Halloween is less than a week away and we can't help think about the dark side of fairy tales as they reflect us today, but it's easy to deal with fairy tales re-framed as horror. It's when we reframe them to laugh at them wryly we realize they are hit a little close to home and that makes for it's own sort of scary. There's a lot that could be said about fairy tale humor that takes a turn for the "eek". Many of these, while immediately funny, tend to leave you feeling slightly uncomfortable with the drop or more of truth they contain. Perfect for Halloween when we're facing our fears. We could write about how humor helps us deal with fear and process difficult situations but there are specialists who would do a much better job than we could. Folklorists would also have a lot to say about each of these panels if you find one handy to ask, so if they get your brain working, you know you're in good company, but rather than bore you with theory we'll just leave these single-panel comics for you to chuckle over, and perhaps have some other thoughts as well... (*cue X-Files music*)
"The Celebration of Death in Contemporary Culture investigates the emergence and meaning of the cult of death. Over the last three decades, Halloween has grown to rival Christmas in its popularity. Dark tourism has emerged as a rapidly expanding industry. “Corpse chic” and “skull style” have entered mainstream fashion, while elements of gothic, horror, torture porn, and slasher movies have streamed into more conventional genres. Monsters have become pop culture heroes: vampires, zombies, and serial killers now appeal broadly to audiences of all ages. This book breaks new ground by viewing these phenomena as aspects of a single movement and documenting its development in contemporary Western culture."
(Review written by Tahlia Merrill Kirk) Most people don’t associate fairy tales with political agendas, so you might be thinking, "What the heck are socialist fairy tales?!”. But when you think about it, it’s not that big of a stretch. If I started telling you about how some fairy tales have been used as serving spoons for moral ideology, you’d probably nod along knowingly. It seems to me like a natural next step for them to be turned into vessels for political agendas. But what does that even look like? Well, you’re about to find out!
Before we go any further, let’s define socialism, since it has the potential to be a little controversial.
Now, there are lots of different flavors of socialism. Probably the most famous is communism, which has no state, money, or social classes. Other variations mix socialism and capitalism by having the government collecting tax money to spend on public services like schools or roads.
This particular collection of stories was collected roughly between 1870 - 1910 from magazines and newspapers printed in Great Britain. And in case 1870 - 1910 doesn’t mean much to you, here are some historical reference points:
1850 = Marx’s The Communist Manifesto published.
1865 = Early Days of Women’s Suffrage Movement in the UK (right to vote won in 1918)
1870 = The death of Charles Dickens.
1887 = First Sherlock Holmes story published.
1901 = Death of Queen Victoria
1912 = Sinking of the Titanic (and the start of Downton Abbey)
1914 = World War I starts.
Got it?
Don't worry, Ron. We're getting to the fun stuff soon.
Alright, now we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about the juicy stuff. Like how jarring I found some of these tales. I’d been expecting magical adventure stories with subtle winks about governing quietly slipped in. Maybe a Hansel & Gretel style tale where the Gingerbread House is a state-run orphanage that needs reforming.
Evil moustache-twirling Monopoly is coming out to get you!
Hah! Nothing could have been further from what I found. Out forty-seven tales, nearly all of them were didactic to the point where I questioned if they even fit the definition of a fairy tale anymore. Some had such heavy-handed economic messages that they felt akin to reading a political cartoon. Others were pure allegory, like an economic Pilgrim’s Progress. These threw subtlety into the rubbish bin, and stuck their characters with names like “Capital” and “Fair Trade”. About halfway through the book, I started noticing a pattern…
Here’s the gist of several stories: A hardworking everyman (ie “Labor”) meets a smooth-talking villain (ie “Monopoly”) who tricks the simple man into becoming a slave. Often, the plot is drawn out by the protagonist’s attempt to nicely voice his complaints. The villain always pretends to listen, and will offer him institutionalized religion or a complex government as a way of pacifying him. But these are all mere tricks to prolong his enslavement. The endings vary, but any solutions the writers propose lack nuance to their logic.
Now, it might sound like I’m complaining, but actually, I found this whole collection highly entertaining and genuinely thought-provoking. Yes, I'm criticizing, but not with the intention of discouraging readers. I’ll make sure to delve into this collection’s many merits later, but I can't resist giving them a good-natured roasting first!
Do all frogs go to heaven?
So, on top of being overbearingly pedantic, these stories also have a cringeworthy sentimental streak.
For example, in “Chips”, a homeless child works as a street sweeper. His only companion in the freezing winter slums of London? A pet frog, of course! Well, until the frog dies from hunger and cold. Our poor destitute boy dies shortly after--with many flowery descriptions of his pitiful state. Cue an angelic spirit, floating down from heaven. The spirit teaches the dead boy a lesson about God and love before the boy’s soul ascends to heaven. It was all very Tiny Tim meets The Little Match Girl.
Similarly, in “Nobody’s Business”, a poor old man dies alone from hunger in a bustling city. After he dies, his soul flies to heaven and God frowns upon the city. He points out that the city is prosperous and builds many churches, but the citizens are hypocritical, greedy, and don’t help those in need. Now, I'm not saying the message isn't a good one (it totally is), but both these tales feel like someone used a mad-libs list of story elements that provoke emotion and plugged them into a sob story writing machine.
Worse, they blatantly romanticize poverty, as if being poor and elderly, or an orphan, are sacred states. Chips is an innocent youth and "Nobody's Business" goes to great lengths to paint a pitiful picture of the old man’s innocence and suffering.
Do these writers think that poverty somehow purifies the soul? Because that’s how it comes across. Maybe the logic goes like this: Power and riches always lead to corruption, so therefore, poverty has a cleansing effect on your character? After all, a simple life is the best life--
Wait, stop. Let's stop trying to transform being poor into some inspirational poster. Nobody who has ever been truly poor would ever describe their experience as sublime or purifying. Sure, being poor might make you grateful for the little things in life, but sheesh, let’s not full on glamorize something that just plain out sucks.
Besides, I feel like we should help the poor because they’re fellow human beings, not because you believe they're paragons of virtue, right?
*sigh*
This review is becoming more difficult to write than I anticipated. I swear, I’m trying to balance the topics’ complexities without rambling too much.
I'll be honest: I had a whole rant prepared about the romanticization of the country vs the city. And I also had some strong words about the treatment of the female characters (they're always beautiful angelic figures of grace and piety). But I don't think it's necessary. I've ranted enough today.
Instead, let's take a step back. I think this quote does a pretty good job of summarizing what's going on in these fairy tales:
“This is socialism at its most hopeful, perhaps at its most innocent, untouched by world war, Stalinism, or the Holocaust.”
Every time I started getting frustrated with these tales, I found this sentence running through my brain. Despite their flaws, these tales are earnest and are written with a sincere intent to make the world a better place. And let's not forget that fairy tales aren’t usually designed to be complex. That is part of their charm. So many of my complaints are simply a tied to the nature of the genre.
This collection is a great example of how the very thing that makes a fairy tale problematic, can be the same thing that makes it so fascinating. While the fairy tales in this collection may have an agenda, the modern editors who collected them do not. If you already have opinions on socialism, this book isn't designed to reinforce or change them. Instead, this book will make you think, and it will make you want to share it with your friends so you can discuss it. You can purchase a copy of Workers' Tales: Socialist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Allegories from Great Britain directly from the Princeton University Press website or on Amazon. There is also an excellent audiobook version (which is what I used for this review). A free copy of this book was provided in exchange for an honest review.
For those that missed our exploration of Nathaniel Hawthorne's fairy tale short story Rappaccini's Daughter on #FolkloreThursday (via a thread of tweets over the afternoon), please enjoy it "unrolled" below. The theme for the week was plants and flowers. (Note: Twitter has a limited character count so language is necessarily brief and abbreviated at times to keep concepts within a single tweet. We have kept the original format - tweet by tweet - intact.)
Rappaccini's Daughter is a fairy tale/short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne about a girl who lives in a poisonous garden, having become poisonous herself due to her botanist/mad scientist father's experiments. A young scholar sees her over the wall & falls in love. #FolkloreThursday
“..as if she were another flower, human sister of those vegetable ones—more beautiful than the richest— still to be touched only with a glove, nor to be approached without a mask. ...she handled & inhaled odor of several plants, which her father had sedulously avoided.”
Boy enters via a secret door, meets her, idly touches her 'sister' flower, she grabs his hand away - POISONOUS! - he finds a painful burn on it the next day.
Love and poison spread on through the story. (Read the notes on the room cutaway attached for cool story details.)
"Beatrice is beautiful, but also poisonous. Readers expect a hidden evil (religious allegory). Beatrice maps easily to Eve, Giovanni to Adam, and the rendezvous-enabling landlady to the serpent. But wait - if the garden is Eden why is it all poisonous?" (Ruthanna commentary)
There's a nice tie-in with Visha Kanya - girls bred as assassins. "Their bodily fluids (some say touch or gaze) were rendered poisonous by a careful regimen of poisons countered by antidotes, until the immune assassin was in her own person a deadly weapon." Hello Poison Ivy!
Check this graphic summary of the Poison Ivy & Rappaccini's Daughter connection/similarities (including that Hawthorne's story has a strong underlying eco-message & Poison Ivy is actually an eco-warrior with zero subtlety). May need to right-click-open in separate tab to read.
There are some issues with the innocence/naivete of Beatrice - does she have to be so clueless?- but the science versus nature aspect of the tale is interesting, esp. as it underscores feminist issues (whether intentionally or not). Sadly it ends tragically -of course.
It's a rich tale that could use some attention as a movie or short series, especially with a sensitive writer keeping the layers intact while updating. Perhaps Beatrice secretly had a (plant-born) daughter before she died & named her Pamela... (aka Poison Ivy's birth name).
The beautiful animation development you've seen in this thread is by the talented Chi Ngo. You can see more of her work on this project (sadly never developed into a film) here: chi-ngo.com/rappaccini/
Rappaccini's Daughter seems to be most often 'retold' in operatic circles and it's easy to see why. Check out some of these beautiful productions.
It's difficult to find novels that have mined this treasure, but here's a couple: "The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter" (@theodoragoss) has Beatrice as a character; "A Fierce & Subtle Poison" (Samantha Mabry) set in Puerto Rico using local folklore, bases the novel on it.
Favorite related books: "The Poison Diaries" hardcover by Jane Duchess of Northumberland (Author), Colin Stimpson (Illustrator) is part botanical workbook and part diary of a boy's (named Weed) own relationship with poisonous plants. The novel, "The Poison Dairies", tells the story.
Here are some of the amazing illustrations created for the 'journal' by Colin Stimpson.
Favorite #2 is "Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities" by Amy Stewart (Briony Morrow-Cribbs-Illustrator), which, interestingly, opens with a Hawthorne quote from "The Scarlet Letter" & discusses Rappaccini's Daughter in the intro.
There's even a coloring book...
And an exhibit based on the book! Check out the video promotion in which the author speaks about her book, poisonous plants and creating the storytelling exhibit. (It's super cool!)
I'll finish by adding a screenshot of the quote which links "The Scarlet Letter" and "Rappaccini's Daughter", from the beginning of "Wicked Plants" (by Amy Stewart).
(Art above by Marta Dahlig-Orlowska, "The Poison Garden")
Thank you for exploring this fairy tale femme fatale with me today!
Note: The Poison Ivy portrait is by Joshua Middleton - Variant cover of Batman vol. 3, #26 (Sept. 2017)
