ENGL 2810Y Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Brave Little Tailor, American Literature, Juggling
14 Mar 2019
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The trickster tale: folk and fairy tales, literary fairy tales by andersen ( the tinderbox, hans clodhopper , coyote tales and brer rabbit stories. About trickster tales: old, universal, popular tale types, ingenuity and trickery, oral traditions of almost all cultures (including indigenous north america, as amoral. Common reactions: laugh at privileged, solutions with limited resources, hidden powers of ordinary people, cruel punishments of villains, african-americans slave culture, katniss and peeta. Trickster protagonists: small and/or powerless at beginning; seems stupid, silent, sometimes, as in hans clodhopper, really is a simpleton, observant, uses cunning, bravery, persistence, self-confidence, "the brave little tailor, : self-confidence taken to the extreme! Language: words create reality (puss, anansi, magical help sometimes (as in the tinderbox, overcome powerful enemies with normal skills, adversaries often incredibly stupid, but still have positions of power. Goodness: cheer for liars, cheats, criminals, winning is everything (recall bettelheim, amoral (different than immoral; means no moral framework at all)
