Women's Obedience Toward Their Husbands

In the early centuries, women always stand in the lower statues and receive less respection from the society than the men do, and that phenomenon is the men is the one make money and support their family, so the man definite has more power than women in either the household or society. And that is what the story "Bluebeard" tried to explain: people has money get more power than the people who don't, and rich people can do all things they want, and the example for that from the story is: Bluebeard is the one has all money, so he can marry to any women who were much younger than him, and he is the one who alway gave out the order for his women to follow, and if his women disobeyed him than those women will receive punishment from him.

'Bluebeard wanted to killed his wife because she went to open the secret chamber that Bluebeard asked she not to' - is an example that Bluebeard wanted to punish his wife becuase she didn't followed his order. And in my personal opinion, I think she should receive that punishment, because she just got married to Bluebeard and in this is very begining she already started to challenge Bluebeard's power, so no one can guarantee what she will do in the future if she Bluebeard just let her go this time, and Bluebeard will lost his power in the house if he is forgived her at this time.

But with the changed in social institution and culture, women's statues in today's soceity is equal to men's; because today's women received same level education and do the same jobs as men do, and men don't have any more superior status than women in today's society. So, today we don't say women shoud obey ther husbands anymore, but we said the husband and wife should respect on each other instead.

"Curiosity" - Is it good or bad?

Curiosity is one of our human-beings, and the most time the curiosity helps us to explore the things that we interested on and lead us to the sucess. But is curiosity always a positive thing? is there any dangeous behind those curiosity?

The story "Bluebeard" is one of the examples that explained the negative impact by the curiosity. There is a lady who was married Bluebeard, and she was very interesting on Bluebeard's "private" life, and she wanted to explore everything that he hid, specially that thing that her husband told her not to do. One day, Bluebeard needs to go a trip for his business issues, and before the Bluebeard left his house he gave all keys to his wife and told her not to go the chamber which he locked down. With the curiosity on that chamber, she ignored what her husband told her and went to open the door of the chamber in order to discover that is inside, and what secret Bluebeard hid in that room. She got herslfe into the room and found something that really terrified her. And because she saw her husband's past, Bluebeard has to kill in order to hide the secret again and killing her also consider as a punishment for her been not to obey Bluebeard's rule. From this viewpoint, we figured out the curiosity is not alway a good thing and it doen't always lead people to see what they expected, and doing something that is not hoped can always bring people miseries.

Fairy Tales - more than just a story

The original purpose of fairy tales is created to entertain people - specially for adults. But with the time passed and the culture changed, the role of fairy tales in today's society is affected to kids more than to adults.

On this Wednesday, I went to a hair salon to get my hair cutted.

While I'm was waiting for my appointment, there were few kids also in waiting with their parents. The reception area in this hair salon has various types table that offered for its customers, and one type is specially offered for kids. The surface of that set of furniture was printed with many cartoon figures, included Cinderella, Snow-White, and many of others, and this set of furniture also is designed in kid's size. The kids were so fascinated on those "cartoon" furnitures, they refused to sit with their parents and all chose to sit around that "cartoon" table. And under my observation, everytime more kids walked in this salon, the first thing those kids will always do is running toward to that cartoon-printed table.

In today's society the fairy tales became a majority part of our life, and specially affected our kids so much. kids are not just grow up with these fairy tales, but also for the most of kids they learned their first lesson for the life from the fairy tales.

The role of woman

Cleaning the house, taking care the babies, and listening to husband's orders, these are the stereotype duties that women should perform after they got married to the men in to the early age, and it is so normal that a woman became a housewife after they got married, the reason of that is because back to the early age women were lack on the education, therefore women cannot do professional jobs beside the housework, and be a housewife also considered as the virtue of the women back the time. Refer to Grimm's "Cinderella", he depicted Cinderella's role in the family also is a "housewife" that she doing all kinds house work such as cooking, clearning, and taking care of the others. But with the time passed, women in this society received more education, so with the skills thet learned women started to take all kind professional jobs, and women doing a decent job beside the housework are not special anymore in today society compare to the early age, and the jobs and positions that women can do in today such as: lawyers, accountant, police officers, doctors, professors, and more. Cinderella's role descripted in Grimms's story is almost totally disapeared from the most places in the world specially in those well developed countries, and women's "tragedy" is over in today's society because women became more independent and eligible for doing more things same as men.

Prince Charming

The concept of "prince charming" might be very familiar with all girl since their childhood, and all girls is pursue for the man who has the "prince charming". But what is the definition of "prince charming" for girls, and how boys can be defined as they have the "prince charming"? I think the answer for this question can be varied and it is depends how girls think, but how Cinderella defined the "prince charming"? From her aspect of view, since she worked as maid in her household, and treated by her stepmother and stepsister so cruel, therefore she wanted to find a man who is rich and has high status in the society to marry with in order to escape from that terrible situation, so I think the definition for Cinderella of "prince charming" is the man who should be rich and powerful in the society and the appearance of the man just the secondary thing (of course good-looking guy can be added more "bound points" to him), the reason I said that is because since Ciderella has never met the prince in her life so she cannot assumed prince how is the appearance of the prince, but there is no doubt the prince is rich and has absolute high status in the society, so the prince money resource and his power in the society is the primary definition of "prince charming" to Cinderella, and I think that is the reason that she wants to marry the prince.

Smart Woman Makes Mistakes Too

No women would like to share a same husband with others, same as the queen in Perrault's version of "Cinderella", before she died she asked her husband to promise her that he would not marry agian if the other one is not more charming, generous, sweet, and smarter than her, because she think herself is the one smartest and most charming woman in the world and there could not be anyone who is better than her, and this promise that her husband made will keep him single forever after she died. The king kept the promise and seeing for the woman who is even better than his first wife, and he searched every corner in the world but can never find one who can meet the all requirements that his ex-wife set up except his own daughter. The King announced to marry his daughter, and of course this is so wrong that king marry to his own daughter so little princess escaped from her father's kingdom and left to another place where she became a "ugly" maid.

Because of queen's "smartness" and her selfishness, she led her little daughter to live in the sorrow for a while and her husband to live in the loneness for forever.

Who is Cinderella's Father

What! He is not her father? Then who is Cinderella's real father? In Grimm's story, Cinderella's father admitted Cinderella is not his own daughter when the prince asked him does he has another daughter, and he replied to him he has only two daughters and anthoer girl - "Cinderella" is just the daughter of his ex-wife. Well, if he called his two step-daughter's as his daughters and Cinderella is not his daughter, is that means the relationship between Cinderella and her father is even less than the relationship between the two step-sisters and the father, or maybe Cinderella's mother and her "father" had never been married and the father just simply wants to keep Cinderella at his house as a maid.

In the beginning of the story, I was curious why the father doesn't care much about Cinderella, and also he did not do anything to help Cinderella when he saw Cinderella was been tortured by his wife and daughters, and this can explain the everything: because Cinderella and her "father" doesn't related.

The Corruptions in "Little Red Riding Hood"

After I re-read LRRD in the book, I saw some phenomenons that were very close to our today's society in either developed or under-developed nations -Corruptions.

In Italo Calvino's version of LRRD - "The False Grandmother", on the way LRRH heading to her grandmother's house she "paid" the ring-shaped cakes to river and a bread with oil to gate in order to get pass, and we can compare these actions with people who bribed government officers or some people who have power in order to do things and sometime those things might be illegal. Also when LRRH is running away from the wolf, the gate and river leted LRRH to pass but not the wolf because LRRH offered them goods so she got "protected", and this event is very similar to some places that business or civilians need to pay the goods to gangs or government officers in order to receive the protection.

The corruptions are everywhere in the world, but in some places they just hide them better than the others. And I personal had experienced the bribes exist in the society: one of the examples is that once my grandfather was stayed in the hopital for few weeks, and we need to "tip" the nurses in order to get them to take care of my grandfather while he is in the hospital.

Little Red Riding Hood and Pregnancy

It is so hard to image the relationship between a little girl and the word "pregnancy", but in the disscusion we held in the class I figured out there actually were some stories in our reading were implied the relationship between these two elements.

In the early time (before 16th century), based on the most cultures, the son always reveice the heritage from the father after they die, and it is very unacceptable that if the father gave everything to his son who actually not made by him but his wife made with her adultery partners. So during that time period, man has bigger power and control their wives in sexuality issues (because men don't want their wife to have sex with another guy), and the women will get punish if they have affair with someone during that time. Also in the early version of LRRH, author descripted the wolf (implied as the men in the society during the time) has big power and dominated on females. But until later age, in Grimm's LRRH version, the role between the male and female has been changed little bit; he discripted the female received more freedom on sexuality by saying that: LRRH were escaped from wolf's stomach and then put stones back into wolf's stomach and killed the wolf. This phrase pointed out that the power on sexuality is not dominate by male anymore, the female could also pick any male to have sex with even they have a husband at the same time, especially in the modern age.

"Little Red Riding Hood"

"Little Red Riding Hood" is one of the fairy tale that I had

read during the early age of my childhood. By the first time reading it, I didn't realized this tale is that meaningful. And the version I read doesn't contains any sexuality or any bad issues, but in the other versions, they were actully has a lot of negative materials that will affect child's mind.
Such as the early version of LRRH, which is called "The story of Grandmother". In this version the LRRH was actully ask by the wolf to taking off all of her cloths off and lay beside the wolf. And also in this version, LRRH's grandmother were chopped into pieces by the wolf and later the wolf asked LRRH to eat the flesh and drink the blood of her grandmother. I think this is cruel and unnatural actions and is very negative for any children to know.
Also in the "The Story of Grandmother " version, things happened very illogical: in the begining of the story, LRRH were acted as a very silly rural girl that she doesn't know anything and even that cat called her a slut. But by the end of the story she became as a genius (compare to her characteristic in the begining of the story), she escaped from wolf by asked to go outside the house and tied the other side of the rope to a plum tree.