SLFK 211, Tuesday, November 5, 2002
Last lecture &endash; tale patterns which are very powerful because they are right on the verge of consciousness, as Jung puts it
Actors who mirror parts of the self; Jungian archetypes
Patterns of action which might well derive from patterns in the exploration of the self, of one's own internal, mental reality
Most folklore is right on the edge of conscious awareness
You are aware that you should do/say something
You are aware that it is important, meaningful, but not sure why
Tradition tells you the what and the how
Your job as a scholar is to work on the why
Recall the transmission by custom and practice
You get information
But not in the usual way
And you are not fully conscious of what you got or how
If you had to teach someone else, you would have hard time explaining
Would need to show, as you were shown
With stories, in addition to the story, you are getting all sorts of information
Bettelheim says it is information about growing up
But what information is it &endash; you are not quite sure
Feels right, and that is about all you can say
What about for adults?
When they are interested in tales, or in tale-like stories
They get help with putting things right
Comfort
Opportunity to express
Tales are the one place where you get justice
Where things work out as they should
What makes tale so effective in accomplishing the tasks of expression, comfort?
Jung and Propp
The archetypes and the patterns of functions = the move
Interesting thought that it is material in the unconscious that this structured and patterned and regular
And the conscious is where the chaotic resides
Before discussing unconscious as the structuring faculty, show that patterned and structured material is comforting
Rocking, as in a rocking chair; just plain rocking if you are VERY upset
Knitting
Playing solitaire
Discomfort of break in pattern
Americans THINK that they want things that are original and iconoclastic
What if things got moved around in your home?
Or you were not allowed to sleep or eat at normal times?
These are forms of torture
Putting cat's, dog's dishes, pillow in the wrong place
Or even moving things around the house
Freudian legacy equates the unconscious with chaos, with subversion
That is where the rebellious forces of the id and the libido reside
Structure is good and structure is in the conscious
Actually, unconscious is the part that is regular and patterned
The unconscious is the structuring faculty
Consider all of the things that you learn and when you really learn them, you do them with no conscious awareness
In fact, conscious awareness of what you are doing impedes your use of your knowledge
Examples: driving a car
Typing
Speaking a language, where native or learned, but esp. the latter
The sort of story that you deal with in folklore is the unconscious story
Where you are not quite aware of what is up
And that makes it all the more powerful and effective
Story is powerful and effective
Through archetypes
Through functions
And you are not quite aware of how it all works
It is right at the edge of consciousness
Use to express personal issues
The narrator in an oral situation
There is an element that is personal
There is an element that is collective &endash; interaction with the audience
Pleasing the audience
The writer writing own versions of a tale
No audience except an imagined or desired readership
Zipes looks at various written versions of the tale of Puss in Boots
If you know things about the writer, each version can be shown to be connected to that writer and the issues important to him
What is more, there should be a difference between a tale that is written on the basis of oral lit and a tale that is collected
A collected tale should reflect the oral situation about as closely as is possible in written form
Should be collected in an oral situation and rendered as faithfully as possible
But many things that we assume to be collected tales and thus close to true folklore are not
He gives examples of the Grimm's version of Hansel and Gretel
Zipes discusses the various versions as progressively rationalizing the abandonment of children and Wilhelm Grimm blaming the woman for the horrible deed
So, lots of folklore in general and folktale in particular collections are not collections at all, but rewrites, akin to the Puss in Boots stories, or the stories of Perrault, where he admits authorship
Afanas'ev actually doctors what he gets considerably less than the Grimms do
Lesia and me blamed for NOT doctoring
What happened to my book of Ukrainian tales
Consider also the power of the first
As in the first collection of tales that you encounter
Creates expectations that then set the pattern for your ideas of what should be
In addition to tales, there are certain stories that have gained the status of tales
They may not be oral
But have become traditional in that they are seen as part of our cultural heritage
Example would be something like Pinocchio
It is a story that everyone knows, the way all people know the basic story of Little Red Riding Hood, or Snow White
It is a story that has been told and retold
Probably not orally, but in written version and film
It has acquired the status of a traditional item of culture
To a certain extent, people feel free to modify and create variants
May not have all of the traits of folklore, but has lots
Here, too, we can see conformity to the issues of the person or persons who are doing the retelling, even though the story is not personal, but traditional, seen as part of cultural heritage, not the property of the individual
And probably we also have the inability of the audience to recognize that there is this element there
This is Zipes' point
When you get stories that are tale-like but NOT based on traditional material (folktales) or stories that appear to be traditional (Pinocchio type)
You get some sense that there might be an author present, with his or her own intent
Thus, with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
There is a bit of a hint of a basis in legend, namely the alligators in the sewers
But mostly you realize that it is a story invented for TV (and later for movies)
When you are dealing with something like this, audience might be more WARY of author bias or author intent
When you get a story that is based on folklore
Or that has become traditional (Pinocchio, the Hans Christian Anderson stories)
You think you are dealing with tradition rather than a person
And that you have the corrective of something like the oral situation
Well, we went through how Zipes shows all this to be wrong
Now add commercial intent
Selling the story
Selling of items connected to the story
And you have the culture industry
Disney, and later Disney studios, make stories/films based on folktales
Snow White
Beauty and the Beast
On traditional stories
Pinocchio
Sorcerer's apprentice
Pocahontas
Little Mermaid
On things that seem to be traditional like Lion King
These things seem to be audience-centered
Again, Zipes is setting out to show that this is not so
That these stories serve the interests of Disney (or whatever other member of the culture industry)
Not the person who buys the movie ticket and later the DVD
Or the Pocahontas chocolate
Or the Little Mermaid panties
Or the Lion King lunch box
What about elsewhere?
America is the number one exported of the culture industry, though, I think that Japan is coming close
And culture is America's number one export
Well, to a certain extent, there is a Disneyfication of the world
Popularity of Disney characters in the former USSR
Also of Barbie, Lego, Ninja Turtles
Show Nu Pogodi
Then there really and truly was a culture industry in the USSR
Its goal was not commercial, however
Rather creating the Soviet man or woman
Concept of the artificial negative
Viewer (or other audience/consumer) is distracted from the intent of the author
By the power of the story
By the false security that the story is traditional and thus tried and true
And thus audience rather than author oriented
There is also the false pleasure of the seemingly negative
Subversive
Countercultural
You watch cartoons, you think that you are being naughty
Hey, I'm not learning, I'm being entertained
The subject matter of cartoons or films may seem controversial or liberated
In Beauty and the Beast, Disney version she is intellectual and likes to read
In Roald Dahl's Little Red Riding Hood, she turns the wolf into a fur coat
But both of the latter are CURRENT cultural norms
They may not be the norms of the tales in their earlier incarnations
But are the norms now
In terms of subversion, look at Simpsons
Counterculture or no?
How about Southpark?
Folklore, and more successful popular culture
Seems very risqué
And offers the pleasure of flaunting social norms, disobeying normal restrictions
And always confirms the norms and restrictions in the end
You are about to look at urban legends
Deal with all sorts of risqué topics
Sex &endash; the purloined kidneys
AIDS Mary
And say that you should never ever engage in recreational sex
Even vague possibility of a sexual tryst is wrong
Parking Lover's Lane
Staying over Thanksgiving in the dorm