"The Mathematics of Fairy Tales": Anyone know what I'm talking about?

[elfs]

Once Upon A Time... I read an essay a long time ago about the essential nature of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Modern readers often find the Grimm stories disorienting or troubling, and the consequences of a characters actions go against the grain of the reader's expectations.

The essay explained that this was because modern readers assigned very different attributes to the characters and their motives than 18th century storytellers, and modern values of fairness and merit were not part of the mental landscape of the tales' inventors. Where we would expect characters to suffer a tragic fate for their cruelty, the original audience would understand that he has the right to do as he does by dint of his position in the great chain of being.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Or am I hallucinating?

Comments

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

I love Propp's MORPHOLOGY but you kind of lost me at "great chain of being." Do you mean fairies, angels, devils, etc etc (above us on the Chain)? If so, he might have a point, though I wouldn't call it a 'right'.

The tales are focused on the humans and their fate. The stronger beings function in the story more like a storm or other natural phenomenon does; it blows the ship in the direction of plot, or sinks it, but the storm isn' morally judged one way or another.

For one thing, because they're stronger and more secure than we are, they aren't subject to the same kind of life-changing events that punish or reward the human characters -- at least not within the scope of these stories. (Rumplestiltskin tearing himself in half is an exception, and I'd guess it's a flourish added late.)

[ssatva.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being