Transformation of Cinderella and Magical Frogs

23 Dec 2002 Transformation of Cinderella and Magical Frogs
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/fairytales_myths_fables_&legends/97230

Commonly recurring themes in Plato are education and the "good". What has this to do with fairy tales? Much. In the Republic, Book II, Socrates is discussing with Glaucon and Adeimantos about children's upbringing to create a better society. Regardless of how many centuries go by, Plato is always modern. Already they have divided the the social classes and discussed the upper and lower crusts, which leads Socrates back into the problem of how some people land in the bottom of society or become corrupted while others are ennobled.In doing he opens the discussion of education as a form of reform or formation. The guardian's role is crucial to the upbringing of the yonger generation so that it is less likely to go astray... or rather so that it has the greatest opportunity to develop virtue. Naturally, this includes whether one is allowed to teach false or untrue tales.

"Now you know the beginning is always the chief thing in every process, especially for whatever is young and tender; for it then the most easily moulded and each takes the shape which you want to impress upon each."

"Exactly."

"Then shall we just carelessly allow the children to hear any chance fables moulded by chance persons, and to receive in their souls opinions which are generally contrary to those which we believe they ought to have when they grow up?"

Most certainly not."

"Then first, as it seems. we must set up a censorship over the fable-makers, and approve any good fable they make, and disapprove the bad; those which are approved we will persuade the mothers and nurses to tell the children, and to mould the souls of the children by the fables even more carefully than the bodies of their hands. most of those they tell now must be thrown away."*

And then in the ensuing dialogue immediately discounts the Greek classics of the time, Hesiod and homer, for being spurous material for children and that children must not be taught about,

"the battles between the gods which Homer describes, we must not admit into our city, whether they are explained as allegory or not. For the young person is not able to judge what is allegory and what is not; but he will keep in his mind indelible and unchangeable whatever opinions he receives at that age. Therefore perhaps we must be specially careful that what they hear first are the noblest things told in the best fables for encouraging virtue. " *

The Supreme Court has been busy ever since the Vatican lost control over banning books. It is not only children who do not recognize and understand fables, but adults. The Grimm brothers originally collected stories as a form of nationalistic rebellion and patriotism. The original versions were never meant for children to read, but were heavily annotated for academic scholarship. Only later were the stories adapted as a literary form. All good writers craft words carefully. Had they been only old wives tales found abandoned in the street, very likely they would have died and not influenced others so greatly. The stories were revised as edification for children in accordance to Plato's precepts. They teach.

Both Cinderella and Frog King are transformation stories. However, they reflect opposite problems of reality and illusion. Cinderella embodies the Platonic ideas of the natural good. She is born the daughter of a wealthy man. She belongs in the upper society and therefore is noble from her birth. The stepmother and step-sisters are gold-diggers. There's nothing much real about their nobility. They act shrewish, have false values, are bulllies and steal what doesn't belong to them. Although rich on the outside, they are poor; whereas Cinderella must be redeemed because she embodies nobility. She is long-suffering, patient, kind...all those virtues that Saint Paul writes about in his Epistles-- the embodiement of Christ. She is redeemed. And although the people around her cannot see her true beauty, the Prince recognizes it immediately at the ball where she truly belongs. Yet at the ball, her connving stepsisters and stepmother do not even recognize her. They are blind to the reality of her goodness and her beauty. This says somehing about love, also. Usually we are blind about the virtues of a person until finally charmed by the personality. Then, we can become blind to the faults.

Frog King presents the opposite dilemma.. The princess with the golden ball is a rude, self-centered brat, playing with golden ball, not golden; rather gold. She is so beautiful, that the sun, stops in the sky to gaze upon her. Accidental wording? Hardly. The brothers knew literature, including Ovid's Metamorphoses. The allusion carries over. Apollo was bedazzled by her beauty, only it is superficial. She is haughty and rude to the frog who retrieves her ball from the bottom of the well, calling him a "garstiger Frosch" a hateful, despicable, repulsive frog. All three words fit easily into the one. Not only does she try buying him off with superficiality, "my pearls, jewels, clothes" routine, but even throws in a crown which is not hers to give. She has no crown. Both the gold ball and crown rightfully belong to her father who has autonomy over his kingdom. And after promising the frog that she will be his mate, she abandons him. Utterly false in her words, she thinks one thing, yet does another. Born the daughter of a King, she is no more than a shrew. What seems good is bad, and what seems ugly and hateful, is good. The frog tolerates her rudeness, acts chivalrously and speaks kindly; yet she is nasty back.

The two stories are mirrors of each other teaching that not all that seems real, is true or good.

*Great Dialogues of Plato, transl by W H D Rouse, edit by Eric H Warmington and Philip G Rouse; Mentor Book, Penguin, UK ISBN: 04516282276 c1984, p174, p175

Sur la Lune Fairytales: The Frog King
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/frogking/index.html
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household Tales
Margaret Hunt, transl, London: George Bell, 1884

Der Froschkoenig
http://www.fln.vcu.edu/grimm/frosch.html
Foreign Languages Dept, Virginia Commonwealth University

The Frog King
http://www.fln.vcu.edu/grimm/frog.html
Foreign Languages Dept, Virginia Commonwealth University