He teaches him how to walk first, and when he succeeds, he is filled with pride. He then tries to teach him how to do other things afterwards, such as swimming, climbing, and rowing. However, Doodle was not meant to be able to do all these things, and because of the narrator’s own selfish pride, he overworks Doodle to the point of death. The issue in this story is that the narrator believes in himself a little too much, so he thinks he can do anything.
The setting of “The Scarlet Ibis” helps prepare the readers’ state of mind from the very beginning. In the first place, the story takes place at the end of World War I and represents the internal conflict the narrator has as he struggles between guilt of his younger brother’s death and the acceptance of his brother’s disabilities. With this in mind, the narrator is abashed over Doodle’s inability to walk because he thinks disabilities are shameful, and he wanted a brother who was athletic, outgoing, and adventurous. For this reason,”When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn't walk, so I set out to teach him (Hurst 417).” The narrator admits to going out of his way to train Doodle to walk because he has so much pride that it is getting in the way of more important goals, meaning he would rather have a “normal” brother than a happy one. The poor treatment of his brother ultimately leads to Doodle’s death. Furthermore, he forces Doodle to do things unwillingly, such as touch his own coffin and train him to be “normal”. The narrator traumatizes his little brother to think a certain way in order to become accepted by society. Even
Cinderella is a childhood fairytale that we all love and remember. It is a tragedy that turns into love and happily ever after in the end. In contrast to this popular story, Anne Sexton's version of Cinderella is a dark and twisted version of the classic fairy tale. It takes on a whole new perspective and is fairly different from the childhood fairytale that most of society knows. The poem takes less of a focus on the happy ever after in Cinderella and makes it into vivid bloody and violent images. She retreats more toward the pain and neglect. The poem is not based off the Disney version of Cinderella, but rather original dark version by Brothers Grimm. Sexton uses a very sarcastic and
Cinderella is a fairytale for children that displayed love, loss and miracles; however, when it is further analyzed, it has a deeper meaning. Cinderella is a story about a young girl who became a servant in her own home after her father remarried a malicious woman with two spoiled daughters. She was humiliated and abused yet she remained gentle and kind. She received help from her fairy godmother to go to the prince’s ball after her stepmother rejected her proposal. Cinderella and the Prince fell madly in love but she had to leave at twelve o’clock and forgot to tell him her name but she left her glass slipper behind. He sent his servants to find her and Cinderella was the only maiden in the kingdom to fit into the shoes. She
Despite a mixed critical reception by contemporaries, the 1959 film Sleeping Beauty marks one of the greatest artistic achievements of the Disney studio during its early decades. Featuring fantastically detailed backgrounds and character designs that blend period sensibilities with both traditional and modernist forms, the work is markedly more stylized than previous projects. Places and protagonists alike are executed in a dramatic and almost architectural style, which implies the lines seen in late Gothic and early Renaissance artworks. Mid-century aesthetic sensibilities also heavily influenced the film’s design. Specifically, the novel widescreen format and stylized designs for the main characters speak to the conventions of the later modernist period. Disney’s Sleeping Beauty is the direct result of adapting medieval visual culture to fit with the artistic sensibilities of post-war America.
Adeline explores the idea that even in adverse conditions, a happy ending is possible. Even from the first word of this book the readers are being lead to believe that adeline had a difficult childhood. By using "Cinderella" a very well known name as part of the title followed by the words "secret" and "unwanted" giving us a sneak peak at how she was treated by her family.
So, you’re finally over your ex (or trying to be at least) and you’re ready to move on to bigger and better things? Are you the kind of person who prefers to stay in with your honey but occasionally likes to go out with your significant other? You like flowers and the thought of your boo bringing you a bowl of hot soup and green tea while you’re sick as a dog, preferably when you think you’re dying on your death bed. You want to be cared for and treated like the woman you are. You like the door held open for you and sweet kisses on your forehead. You want to be wined and dined and actually know that you mean something to somebody. You want him to hold your hand while walking on ice so he can catch you if you fall. You want him to make an effort. Well, then it’s time to wake up Sleeping Beauty. Welcome to 2015, the year the dating scene has revolutionized to, “Wanna come over and watch Netflix and chill?”
The past has a great influence on present culture. However ideas and themes of the past can change with time. This is true with the ideas associated with the medieval castle. These castles, which once served as a military fortress as well as a residence, are now often associated with the fantastical, popular images people can have of the middle ages. Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland is a good example because it represents an idea to many people of what a medieval castle may have looked like. However the Disney castle is not an exact representation of a medieval castle. The differences in style and architecture between the Sleeping Beauty Castle and a medieval castle reflect each castle's varying
There are many versions of the Sleeping Beauty, each one could seem differently for every person that reads it because of the use of the words and the connotations that people give them. This also leads up on to what people think the words could mean and it just starts controversial arguments. In this story the idea of sleep is known to be a lot of things, aside from that, there are also some problems with the relationships between the princess and prince. Some are when the princess has to wait an immense amount of time for someone special to come into her live, there is also the idea of where sleep symbolizes the whole time period between being young, all the way to becoming an adult. Both which are good reasonings from the story.
Rewrite a fairy tale from the perspective of one of the minor character in the story.
According to dictionary.com, a folktale is said to be, “a tale or legend originating and traditional among a people or folk, especially one forming part of the oral tradition of the common people”. What many people don’t realize is our beloved fairy tales, such as “Sleeping Beauty” have been derived from folktale. “Sleeping Beauty’s” folktale is exceptionally different from the modern day version that Disney has provided us with. Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” and one of the original French versions of “Sleeping Beauty” differ in that they hold a separate plot, reach a contrasting crowd, and are from opposite times, but their basic theme holds true.
Most of us grew up watching and reading the stories of Cinderella, Snow White and, Sleeping Beauty all of which were produced by Disney. But what if I told you that the versions you grew up watching and reading are far from the original versions depicted by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, better known as the Brothers Grimm. In their tale of “Cinderella” there was no fairy godmother, the step sisters cut off portions of their feet to fit into the slipper and none of the animals talked or sang, but rather plucked out the step sister’s eyes as punishment for the mistreatment of Cinderella. Which begs the question, what inspired the brother’s to write these types short stories, which are so not what is recognized today as a “fairy tale”?
In my short analysis of “Cindarella”, understanding the basic concepts of the story was not as easy as I had once predicted. The author Elisabeth Panttaja explains in her essay different views and ideas in the sense that Cinderella is successful because of the magical powers created by her dead mother. The author tells that “It is not suprising . . . that modern criticism of (Cinderella) . . . has been so strangely indifferent to the roles that Cinderella’s mother plays in the story.” This to my knowledge is giving me a different view on how people thought Cinderella acted to the situations that occurred.
When someone mentions the name “Cinderella”, the first thing that usually comes to our minds is the fairytale in which the fair maiden who works so hard yet it treated so poorly gains her “fairytale ending” with a wave of a magic wand. However, the fairytale of Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers has multiple differences in plot from the fairytale we all usually think of. The plot of the Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers, written in 1812, is that a young female’s mother passes away early in the story, departing with the message to Cinderella to remain “pious and good”. Cinderella remained true to this message given to her by her mother, and she showed this in her work ethic. Because Cinderella had remained pious and good, her mother, in return, watched over her in the form of the birds above her grave that gave Cinderella help and material things that she needed. In the end, Cinderella has her “happily ever after”, for when the prince held a festival to find a new bride, she was chosen due to her insurmountable beauty. The feminist lens critiques how females are commonly represented in texts, and how insufficient these representations are as a categorizing device. These representations of women often include them being passive and emotional—staying back while the men do the work. Cinderella relates to the feminist lens because she fits into the typical representations of women created by men. Feminist criticism is important to recognize because women are often falsely represented as helpless, thus needing a man to come to their rescue. It is common in literature to see helpless women, crying and begging for help instead of being able to work out their own problems and hardships. Others, however, may believe that it is still important to uphold the fundamentals of the feminist lens because it keeps the man in power, which they say is important in keeping the man the head of the household. Cinderella thoroughly represents the feminist lens because it shows how women in literature uphold the representations of passive and emotional, created by the man.