The Three Little Pigs

Recently I found a clip of "The Threee Little Pigs" from YouTube and there is more or less a little bit different from the versions that we read from our book. First, in this clip the pigs left home because they wanted to be independent from their parents. In the beginning of their adventures, each of them built themselves a house, and each pigs built their own house with different materials; the first two pigs were too lazy, so they chose the material that is easist to biuld; one of them built it with straws, the other one made with woods. And the last pig is the hard worker, he not just wanted to build a pretty house but also wanted his house to be solid and stable, so he did with bricks. So far, here was not much differences from the story we read in the class compared to this clip.

Soon after they finished their houses, the wolf came to "visit" them. In this clip, the wolf destroied both houses that built with the straws and woods by blowing them off, and two pigs from these two hosues ran toward the brother for help; but in the book, it mentioned the first two pigs were ate by the wolf after the wolf destroies their houses. Turn back to the third pig in the clip, which built his house with bricks, and the wolf is not able to blow this off because it built so stable, therefore the third pig saved his two brothers with his brick house. Now, lets turn to the version that we read in class, in this version the pig that built with brick house called Little Red Riding Hood for help with a phoen, and then she brought a shot gun killed the wolf, after she killed the wolf she used that wolf's skin to make a coat and wearing that on herself, and that is the biggest difference between two versions.

Link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUYjAm5WSok

Pretty-face people do what they want

Is that really the people who has the pretty face can receiving more "rights" to do the things they wanted to do, and they having more respects from the soceity than the people with the ugly face? The answer applied to this question for the most of time is "Yes". First, let us to see some examples in the real life: When we saw a hot lady is in rush and she is asking for a ride, in the most men's perspective, they would probably take that lady to the place she needs to go. But if we switch that hot lady to another one who has the ugly appearance whoud any men still going to help her out? the chance became rare in this kind situation. Another example, if a lady knew there is a super handsome man who likes her so much and wanted to date her, then that lady would probably wanted to accept his invitation and go out with him. But when we transformed that men into the characteristics of bowl-head, short, and fat, then the chance for this man to get acceptance became rare too.

This phenomenon is not just happened in everyday's life, but also revealed in many fairy tales. One of the example is from "Beauty and the Beast"; Beast did everything Beauty asked: Beast let her to go home to visit her sick father, and sent her with pretty dresses when she went home. Would that also happened to Beauty's sisters if they were the one who came to exchange for their father's life? the result might be opposite; her sisters might get eat up by Beast on the first day they arrived at the castle. Another example in the fairy tales can also represents the idea "pretty face people do what they want" is from "Cinderella"; In the story the prince was so fascinated to Cinderella, and he went to every household to verify who is Cinderella with the shoe she left. So, let's say if the Cinderella is not pretty at all, would the prince still going through the whole process to find her? The answer is "it could never happens"; the prince might forget about her right after the ball if she is not pretty at all.

With all examples that we see from everyday's life and in fairy tales, we can prove one thing: this world is not fare, the pretty face people received more power and respect than the ugly people do.

Fairy tale in children's market

The fairy tales in today is not just simply the stories that used to entertain children anymore, but they might also be the first literature material that we using  to teach our kids today. Today's kids are very familiar with most of the fairy tales and the characters in the stories, and they became a inevitable part of most children's life; the cartoons that children watch in everyday's life and the books their parents read for them before they going to bed were all based on different fairy tales. And before children getting to know the more mature charaters and materials, the characters in the fairy tales were always considered as deals of the children; children copying everything the charaters did in the story, such as: if the color of the dresses that wearing by Cinderella is blue, and the kids who are the fans of Cinderella, then they would probably asking their parents to buy them clothes in color blue rather than the others, because they also wanted to be "Cinderella".
Todays kids are so familiar with the charaters in the fairy tales, and the objects that printed with the images  of those charaters are extremely fascinated to the kids. One of the example that I saw is, once I went to shop in Walmart, and there also is a mother who is leading her daughter to buy some shcool materials, and when her mother asked her which bookbag she would like to pick, she told her mother she wants to get the one with the SnowWhite's figure printed.

After many revisions made to the old versions of fairy tales, the contents in today's versions of fairy tales became more adoptable for the kids. And in today's society, the fairy tales were not consider as just the stories that we used to read for childrens before they going bed, but more likely, the fairy tales became the most closet "friends" of todays kids, and also might be considered as the first "lectures" that giving to today's kids.

Beast Vs. the beast

What kind creature would come up to your mind when someone difined someone else with the word "beast"? Normally, we would think the beast is the creature that with ugly appearance, evil-mind, doing the creepy things, and both the inner heart and outter configuration of a "beast" should be bad.

Beast in the "Beauty and the Beast" do received a ugly and most hateful outter appearance, but after we observed Beast in the story for a little more, he is not as bad as we thought about him. He just simply have the bad appearance, but the his heart and actions were very graceful, and even the most people who have the human-look can't do the samething as he did; such as: he sent money to the father, and helped Beauty to accomplish her wishes. So, Beast doesn't contained the conditions that a real beast should have, therefore the word "beast" should not be used to define Beast.

All stories should have both protagnists and antagnists, and if we agreed with that Beast is not the bad guy in the story, then who should be the real "beast" in the story? For my personal opinion, I think the beast in this story should be two sisters of Beauty. The reason that I said that is because two sisters contained such evil-spirits; they were not just jealous at Beauty, but also once in the story, they set a trap to kill Beauty (they asked Beauty to stay home with their father for little longer so Beast would eat Beauty up).

So, the definition for "beast" should be just upon on one's outter appearance, but it is more important upon to one's heart; if a person who has such evil mind, then on matter how pretty that person is, he or she has no doubt is the person that should be defined as the "beast" or "monster".

Female characters Vs. Male characters in "Beauty and the Beast"

In Beaumont's "Beauty and the Beast" the author designed the characteristics for the characters that around Beauty for: more positive characteristics toward the male, and negative characteristics toward the females; such as the father, Beast, and three brothers were all designed with gentleman, brave, and thought-for-the-others characteristics. And the female charaters, such as two sisters were designed with jealous, pretense, and  evil-mind charactisterics.

The men figures, which designed with the positive characteristics in the story, offered greatly caring toward Beauty, such as: in the story, the father willing to sacrify himself to change Beauty's safe; the rich men in the town willing to marry Beauty even she has nothing left after her father's businesss fail; three brothers willing to kill Beast to save Beauty; and Beast willing to starve himself  instead to eat Beauty her when she broke her promise to Beast. But Beuty refused to accept all good offers for her, and saved Beast by granted her promise. These phenomenons reprenting the admires that men offered toward Beauty, and responses from the Beauty to those men were as the representation of her virture and gracefulness heart.

The female charaters (excluded Beauty herself) were doing exactly opposite things as the men's did towart Beauty. Beauty's  two sisters' mind were fullfilled with selfishness, stinginess, and jealous, and some examples in the story can represent these bad charateristics of two sisters'. First, when their father's business fail, two sister not just not doing any house-works but also laugh at Beauty that she doing the things as a maid; when their father about to have some money, two sisters asked for the fancy stuffs, but Beauty only asked to a piece of rose; and when two sisters figured out Beasty treated her better than their husbands treated them, they came up with an evil-plan to prohibit Beauty return to the castle, and wanted Beast to eat Beauty up.

With the contrast between male's positive characteristics and females' negative characteristics toward the Beauty,  Beauty's virtue and her benevolence heart presented more clear and stronger in the story; by the admires she received from men, and by compared her kindness with her sisters' evil-mind.

Disney's version Vs. Beaumont's version of "Beauty and the Beast"

After viewed a clip of "Beauty and Beast" that I found on YouTune (this clip is a part of the Disney's version), I found some very significant differences between this version and Beaumont's version of "Beauty and the Beast". The biggest different thing in Disney's version compared to Beaumont's version is that, in Disney's version, Beast is not alone anymore, he living in castle with his servants, and beside himself, his servents were also transformed into the "monster-look" appearance; they were transformed to the candle, clock, and cloth-hanger. Also in Disney version, Beast acted so shy; he was not brave enough to dance with Beauty, and  his servants had to encourage him to dance with her. Also in this film Beauty acted more actively than Beast; Beauty walked toward Beast  and invite him to have a dance with her.

In the film I also saw that, Beast's hand was shaking while he is eating with a spoon, and that gave us some clues about what is the original way that Beast is eating; he probaly not used to eat with silverwares, but rather to eat like the way that animals is eating- graping food with the hands. And Beast's eating-style helped to shape the story became more realistic and detail, and which were the elements that ignored in Beaumont's version.

Also in Disney's version, it added songs to the background of the play; it made the scence more "colorful", and the story became more lively.

Link to the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeoPtz0F2Ck

The real "gold-digger"

In the story "The Pig King", the queen gave a birth to his son who was born with the pig skin blended, and that pig skined prince  not just has the pig appearance but also inherited exactly same pig manners; dirty and wild. Although the pig prince is so ugly and acted so taugh(every time the pig prince returned to home, he alwyas blended with dirt), the queen still offered a strong caring toward him as all mother does, and she helped him to get everything that he desired. So, one time when the pig prince asked his mother to find a wife him, the queen found him one without delayed. But the first two marriages of the pig princes were not very successful; the first two of the pig prince's wives were thought about to attempt murdering the pig prince, but they got killed by pig prince before they try to kill him.of his wives before they kill him.

Eventhough the pig prince killed two women, but the the queen still tried to fullfill her son's desire without concerning about the safety of her daughter-in-law. So, the queen went to the same family where she got the first two wives for his son and asked for the third daughter in the family also going to marry her son. The prince told the that third girl not to pay regard to her son, but the king and herself, and the queen will offer her all treasures and the whole kingdom when the king and her passed away. The third daughter ignored the tragedy happened to two of her sisters and accepted the queen's offered without delay, and her "gold-digger" mind led her to do everything that pig prince asked her to do without thinking about that pig prince had killed her sisters.

Also because of  her "gold-digger" and selfishness mind, she did not worried about what were happend to her sisters and avoided to give the revenge to the pig prince. And for all those treasure that queen offered to her, she pretended that she loves the pig prince, and that pretense led her to be success in the end; the pig prince turned into a normal human format, and she got everything in the kingdom.

What is more important: inner or outer?

The answer for the question "which is more important between the outer appearance and inner essences of people" is depending on what kind situation we are in, and what type partner that we are looking for; if we want to date someone or find a hot-girlfriend for a short-term relationship, of course, the outer appearance would be the more important. But what if we are looking for someone for a long-term relationship? In this kind case, the people who have the good inner essences would be better; because the people who have good inner essences will treat you with all of their heart in the future, and you would never need to worry they will betray you some day as long as you still love her.

In today's society,  the inner essences and the otuer appearance both have the positive and negative affects and impacts. People who have the nice outer appearance can give a very good first-impact to the others, and has a good outer appearance can lead to a good start point for a new relationship development. But sometime when the outer appearance became too "attractive" then that might affraid some people; when we saw a peroson who has opposite gender from ourselves, and the person is extremely pretty or handsome, then that might be very difficult for us to talk to them, because we don't want to say anything wrong and leave that hot-person with a negative impression about ourselves. And the person who have the nice inner essences and don't have a good outer appearance normally won't able to give a nice impression for the others at the first time, but this kind person's inner essences can be dicovered we after interacted with them after a while.

The story "Beauty and the Beast" is an example that showing the inner essences is more important than the outer appearance, and in the story Beast's inner essences beats his outter appearance; At the first time Beauty saw Beast she really got terrified by his appearance, but after a while Beast treated Beauty with all his heart and did all he might to accomplish Beauty's wishes, the Beauty discovered his inner essences and felt Beast is even better than the people who has the normal huamn appearance, and she felt in-love with Beast because she knows Beast is the true lover she been looking for.

The Beast's trap

In Beaumont's "Beauty and the Beast" it mentioned there is a girl in the story who is so pretty and has a pure-mind (the story prefered her a name - Beauty), and she also is so much different from two of her sisters who always wanted to marry either the count or the duke. When people proposed to her she always excused them with the reason that she wants to stay with her father. So, it is very difficult to get her without some special "strategies", and because Beauty cares her father at the most, so Beast used her father as the "bait" to get her. The chance had came, one day her father was returned from the home port and heading back to his house at the country-side. On the way home he met a snowstorm and got lost in the forest, so Beast used bright-light as the signal to direct the father walk toward his castle, and in the castle Beast has already prepared  some food for him to eat and a nice bed for him to rest. Everything was on schedule, and on the second day when the father is ready to leave and he picked a pice rose from Beast's garden as for his youngest daugher's request. Beast went crazy and claimed the rose is his favorite thing in the world and the father should be punish for picking up that piece rose. The plan went very sucess, Beast offered the father a deal: using one of his daughter's life to change his own life; Beast knews his youngest daughter is the only one who would sacrify herself to save her father's life, and she is the only one that  Beast wants. The youngest daughter took the deal and came to the castle for exchange her father's life. So far, Beast's plan still went very smooth and sucessful, after Beauty arrived at the castle Beast treated her with all his heart, and eventually he "conqured" Beauty and married her. The whole process is Beast's trap; from the beginning the father's business fail to the father got lost in the forest and  until Beast marired Beauty were the parts of the process in Beast's plan.

A lesson taugh in fairy tale

The fairy tales that we read earlier in this semester I think they were not the very good materials for today's kids, because those versions contained a lot of improperty things for kids, such as: violance actions, bloody movements, and incest relationships. But when I read the chapter for "Beauty and Beast", I found out some versions for this story are pretty good for today's kids to read, such as: "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich" and "Urashima the Fisherman". These two versions of "Beauty and Beast" taugh a very valuable lession to kids: "to keep your promises".

In "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich", the little princess made her promise to the frog said: if the frog can help her to find the golden ball that she got lost into the deep river then she would do whatever the frog is asking her to do. But when the frog did what she asked and found the ball for her, she jus ran away and forgot about the promise she made. The king was so angry with the action that little princess commited, and commanded her to what she had said to the frog. Fortunately, with king's assistance, the princess do everything in frog's desire, and eventually the frog turned into a prince and they had a happy ending.

The version "Urashima the Fisherman" taugh the same lesson-"to keep your promises" as the "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich", but the ending of this story is opposite from the previous one. In this story, Urashima have a very happy live with an angle in the begining of the story, but when Urashima left the paradise and went back to his village, he figure out the time in his village was passed for three hundred years and his family and friends were no longer exist. Then he broke the promise which he made to the angle and not to open up the box. When he opened the box, everything was disappeared, and the angle left him forever, and he has nothing left with by the end.

This two versions of "Beauty and Beast" taugh us, if we keep our promises we can get everything we want, or if we broke our promises we will lost everything we have.

What attracts woman's heart?

What are be most attractive things for women? money, power, the handsome face, or the guy who loves them gives all his best to the women? In the story "Beauty and the Beast", there were different reasons that the Beauty felt in-love with the "Beast" in different version, and some of the versions the love between the paired lovers lasted forever and some versions it doesn't.

In Beaumont's "Beauty and the Beast", the Beasty tried all he might to satisfy Beauty's wishes, and he eventually won Beauty's heart and reached their happy-ending; in this kind nature, the Beauty got touched by Beast's love and care toward Beauty. In "The Pig King" and "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich", the different "material" was used to attract women's heart; in these two versions, the man figures was apeared very ugly in the begining of the story, but when they took off their "masks" and showed the real face, their handsome face attracted the women's heart who hated those man figures in the begining of the story, and the handsome face became the key element that led those two pairs lover a happy ending. Beside the happy endings there also some examples that show the sad endings, such as the versions of "Urashima the Fisherman" and "The Swan Maiden"; the paired lovers in these two versions were been togethered for a while, but after the men did something wrong through the stories (one in "Urashima the Fisherman" broke his promise, and one in "The Swan Maiden" used a wrong strategy to bring his "wife" home), both of these wrong actions led their wives to leave them and made them stay lonely for the rest of their lives.

Beast Versus Human

When we heard people said the word "Beast", the first image that came into our head is always about some monster-type creature that has the ugly-configuration and evil-mind. And in the reality, we always using the word "Beast" referring to someone who is strong and well-built, and this word is never used to descrip a person who has good manner. But after reading some different versions of "Beauty and Beast", I found a common thing between those "Beasts" in the different versions; the characteristics of those beasts is not samething as what we thought they should be, but those beasts are very benevolent, be very helpful to their women, and contained a lot good human-beings. For example, in Beaumont's "Beauty and the Beast", the sisters of Beauty were always jealous at her prettiness and tried to set her up at any chance they got, but the Beast is the one who is always tried at his best to satisfy the Beauty and he can even to sacrifice himself in order to make the Beauty happier in her life. In this point, the Beast in the story represented more humanity than the humans.

Also I found another point between the stories that interested me; the difference between the way that Beast chasing for a girl and the way human "chasing" for a girl. In the "Beauty and the Beast", that Beast is doing at all his best to achieve that little Beauty, but in the story "The Swan Maiden", that man wanted to marry the swan so bad and he stole the swan's attire and "kidnapped" her and forced her to be his wife. The life is fair, so eventually, the Beauty was got affected by everything the Beast had done and they live happy together, but the swan which was "stole" by that man eventually flew away and left that man lonely forever.

What's behind the door?

In Perrault's version of "Bluebeard", when the lady opened the door which Bluebeard forbided she to go she saw many women's dead hanging on the wall behind that door, and those are the evidences of Bluebeard's secret and his past. Many of other men also hid their secrets from their women throughout the history and even in today's society, but the most things those men hid were not as bloody as the one in the "Bluebeard"; most men will just hid things such as money or another family from their wives.

Perrault's version of "Bluebeard" is definite not a good version for kids to read, so, if we want to revise his version to be more acceptable for today's kid, what would you change those "dead-bodies" to? My idea is to change that room into a trance that connected to anther planet. The reason for this is beacuse, since the story mentioned Bluebeard has a blue-beard which is a very rare and almost non-exist human's figure in the earth, so I will assume he is an alien that from another planet through that door (from many movies we saw, blue color has a very significant relationship with aliens, such as the firm-maker designed alien's blood as color-blue). The idea that making the door as the entrance to another planet where Bluebeard came from is not just help to make this story to be more adoptable to today's kids, but also help children to explore their imagination on science.