Essay: Motifs t in the Looking Glass

Alice Meets Tweedledee and Tweedledum, by Daniel Tenniel

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There appears to be a motif of characters that make their way into the mythology of Alice in Wonderland as well as the Looking Glass: the tricksters. It would seem that nearly all of the characters encountered in Wonderland or through the Looking Glass possess this characteristic to a certain extent, and this helps keep those worlds interesting and fun.
   The first character, or characterS, in the Looking Glass to prominently show this characteristic is that of the duo of Tweedledee and Tweedledum: they evidently know where Alice wants to head off to, but they are reticent on the helpful details that simply help her on her way. They instead seek to waste her time with nonsensical puzzles and riddles, as well as games to distract her from her way. They also tell her oodles of long stories, even though Alice implores them to keep their stories short. And their first story is that of the Walrus and the Carpenter.
   The Walrus and the Carpenter both serve as tricksters in their own story-world. The first occasion comes when they trick the oysters, who are so innocent and naive that they mindlessly follow the Walrus to a secluded place where he can eat them with the Carpenter. And not only this, but the Walrus keeps the largest, most succulent oysters hidden away in his handkerchief, so as not to share them with his partner in crime.
   Another character that isn't necessarily in the Looking Glass stories is that of the Cheshire Cat: he too presents Alice with logical conundrums, with seemingly full knowledge that Alice doesn't realize the depths to which her reason has degraded whilst in Wonderland. He provides even a more complex task than Tweedledee and Tweedledum: he blatantly misleads and endangers Alice on multiple occasions without remorse. This not only makes him a trickster, but a dangerous one at that.

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Essay: Wisdom in Alice in Wonderland

"The Duchess with her Family" by, John Tenniel (1865)

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Despite so much nonchalance and illogical deviations in the story of Alice in Wonderland, there are a good deal of wise lessons and morals that Alice takes away from each of her experiences with the other characters.
   The first and most obvious is the white rabbit: if you follow your curiosity too far, you will inevitably find yourself in a situation you are not prepared for. This evidently becomes the case, because almost as soon as Alice falls down the rabbit hole, she notices that her way of acting, talking, and thinking have become vastly divorced from the logical reality she left behind with her sister and Dinah the cat.
   The next big lesson is from the Caterpillar, which he says quite literally: "Keep your temper." This lesson not only speaks literally, but intranarratively as well (almost breaking the forth wall). The reason I say this is because it is apparent that Alice is somewhat in control of the overarching rules of Wonderland, but has no conscious control over it. This would lead the reader to conclude that Wonderland originated from Alice's psyche. So, the cautionary advice given by the Caterpillar also serves to keep Wonderland, at least in Alice's mind, stable and unruined.
   The story of the Pig and the Pepper arrives next, with the display of a couple of morals to the chapter. The first comes in the form of Alice visiting and inquiring about the activity within Duchess' house: the Duchess is basically a butcher who exclusively uses baby pigs to make her food. This lesson could be interpreted as: if you look deep enough, you may find the truth, but there's no guarantee that you'll like it. The next character to give Alice a lesson is that of the Cheshire Cat, who confounds Alice about where exactly she would like to go. Here, the Cheshire Cat teaches the lesson of decisiveness: in order to find your destination, you must decide which path to take.


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Essay: Thematic Motifs in Native American Hero Tales

"Native American Chiefs" by, Claude Niepce 

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   There's quite a few things to be aware of when reading Native American tales about their most highly thought of heroes in their stories. Even though I say that, not all of the qualities that each hero or antagonist possesses will be necessarily idealistic according to the culture of the story. And this is true for nearly every genre of storytelling: there are some characters that break the mold. However, I will start off by try to isolate characteristics that keep on appearing despite the circumstances of the tales.
   One characteristic is seems to be at the essence of each hero in the stories is that of attunement with nature. All the heroes to a degree show that they are able to commune with both plant and animal life alike, as well as spirits of the dead, or embodiments of forces of nature themselves. They often use their knowledge of nature itself to help them succeed in their efforts. Obviously, maintaining a strong connection and wealth of knowledge about the land and the life in it was important for Native American in their most idealized figures.
   Another characteristic that is exhibited strongly in Native American heroes is that of taking great care to amalgamate their specific tribe's unique practices and beliefs into their mode of accomplishment. What makes native americans unique in this though, is that they exhibit these qualities in almost immediate contrast to other tribes' practices or beliefs, as if they want to prove something they have is superior than the other tribe. This isn't inherently the same as a pair of rival gangs in a city: instead, the heroes of each tribe immediately seem to attribute their successes to the personal qualities, practices, or beliefs that their specific tribe has.  Not every tribe has the same goals for their own salvation, their differing paths certainly shape the stories of their heroes.

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Essay: Heros in American Indian Fairy Tales

Iagoo Telling Stories to the Children, by John Rae (1921)

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   The heroes featured in this unit seem to possess some characteristics that span across all the stories. They all have a sense of innocence, which is exemplified by characters like Shin-ge-bis or the children on the mountain. Interestingly, all of these characters are innocent as a function of driving the story forward: they have a "get-up-and-go" attitude whereas many of their fellow characters  in their respective stories would likely shirk the responsibility and risk of moving forward. Keeping this transition in mind, it's also interesting to note that this quality of innocence also seems to replace the Westernized-hero quality of bravery. By this, I mean that heroes in the American Indian Fairy Tales rarely seem to question their own abilities, as if their confidence was "a given". They do not doubt their ability to be responsible for their choices, so they simply do as they please.
   Another characteristic of heroes that carries across many stories is the quality of being tricksters: they often employ shenanigans on others to get what they want. However, these little pranks rarely, if ever, cause any real harm. And the tricks themselves appear to move the stories forward as well, because they force other peripheral, or at least less central, characters into action where they might not have engaged with the main plot at all. However, their reaction to the heroes' jests or tricks makes them intervene.
   Possibly the most universal trait of the heroes of the American Indian Fairy Tales was that of having an affinity with wildlife and nature in general. This is not surprising, however, because of the obvious traditional important that the Native Americans place on the treatment of and co-existence with nature. All of the characters are able to communicate and befriend animals to come to their aid if needed, and some of the characters can even transform into animals themselves with magic. The heroes further show their affinity with nature by showing a high level of interaction with spirits of nature. However, these relationships with the spirits are not always friendly, and the spirits themselves are often regarded as higher, more powerful beings, so there's occasionally tension between the heroes and supernatural beings as well.

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Essay: The "Bad Guys" Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki)

Emperor Antoku's Grandmother rescuing him from a Dragon, by Yoshitsuya Ichieisai (1860)

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   It seems that every tale in the series by Ozaki has "bad guys" that appear as demons or monsters, rather than relatable beings with feelings or reasons of their own for doing the things they do. For example, in the story My Lord Bag of Rice, it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to think that the large centipede was a monstrous, metaphorical manifestation of a foreign martial force that the people of Lake Biwa feared. There's no back-story to the centipede, or any elaboration for the root of its actions by attacking the Kingdom on Lake Biwa. Even though these stories are fairy tales, it's definitely within reason to say that the Japanese stories definitely give no aspect of gray-sided morality: there appears to only be a light and dark side.
   There is another example in the story of The Ogre of Rashomon: the ogre himself is only guilty of guarding a gate on a road. It's not unreasonable for people to go around the gate, but those who insist on it face his wrath. The bad treatment he receives subsequently from knight Watanabe just doesn't seem proportionate to the very little damage the ogre does by simply guarding his gate. However, the storyteller and knight Watanabe both seem to address the ogre's actions as mortal transgressions, worthy of severing his arm and keeping it as a trophy. As I mentioned before, no such attention is given to the ogre's story: he simply exists in the plot to represent evil. The mere fact that this plays out in the story makes me wonder as a reader if the author is not being very forthcoming with all the facts of the story. It makes me ask questions like: is the ogre's bad character simply bad because the author is not able to see past his/her own assumptions about those who are different from themselves? Overall, the author's bland portrayal of the bad guys in the stories makes me question their factual basis and truth.

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Essay: Magic in Japanese Fairy Tales (Lang)

Cover of Momotaro, by T. Hasegawa (1886)

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   There doesn't seem to be a single tale in Lang's collection that does not feature magic in some form or another. This is obviously a credit to the Japanese's culture and belief's in spirits and the supernatural. Now, magic is a common mechanic in many realms of tales (Andersen collection for example). However, the Japanese make a point to give magic an omnipresent quality: no matter what part of the story that the reader may be in, there's always a sense of destiny and that a magical force could intervene at any moment to propel the story forward.
   For example, in a relatively realistic story of the maiden with the wooden helmet (link), the maiden's deceased mother comes to her in a dream and tells her that she should finally accept a man's hand in marriage. Now, this maiden's mother was the reason she wore the wooden helmet to hide her beauty anyway, and previously in the story the author made it clear that the maiden was eternally loyal to her mother. So, the only way that the maiden could take her dream seriously is if the spirit of her mother actually intervened and appeared to her. The Japanese are often attributed with having the attitude that the environment and outside forces, rather than individual efforts, are the things that really drive the world. It seems that even in this very personal tale that they can't escape that tendency.
   Magic is also often associated with animals in Japanese culture. For example, in the tale of How the Wicked Tenuki was Punished (link), the animals themselves are described as magicians and spell-casters. They are so good at conducting magic that they actually are able to fool humans, which reveals that the Japanese culture attributes quite a bit of the strange happenings in the world (at least at the time the stories were written) to spiritual or magical intervention.


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Essay: Reoccuring Motifs in the Voyages of Sindbad

"Sinbad the Sailor - Episode of the Whale", by Edmund Dulac (1914)

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   Arguably the most important motif that ties all the voyages of Sindbad is how he begins and ends his stories in Baghdad, his home city. This narrative mechanism serves quite a few purposes that carry weight both in the real world and in the world of the story.
   This narrative device could be seen as a call back to the sense of nationalism that this story brings to the nation of Baghdad. The story of Sindbad would surely not be nearly as popular as it was when it was conceived  compared to today. Back then, it would have been easy to see Baghdad as a homely paradise in an otherwise unforgiving world. Truth be told, most of the middle east back then was the forefront of discoveries in science and medicine, making the economy in places like Baghdad free to support the lifestyle of an up-and-about sailor like Sindbad. It would have definitely been an Arabian paradise in the middle of a treacherous desert land.
   Another way this mechanism is useful is to build on Sindbad's character. Despite it being a repetitive device, it says more and more about the sailor each time it is used. What I mean is that he always returns home, against all odds, either by effort or by chance. He is able to refuse the invitations of being adorned with riches for the rest of his life in a foreign land if he stays. He also manages to avoid death, even when he's stranded in the middle of a land or part of the sea that is unknown to him. The ability of Sindbad to involve himself in all these problems, yet find his way back home, seems fated. This transition of events also points to what I consider one of the key points of understanding the Sailor: his desire for adventure, but a sense of belonging as well.

Here is a link to the reading unit

Essay: Arabian Nights- Recurring Motifs

"One Thousand and One Nights", from uploader Chordboard on Wikipedia 

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   Probably the most obvious motif that comes with Scheherazade's tales is the way she keeps building each story within the previous narrative layer. The specific way she does this though is fairly interesting: every character who winds up telling a story within the story that they're in, tells their own story in order to save their own life or the life of someone they know. In the grand scheme of Arabian Nights, this is a blatant metaphor for how Scheherazade is using her stories to delay the death and suffering of not just herself, but of the families and girls that Sultan Schahriar destroys in his madness.
   Another motif that recurs in the series is that the person who is threatening to murder the storyteller is propelled by one of a few drives: either insatiable anger or unreasonable superstition. Ironically, Sultan Schahriar exhibits both in his current state of mind, because he hates women for both the deception that his wife used against him and he's completely convinced that all women are deceptively evil. Scheherazade is indeed deceiving the Sultan. However, she doesn't do this to harm him, but instead to heal him and stop the suffering he visits upon the families of his kingdom.
   The storytellers in each story seem to have more varied motivations than that villains however. They range from fishermen, a physician, and even a half-stone half-man. Like I previously stated, all of these storytellers are telling narratives to either save their own life, or the lives of those they pity or care about. I understand that the reason Scheherazade gives these people various backgrounds yet the same purpose is to convey the different backgrounds of the people in Sultan Schahriar's kingdom. They all hope to postpone the murder of themselves or those they care about by the antagonist, and their only hope is to try and get the antagonist to empathize with them. Knowing how the story of a Thousand and One Nights ends, I know that Scheherazade's strategy to evoke Schahriar's empathy works, saving herself and the kingdom.

Here is a link to the reading unit

Essay: Embracing Life's Terminus in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Books 8-10)

Image by John Flaxman (1879)

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There's a definite theme to this section of Ovid's tale: the presentation of the end of life, or the end of existence. Regardless in what form it takes, the characters in this portion of the tale all find themselves in the presence of death at some level: spiritual, physical, mental, or emotional.

Starting with the story of Daedalus and Icarus, the plot unfolds to give hope that duo of father and son can somehow make an escape from their captivity on the island of Crete. However, due to the emergence of Icarus' euphoria of his new wings, he becomes overzealous and flies too close to the sun. He then falls to his death in the sea.
In the context of the time and culture that this story is told in, I would think that the significance of the death of Icarus would be to be thankful for freedom but avoid "drowning" yourself in the sensation.
(Here's a link to the story)

The poem then moves on to visit the instance of Philemon and Baucis: they're an old couple that have lived in poverty most of their lives, yet have remained very in love with each other and faithful to the gods. Jupiter and Mercury, in disguise as mortal passerbys, visit the marsh town that Philemon and Baucis reside in to test the strength of the spiritual belief of the town. The two gods are disappointed when all the doors to all houses in the village remain shut for them. However, Philemon and Baucis let the two disguised gods in, and trouble themselves with serving them dinner, despite their old age and lack of resources. Jupiter and Mercury reveal themselves and make the elderly couple the keepers of their temple for the end of their days, so that they need not suffer the pains of poverty ever again. They do this until their deaths: they pass at the same time, so that one doesn't live without the other, and they have two fruitful trees growing over their graves in their honor.
This tale points to a very traditional way to use the instance of death: even in old age, you should be content and true with yourself during the spiritual journey that you have taken in your life.
(Here's a link to the story)

The next story is that of Erysichthion, a man scornful of the gods, who most notably struck down the most sacred tree in Ceres' woods. The reason he does so is not clear, but perhaps it is purely his sense of irreverence for the gods. In any case, Erysichthion takes an axe and a squad of servants to Ceres' woods and begins to cut down this great oak. This tree is a symbol of worship to the Nymphs, an Earthly manifestation of Ceres herself. The Dryads live by it, using it as a way to channel the divine commune they have with the Goddess. Upon receiving the sound chops from the axe head, the tree begins to fall and a Nymph cries out to Erysichthion, begging him to stop. But the proud man does not cease; he continues until the tree is felled. As a result, in the next story in the unit, a chain of events is set off that turns out to be Erysichthion's undoing.
This story uses the death of the oak for a specific lessen: revere all that the gods have created, including manifestation, if only to see past your own selfish whims.
(Here's a link to the story)

The death of Hercules is an oddly gruesome one: the shirt of Nessus the centaur possesses a poison that slowly boils the blood and peels the skin off its host's musculature. Despite his great strength and courage, Hercules cannot bring himself to overcome the poison that has been inflicted on him. As death begins to take him, he laments his glory and life's journeys. After a long time of mad wandering, Hercules finds his end in a funeral pyre. The people whom Hercules was known to come from far and wide to grieve for the hero, and their cries do not go unnoticed. Zeus, upon judgement of Hercules' efforts in life to establish justice and good in the world, grants the hero the gift of immortality. This allows Hercules to shed his mortal body, and join his Olympian family in the celestial regions of their home.
I think the conditions of Hercules' death are very unusual: he is given the shirt of Nessus by his wife, who suspected him of having an affair with another woman. His wife, not knowing that the shirt was lined with poison, give it to Hercules as a sign of faithfulness to him. This background leads me to think that the lesson in the death of Hercules is that: no good deed will go unpunished, but when all is said and done, the gods are the ones who pass final judgement.
(Here's a link to the story)


(Here's a link to the unit)

Essay: Crime and Justice in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Books 1-4)

Perseus vs Atlas

This image was found here, and it was made by Edward Burne-Jones

I enjoy reading literature, or at least tales, that are far removed from my era in order to get a sense of what “right” and “wrong” meant at the time of the story. In this way, I can get a view on the historical timeline of human morality. This is no different in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which happens in a time close to the AD/BC changeover: while I know that these myths are made not to be entirely realistic, it still reflects the values and mindset at the time they were written.

The most obvious and overarching pillar of good and evil is the judgment of the Gods, despite how flawed they might appear to someone of a more modern background. The impulsive and brutal activities the Zeus visits on mortals is, on many occasions, nothing short of monstrous. From what I have read, he really is a proverbial force of nature that does anything he wants whenever he wants. This is the primary point of the first tale, which details the flood Zeus used to wipe out most of humanity because HE was not pleased with their behavior. Events like these do surprise me momentarily on each occasion, but at the same time Zeus is as random and whimsical as nature is in addressing the existence of life, and nature is all-powerful as Jupiter is. Ultimately, his will is law (until it involves the titans, but I won’t address that).

But as we leave the top rung on the chain of justice, we start to see another theme: patriarchy. We don’t even need to leave the circle of the Olympians to see this, because Hera does not outright blame her husband (at least in the featured books) for attacking/romancing mortal women or female magical beings (dryads and others). These encounters usually result in the woman bearing child, and by this time Hera has become aware. And she punishes these women, not only because she is a God and has the means to, but she blindly assumes they had some power over the matter. Or maybe she finds it easier to blame these women than to try and change her husband’s ways (?). There’s no mistake that Zeus rapes some of these women in some form. However, readers can take-heart in that amongst mortals, rape is indeed a very serious crime. Despite the prevalence of patriarchy, there are occasional exceptions like in the invocation of the amazon warriors (but they are not mentioned in these books).

So, at the level of the Gods at least, most anything they say or do is set in stone as “right.” However, even when there are quarrels among the Gods themselves, like in the tale of Mars and Venus, there is no point in the story that Ovid even hints at the Gods reconsidering their actions or their intentions on their own. The way the disputes among each other are solved is by action alone: only a God can stop a God, but only by force of action. And this theme does follow what I said before about Zeus, even pertaining to the lesser Olympians: they are elements of nature itself, sometimes they clash, and one must win over the other. But they do not have second thoughts about their intent.

As we go further down the formalities of right and wrong in Ovid’s work, we approach the gray-ish realm of mortal man and magical beings. This level of morality, crime and punishment, is much more civilized, which is not surprising. Human disputes are often settled by human action, and the same goes for the creatures and monsters. However, there are clashes between humans and creatures, which is where things can become a little messy. Examples of these kinds of interactions can be seen in the tales of Narcissus, and Perseus and Medusa.

A trend that I have noticed is that Ovid never really allows a pure-blooded human to hold will and precedence over a God or Titan, but he will permit this on rare occasion when it comes to half-mortals born from divine lineage. The most prominent example in these books is that of Perseus. He was born to a mortal mother, Danaë, but she was got with child by Zeus who appeared to her as a ray of light. Half-mortals like Perseus allow Ovid to create well-balanced man vs God disputes, while still maintaining the real limitations that each character has. As a testament to this, using Medusa’s head, Perseus transforms Atlas the titan into stone in the form of a mountain. This comes after the fact that Atlas wanted Perseus to leave his land, but the half-mortal refused. In fairness, Perseus didn’t exactly react the most even-handedly by responding to a moderate retaliation due to trespassing with out-right murder.

The literature unit can be found here