Abstract

This study is concerned with the use of artifacts and clothing within fairy tales.  Three classic tales  (Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and Cinderella have been analyzed with reference to one particular artifact or item of clothing.   The roles of women within these tales and the effect the artifacts have on both their characters and role has been explored.  The narrative theories of Propp, Todorov and Levi-Strauss are used to define the use of the artifacts within the narrative and further explore the status of women within these tales. In Little Red Riding Hood analysis is given to the significance of the red hood both culturally and historically.  The theme of maturity and independence are addressed and Todorov’s theory of narrative equilibrium is applied.  The hood appears to function in many ways as both a catalyst to the events and as a key part of Riding Hood’s characterization.  In Cinderella, Propp’s theory of character functions is applied with particular reference to the glass slipper.  The historical and cultural use of footwear is explored both within folklore and in more general terms as an indicator of social standing.  In Snow white, The mirror is explored using Levi-Strauss’ theory of binary opposition and exploring themes such as youth versus age and good versus evil.


Word Count 213

Artifact, A Book within a Box.

Fold-out book with padded and beaded cover, with matching box.

My artifact is a folded book within a box.  As Fairy tales moved from spoken to written tales in the 18^th century, I based my illustration on the costumes, fabric and artifacts of that time.   I have not illustrated a specific tale or character, but used the theme of youth versus age. 

I have used book-making techniques learned in my Yr1 project ‘Me, Myself, I’ to produce a covered box and book.   I used second-hand fabric and trimmings to make my artifact.  This tied in with the idea of re-modeling and trimming clothing, a practice commonly used before the mechanization of textile production, when fabric was a treasured and scarce commodity.  

As part of my second year illustrative practice, we have been looking at self -promotion.  Booklets, zines and presentation all form part of the self-promotional strategies we have explored.  I wanted my artifact to have an opulent feel to it, and to present the book as if it were an item of jewelery, which is why I have used padding and beading.

I have found the reading and research for this project both informative and interesting.  It has provided me with ideas for future projects.  I have learned much during the actual process of making my artifact, and plan to explore book-making more in the future.

Word Count 217

Harvard Referencing

BOOKS

Bettelheim, B (1991) The Uses of Enchantment, The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales London Penguin Books.

Branston, G & Stafford, R (1996) The Media Student’s Book, New York Routledge


Briggs, R. (1996) Witches and Neighbours, London Fontana Press


Carter, A cited in Zipes, J (ed) (1993) The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood London Routledge


Delamare F & Guineau B (2002) Colour – Making and using Dyes and Pigments, London Thames & Hudson 


Opie, I & P (1974) The Classic fairy Tales,  London Oxford University press 


Wanning-Harries, E (2001) Twice Upon A Time, Women Writers & The History Of The Fairy Tale, Princeton Princeton University Press



Warner, M (1995) From the Beast to the Blond, on Fairy Tales and their Tellers, London Vintage


Zipes, J (ed) (1993) The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood London Routledge


Ed unknown, (1846) The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments, London, Samuel Bagster and Sons


ARTICLES FROM JOURNALS

Vol 2 No 62 Sept3 1881Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science  Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2900533  (Article on magic mirrors)

MAGAZINES


No author cited Making a Pointe Selvedge Magazine Issue 13 page 30 - 31.


No author cited  Miscellany , Hundreds of textile terms are woven into our everyday language Selvedge Magazine Issue 28 ,May June 2009 page 13.


Prichard, S. (2010) The Hidden Histories in Quilts Selvedge Magazine Issue 33, March April 2010, page 52-54.


No author cited Crimes of Fashion, The Seamy Side of Textiles Selvedge Magazine Issue 42, September October 2011 page 53 – 58.


De Bonneville, F The Art of Fine Linen Selvedge Magazine Issue 43, November December 2011, page 32 - 33.


WEBSITES

1.     http://www.josephrupp.com/bfindex2.html [accessed on 10 February 2012]

2.     http://www.ancient-mythology.com/greek/ [accessed on 20 March  2012]

3.     www.surlalunefairytales.com/  [accessed on 5 December 2012]

ILLUSTRATIONS:


Cinderella
Fig 1.  little girl with bound feet, Virtual Museum of San Francisco available at http://www.sfmuseum.org/chin/foot.html [accessed 15 February 2012] article written Nov 1997 photograph by Isiah W Taber, San Francisco

Fig 2.  Lotus shoe and Plaster foot last from Harvard Museum, showing foot wrappings available at   http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/node/522.  Peabody museum of Archeology and Ethnology (2012)  [accessed 10 March  201]

Snow White

Fig 1.  Desborough Mirror, Anglo Saxon artefact kept in British Museum available at  http://www.artfund.org/artwork/515/celtic-desborough-mirror  [accessed 20 March 2012]

Fig 2.  The Queen’s mirror in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves  available at http://alookatdisney.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/snow-white-seven-dwarfs.html  [accessed 29 March 2012]

Fig 3.Vanitas, Engraving by Jerimias Falck  (1610 – 1677) after Bernardo Strozzi  (1581 – 1644) found at  http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/work/223.2007/  [accessed on 10^thMarch 2012]

Red Riding Hood

Fig 1.  Religious painting by William Blake  available at http://www.apocalyptic-theories.com/gallery/whoreofbabylon/blakebabyl.html [accessed on 17 March 2012] 

Fig 2.  Illustration of Little Red Riding Hood by American Illustrator Margaret Ely Webb available at http://polarbearstale.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/margaret-ely-webb.html [accessed 29th March 2012]

Red Cloaks, hats and Riding Hoods.

Little Red Riding Hood is one of our most well-known fairy tales.    As Zipes notes, ‘…it raises issues about gender identity, sexuality, violence and the civilizing process in a unique and succinct symbolic form that children and adults can understand in different levels’ (1993,  p343).  The tale has been written, rewritten and theorized many times.  Its’ origins have been lost, but it owes elements to many tales.   In Norse Mythology, Thor and Loci use virtually the same questions and answers that our heroine uses to the wolf, and in Celtic tales, the wolf devours the red sun to allow the moon to rise.  The wolf, one of fairy-tales most attractive villains, has signified seducer, rapist, night terrors and the plague (Opie and Opie, 1974).  

The first written version is Charles Perrault’s Tale of ‘Little Red Cap’ published in 1679.  Riding hoods became a popular item of dress not long after, and the name changed.  She can be little red cap, little red hood, little golden hood.  The main character of this tale is nothing without her defining piece of clothing.  She has no other outstanding characteristics.    As the Opie’s point out, in fairy tales ‘there is no evolution of character.  They (the heroines) are referred to by generic or descriptive names…..Fairy tales are more concerned with situation than character.”  (1974, p15).  Todorov argued that all tales start with an equilibrium that is disrupted, and that the tale cannot end until a new equilibrium has been reached. (Branston and Stafford, 1996) This red item of clothing is as disruptive as an artifact can get.  No self-respecting wolf would notice a girl in a brown or green cloak.  Red, the colour of danger, puts our heroine in danger the moment she leaves the civilized safety of the village and enters the forest.

Whilst we have very little information about Red Riding hood, we do know one definite thing about her- we know that she was well loved by the women in her family.  They fashion for her a noteworthy red cloak, or hat, or hood.  Red was an expensive, extravagant colour when Perrault was writing - and he is the writer credited with making her cap red.  Cochineal, the main ingredient for red dye was a costly import from the New World via Spain.  In the 18^th century, fabric and clothing were an investment in both time and money.  Clothing was so valued that it was mentioned in wills, fashions changed slowly and garments were re-modeled until they became thread bear. (Selvedge, 2011)   We know that Little Red Riding hood lived in a village environment, where her scarlet clothing would have marked her out as more prosperous than her neighbors in their homespun natural dyes.  Red was both a costly and exotic colour. (Delamare and Guineau, 2002)

 

A woman wearing red, however young she is, holds older and deeper connotations for us.  The original scarlet woman was the Whore of Babylon, as depicted by William Blake (see fig. 1), written of in the Book of Revelations, chapter 17:4  ‘…arrayed in purple and scarlet colour…. having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:’  (Common Bible, 1952, p237).  Since biblical times Red has been associated with sexuality and sin.  Morally upright women would not wear the colour because of its association with sin and blood.  The less enlightened Little Red Riding Hood, according to Zipes  ‘…..is topped with a red hat, a chaperon, making her into a type of bourgeois girl tainted with sin, since red , like the scarlet letter A, recalls the devil and heresy.’  (1993, p349).  By dressing her in this colour, and by sending her out into the woods to act as a kind of go-between, it is as if the women in her family collude to send the naïve Red Riding Hood to her moral fall. (Bettelheim, 1991)

Fig. 1, William Blake () The Whore of Babylon

 

The colour of Red Riding Hood’s cloak also represents blood, but not the blood of wounds or violence but menstrual blood.   Carter suggests that the Red clothing that she wears  ‘…has the ominous if brilliant look of blood on snow………she has just started her woman’s bleeding, the clock inside her that will strike, henceforward, once a month.’ (1993 p286).   Historically, Little Red Riding Hood is a child moving into the adult world, she is a cautionary tale for young women.  We know from the tale that she is still under the control of the women in her household; she is little more than a child. (See fig. 2).  Bettleheim notes that ‘Not only is the red cap little, but also the girl.  She is too little, not for wearing the cap but for managing what this red cap symbolises, and what her wearing it invites.’ (1991, p173 ).

Word Count 794 

Fig 2, Margaret Ely Webb (1909) Little Red Riding Hood.

Golden Shoes and Glass Slippers

Cinderella is one of our oldest and most beloved fairy tales.   The tale is a by-word for the triumph of the oppressed over the oppressors.  Cinderella is a daughter who has had her status as first born child destroyed by her Stepmother and Stepsisters.  The Russian Folklorist, Vladimir Propp  categorised fairy tale characters into eight disctinct roles, which he called the spheres of action. (Branston and Stafford, 1996)   According to Propp’s theory Cinderella is both victim and hero at the same time.   Her name indicates more than her place at the kitchen hearth.  ‘Cinderella is a child in mourning for her mother,’ Warner writes, ‘as her name tells us; her potential garb is ash, dirty and low as a donkeyskin or a coat of grasses, but more particularly the sign of loss, the symbol of mortality.’  (1995, p206).   She is in a state of grieving for the woman who is so often absent in fairy tales, her mother, whilst her stepmother makes the perfect villain, who provides the interdictions and struggles that Cinderella has to overcome.

The most important artefact to affect Cinderella is her dropped glass slipper.   Her fairy Godmother assumes the characteristics of Propp’s donor in this tale, providing the shoes that secure Cinderella’s happy-ever-after.  This godmother is in fact the spirit of Cinderella’s dead mother.  In Scottish tales, she is a calf, in Chinese tales, a magic carp, and in Russian tales a birch tree.  Her function is to provide the nurture that Cinderella is denied and to help her secure the best possible marriage.  (Heiner, 2007)

No other foot can fit Cinderella’s slipper, her small dainty feet symbolise her perfection and femininity, as it did in Chinese culture.  (See fig. 1).  Her more masculine Stepsisters are prepared to mutilate their feet in order to be fit for a royal marriage and with the help of their greedy mother lop off their toes and heels.  Shoes not only show our status and wealth but affect the way our bodies move.

Fig 1,  Taber (Date unknown) Little Girl with Bound Feet.

 Aristocratic Chinese women were not expected to walk on their bound feet – they were wealthy enough to be carried.  On the occasions when they did move, they balanced on their crushed feet by acquiring a swaying gait that was seen as feminine and desirable to their husbands.  There are many different versions of Cinderella, but one of the oldest comes from China where a Warlord tries to find the owner of a golden shoe dropped by the heroine Yeh-hsien.   As Warner writes ‘the tiny, precious golden shoe, a treasure among country people who would have gone barefoot or worn bark or straw pattens also reverberates with the fetishism of bound feet.’ (1995, p203).  The photograph of the shoe and plaster cast (see fig. 2) shows how limiting, controlling and painful the process of foot binding was. 

Fig 2 Unknown (date unknown) Lotus shoe and plaster foot

By losing her shoe as the clock strikes Midnight, Cinderella sets a chain of events in motion that will lead to the identification of her worth and beauty by the Prince.  Were she to accept his offer of marriage whilst she was dressed in all her finery, the Prince would never appreciate the struggle and hardships she has had to endure.  Finding the owner of the slipper gives the Prince his own quest to follow, changing his status to that of Propp’s Hero, and Cinderella’s to that of the prize.  By the end of his quest, the Prince looks outside of his own social class but still finds a bride worthy to be a queen.  As Bettelheim  writes, ‘By handing her the slipper to put her foot into, the prince symbolically expresses that he accepts her the way she is, dirty and degraded.’ (1991, p270)  Cinderella’s slipper becomes a symbol of her betrothal to the prince, as binding as a wedding ring on her finger.

Word Count 634

The Enchanted Mirror

Fig 1 Desborough Mirror (50BC - 50AD) British Museum

Mirrors have long held a fascination for humanity.  Requiring skill and knowledge to make, they have been the prized possessions of wealthy and important people, and could be buried with them, as the beautiful Desborough mirror appears to have been. (See fig.1).  Early mirrors were of polished stone or metal and usually belonged to healers, shaman or witchdoctors in primitive cultures.  The idea of contacting spirits through mirrors or of having your soul captured behind the shiny surface has come down through antiquity.   Superstitions surround them, soulless vampires are invisible in them, the dead communicate through them.  In Ancient times, mirrors were dangerous.  As a punishment, Narcissus was enchanted by his own reflection and wasted away, Archimedes scorched an invading Roman fleet with mirrors, and Methuselah was turned to stone by her own reflection.  (Ancient-mythology.com)  Disney’s mirror in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves talks through the mask of Tragedy, providing a classical visual twist.  (see fig. 2).

Fig 2 Artist Unknown (Unknown) Mirror from Snow White.

Bertin notes that mirrors were ‘employed by sorcerers, necromancers, astrologers and charlatans and by means of which spirits were invoked and the future predicted.’  (1881, p416)  The enchanted mirror in the tale of Snow White does exactly this.  It predicts the Queen aging and the young Snow white stepping into her position of beauty and domestic power.  Levi-Strauss explored narrative through the use of Binary Oppositions (Branston and Stafford, 1996)  and would argue that this tale shows us the conflict between youth and age, good and evil.

We view mirrors as narcissistic and encouraging vanity.  Allegorical paintings of vanity show aging women in front of their mirrors, a laughable but disturbing figure in her low-cut dresses surrounded by cosmetics. (See fig. 3).  In times when a woman had limited power within her household, the loss of her youth, and her eclipse by a young fertile bride lead to frequent power-battles and conflicts.  Within this arena of older and younger women, second spouses are particularly likely to be cast as villainous.  As Warner points out, ‘History is bespattered with the blood of possible heirs, done away with by consorts ambitious for their own progeny’. (1996, p213) In the tale of Snow White, Levi Strauss’s theory of opposition can again be applied to the female characters in the idea of what makes a good and bad mother.  The Queen, influenced by the mirror turns into an unnatural murderous mother as opposed to Snow Whites deceased, natural mother who we assume would have protected and nurtured her offspring.  The Queen’s dependence on her enchanted mirror reveals her as occult and evil.  In his book, Witches and Neighbours, Brigs writes ‘the classic image of the witch is that of the bad mother.  She was supposed to kill children, even sometimes eat them, rather than protect and nourish them.’  

Fig 3 Vanitas, engraved by Jerimias Falck after Bernardo Strozzi

Mirrors, enchanted or otherwise do not lie.  They show the truth, or reflect life as it is at that moment in time.   The mirror in this tale is no exception.  We may take the Queen’s repeated consultations of her mirror as a sign of vanity and desperation, but neither she nor us the listener doubts the mirrors truthfulness.   But the truth, like ancient mirrors, can be dangerous.  When the mirror tells the Queen that Snow White will eclipse her in beauty and worth, The Queen acts upon the information and makes plans to eliminate her rival.  The mirror is itself motiveless, but acts as both informant and catalyst.  It has no loyalty to either the Queen or Snow white, inciting one, and betraying the other.


Word Count 587

Shoes and Fairytales 2

More things about shoes.  The oldest recorded version of Cinderella comes from China.  Many of these tales originated in the East and travelled down the Silk Road (along with the Black Death).  Small feet were seen as a sign of refinement and beauty in China - apparently there was a concubine with tiny feet in the Han Dynasty,  who started the fashion which lead to the horrendous custom of binding women's feet.  Cinderella had small, elegant feet compared to her stepsisters, who cut off their toes in some versions to  squash their feet into her glass slipper.  Messy - and visible.  So here are some pictures of the incredibly tiny shoes (about 4" or 10 cm) and the effect binding had on a woman's foot.

Apparently women could still walk and work the fields with bound feet (it was a practice that was taken up by rich and poor alike) but it was difficult to balance on the soles of the tiny shoes, and women developed a swaying gait called the Lotus Gait that was thought to be alluring.  Manchu women were forbidden to bind their feet by order of the Emperor, but a fashion for 'Flower bowl' shoes developed, which effectively made them walk with tiny steps in the same swaying manner.  I have seen examples of these shoes before in the V&A and wondered about them, so this research has filled that gap.

The Last Girl Standing Theory.

We were talking about the last girl standing in horror films, the theory being that the good innocent girl beats the baddie - virtue triumphs.  This reminded me of an Ealing comedy that was shown over Christmas, The Lady Killers, staring Alex Guiness, Herbert Lom and Peter Sellers, and Katie Johnson as the eccentric Mrs Louisa Wilberforce.

In a nutshell, a group of gangsters rent an upstairs room, pretending to be an amateur string quartet rehersing, and in reality are planning a bank robbery.  When Mrs Wilberforce discovers the money, she insists it must be returned, and the gang draw straws to decide who will be the Lady Killer.  Mayhem ensues as Mrs Wilberforce snoozes quietly in front of the fire. 

My favourite scenes are the tea-party, where the gangsters are forced to behave well in front of Mrs Wilberforces' friends, and the washing up scene where they all meekly stand around with tea towels, drying up bone china whilst Mrs Wilberforce tells them off.  An oldie but a goodie.

Shoes and Fairytales

One of my favourite Powell Pressburger films - The Red Shoes - staring Moira Shearer.  The original folk tale is a mataphor for addiction - a young peasant girl finds a pair of red shoes, puts them on and dances in them.  After a while she wants to rest, but the shoes carry on dancing of their own accord, and dance and dance untill she dies of exhaustion, her feet a bloody mess.  I particularly like Moira Shearers stage makeup in the above still.  Identifying with the girl in the folk tale, and torn between her dance career and lover, her red ballet shoes dance her to a tragic end.

The Powell Pressburger collaboration produced some beautiful films.  There is a scene in Black Narcissus, a film about a group of nuns losing their sanity in the steamy Hymalayas, where Kathleen Byron renounces her vows and puts on some lipstick.  The Monstrouse female going mad.  The link is to the trailer.  Both films are gloriously technicolour and old fashioned, but still fabulouse to watch.

I was going to research truly the monstrous shoes of Chineese women with bound feet, but Red Shoes will do for the moment.

Bluebeard!

It's a long time since we looked at fairy tales, but I have been doing some (gruesome) reading about the life and times of Gilles de Rais - "The Real Bluebeard" by Jean Benedetti (Sutton publishing 2003).  Not for the fainthearted, and yet another child murderer - but one who's rank and wealth gave him both the opportunity to kill and immunity from the justice system.

I found this intriguing image from Georges Melies 1901 Bluebeard film.  It was with a blog article on films about Bluebeard at the link below.

In (one of) the original versions of the story, Bluebeard hangs his ex's by their hair in the cellar, and there seems to be a similar fascination with hair in other tales - Rapunzel being the most obviouse, but Jack the Giant Killer also finds the Giant's wives hanging by their hair too.http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/tag/bluebeard/

And here's the link to the film itself - the scene is about 5mins in.

There are some quite gruesome things about shoes in fairytales as well... another blog.

Monstrous Females 3

Myra Hindley by Marcus Harvey.

Black and white image of Myra Hindley, the Moors Murderer by Marcus Harvey.  The image is made up of handprints, using the plaster cast of a small child's hand.

Myra Hindley was the monstrous woman of my childhood.  I can remember her photograph appearing sporadically in the papers as the possibility of parole was mentioned.  

Monstrous Females 2

Sarah Malcolm painted by W. Hogarth 1733

Ilustration as a Monster.  The etching is of a painting of Sarah Malcolm, a 22year old Laundress who worked in London in 1733.   Sarah Malcolm - and accomplices- returned to a house where she worked as a laundry maid and strangled the two elderly ladies who lived there, and slit the throat of their 19 yr old maid.  Sarah herself may not have been the strangler, but the way Hogarth has emphasised her beefy arms and hands somehow suggests she could have done so.

The gap between conviction and execution was always brief, and Hogarth hurridly sketched and painted Sarah.  The aim was to produce an affordable etching (6d, the price of a newpaper) as soon as possible after the execution.  This particular etching is a mirror image of the painting and was done so to complement another etching of an executed man, Jack Sheppard.  It was thought to increase the etching's commercial interest by turning the print into a matching pair.  Commercial art at it's most monstrous, commemorating death as a public spectacle.

Monstrous Females 1

Sleepy Hollow - Tim Burton

Scene where the headless horseman emerges from the Tree of the dead.  The moment where the hoof and the horse's nose pushes out from amongst the severed heads is really cleverly done.  Sleepy Hollow also has one of my favourite female characters.  Miranda Richardson is a stepmother, witch, murderess and manipulator of the Headless horseman.

Lady Van Tassel played by Miranda Richardson