Tags
Charles Perrault, Emelya and the Magic Pike, mary grace ketner, megan hicks, Puss in Boots, the fairy tale
from Charles Perrault’s 1843 edition of the fairy tale
Murzik snoozed in the window, purring away contentedly as the Simpletons wrapped presents at the kitchen table. That was where they did just about everything, in case you hadn’t noticed. Truth is, having tea and nibbles nearby can make any project more fun! And besides that, the kitchen was made cozy by the warmth of the oven and the sweet, spicy aroma of the pfeffernusse cookies baking inside it. The rest of the house seemed cold and colorless by comparison!
Murzik turned over to rearrange himself, and — he fell! Cats do that, you know. Of course, he righted himself before hitting the floor, and in the three seconds it took for Simplia to arrive to make sure he was okay, he had gathered up from deep within his soul that expression of indignity which the feline species has perfected.
“Well, look at this!” Simplia exclaimed, distracted from her mission by an envelope fluttering downward between where Murzik had fallen from and where he had fallen to. She took aim and clamped her fingers around it. “It’s a letter to Vasilisa,” she said.
“Oh, I had forgotten!” Sagacia said. “But now that you mention it, today is the magical third day of the month!”
Simplia sat down, took a sip of tea, and read aloud.
Dear Vasilisa the Wise,
Does anyone tell “Puss in Boots” any more? Because I would like to, but the story poses a problem for me.
Puss is such an appealing character! Who doesn’t love a cat!–even Facebook does! And he is such a devoted companion that I’d love to tell his tale, but his tricks and threats are so deceptive and so dire and so greedy that I can’t stand to. I love animal helpers in stories, but this one crosses the line! Helping his master becomes hurting and deceiving others.
The same thing happened to me with the Russian fairy tale “Emelya and the Magic Pike.” It’s easy to identify with this “Jack” character and some of his adventures are so imaginative, like when he races through village on top of his stove, that you just want to share it. But he does so much damage to people’s property and causes such pain to others, that you don’t want kids to get the idea that, well, to heck with everyone else! I’m getting what’s mine!
Some fairy tales can put you in such a dilemma!
Do you just make a big joke of it so that people see the irony? Do you ignore it and hope for the best? Do you place some kind of tag line at the end? “The views expressed in this story are not necessarily those of the storyteller?” I figure everything I say should express my views in some way!
There must be other stories that people have that experience with, too, like–well, I don’t know–what? I’ve tried several approaches to them, and I just haven’t found a satisfactory path. What do you do, Vasilisa? What do other storytellers do?
Dilemma In Duluth
“That happens to me sometimes, too,” said Sagacia.
“Me too,” Simplia agreed. “I mean, I try to just forget about stories with problems like that, but sometimes they just tracking me down. Inviting me back.”
“So, I wonder what stories have stalked others, and what they do about it?” Sagacia asked. “Let’s go post it on the door at the Fairy Tale Lobby and see what our magical friends have to say about it!”
“I’m there!” Simplia said, pulling her wrap off the back of the chair.
Murzik had climbed back into the window. “Z-z-z-z-z,” he purred.
Fairy Tale Lobby 
The only person Puss really causes harm to is the giant/wizard in the end. I don’t see telling people to lie for the boy as very serious, in folktale terms anyway. Sure, Puss lies about who the Marquis is, then again, a king willing to give away his daughter solely for wealth kind of deserves it too. This might just be my inner trickster talking, but I don’t see a serious problem with Puss. If you are worried about his behavior though, you can always give a try at the Pentamerone version (titled Pippo). For one, Puss is a lady in that one, and two, she has a falling out with the boy in the end and walks away. Cheers!
I can’t speak for Dilemma in Duluth, of course, but the part of Puss I can’t get past is his dire threats to the peasants when he requires them to lie to the king on behalf of his master. If he had just _told_ them to, or asked them and they shrugged and agreed, it might make a difference to me (in fact, I’ll consider that). Thanks for the Pentamerone reference!
Well, there is the fact that the peasants will be better off (?) once the giant is gone. If you are not comfortable with the threats, you can have Puss tell them that, and convince them to lie instead of threatening.
(Although I have always seen the threatening as a comedic element – how would a band of harvest workers be seriously scared of a cat in boots?….)
Yes, I think comedy is the best way to handle it, though treating one incident with humor sometimes turns out to affect other parts of the story, and I may or may not be able to resolve all the parts into a believable whole. And if you can’t believe a fairy tale, what *can* you believe!!?
I love it that these letters though specifically about fairy tales, apply to all genres of stories. As an Indian, it would be so great to tell stories from the Ramayana or Mahabharata or even even a lot of tales from the Jataka tales and the Panchatantra…. but so much of that which one cannot accept… so i dont tell them. Not the best solution, but that’s the one i have adopted.
Me, too!
Find a different story to tell. There are so many stories in the world, it just seems to me that a teller has no need to be telling stories not loved by the teller. If nothing about the tale is truly attractive so the teller is comfortable telling the tale, the solution seems simple – do not tell that story. Stories are stories. I don’t believe it should be assumed that we are passing along lessons for life with every story we tell. However, when a teller is only comfortable telling the stories that, from that teller’s perspective, pass along lessons for living the teller wants to impart to listeners, then that provides the teller with specific story selection criteria it makes sense for that teller to follow. Other tellers may have very different selection criteria, so would make very different story selections.
I think yours is the best solution overall, and the one most likely to happen when one tries to work with a story but ultimately something sours the effort.
It is strange, though, that some stories seem to follow me around and say “Try again,” so I do, but then I still can’t get them to work for me!
Puss in Boots and other stories like that are morally ambiguous, and they’re meant to be that way. Trickster tales aren’t about right and wrong, they’re about being more clever than the world around you. Take a close look at the two “morals” at the end of Perrault’s version. They’re both emphasizing style over substance as the path to a good life.
I’ve never been personally fond of Puss in Boots, not because of the odd morality, but because the boy is such a nothing character. In some ways it would have been a better story if the CAT had ended up owning the castle and marrying the princess.
Nick–I agree with you wholeheartedly. When we burden a fairy tale with the duty of reflecting to impressionable listeners the morals we hope they will adopt, we are guilty, I think, of hubris. Still…I do cringe at some of the unquestioned pathologies related in much folklore. I wonder if we might make a collection of favorite disclaimers that help us get over that hump of conscience.
Well, I have definitely had that experience. I read a version of “The Wolf and the Kid” and the “kid” (goat) had a saucy attitude at the end, where he said basically that he could wander off anytime he wanted to because he was smarter than the wolf. Not really the message I want. Oh, that’s not a fairy tale, but it is a dilemma I have had with stories. And I usually have to just sit on those stories until I understand why that bothers me, or I find a way to tell the story with a change, or make peace with the dilemma. Oftentimes people listening to the story find their way through the dilemma quicker than I, the Storyteller. That usually means I’ve made the story (in my mind) more complex than needed.
I bet that’s what I do, too: overstudy it. Sometimes I just need someone to tell me “lighten up!”