Critical Appendix

1. Andersen, Hans Christian. “The Princess and the Peas.” Victorian Fairy Tales, edited by Michael Newton, Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 6–7.

“The Princess and the Peas” is a short fairy tale about a young prince who seeks a “real princess”. He searches far and wide, but cannot find a proper princess. One night, in the midst of a terrible storm, a woman claiming to be a princess asks for shelter. That night, the queen tests the woman’s claim of being a princess by placing three peas under piles of mattresses and feather beds on which the woman is to sleep. In the morning, the queen asks her how she slept. She said she slept terribly and was bruised all over. This statement proved to the Queen that she was a true princess because she was “so tender” (Anderson, 7). This fairytale is a good example of form and falls into three of the four categories Kate Bernheimer discusses in her essay “Fairy Tale is Form, Form is Fairy Tale”. The aspects of the fairy tale this piece captures are flatness, abstraction, and intuitive logic.

Flatness, abstraction, and intuitive logic are aspects of fairy tales I have tried to work into most of my work but especially “Of Slippers and Enchantment”, “Briar Rose”, and “Alice and the Sphinx”. The characters within “The Princess and the Peas” are simply nouns. They do not have physical descriptions, only their station. This allows readers to imagine the characters and does not raise excess questions about who they are; thus, the story protects itself through the flatness of its characters so the readers can’t poke holes in someone they have so little information on. Lack of information can also be seen in the abstraction within “The Princess and the Peas”. For example, a “true princess” is described simply as “tender”. This, just as the flat characters within the work, serves a dual purpose. On one hand, this leads to an increased use of imagination on the readers part, allowing them to choose what this means, on the other hand, it could be read as simply tender of flesh and serve to convey the point that true women are physically “tender”. Lastly, the element of intuitive logic can be seen within “The Princess and the Peas” through the sequence of events within the work. Such as, the materialization of a random woman claiming to be royalty showing up at the palace gates. There is no investigation into what Kingdom she is from, why she was out in the rain in the first place, or any other such details. This can also be seen in the action of putting peas under a multitude of mattresses; this action is not explained nor is an explanation needed. Both these instances are glossed over by the reader because of the way the fairy tale flows from one point to the next. The use of these aspects within “The Princess and the Peas” is impactful to the overall work because it allows the reader to enter into a world without the author having to mold it for them. Thus, the reader can interpret and use their imagination to fill in the blanks which the fairy tale form leaves. For example, the reason for the princess being out in the rain is never addressed, however, I can imagine that it is because she was overtaken by robbers and had to flee to the nearest kingdom with a light, or perhaps, she purposefully crashed her carriage in order to meet the prince she knew lived in the castle. Either way, the princesses ends up in the castle and the prince ends up with a wife. The abstract details we receive only help to fuel our imaginations.

Within several of my works, I used “The Princess and the Peas” as a guide to form. What the fairy tale form allows for is imagination. Fairy tales are made for interpretation and reimagining due to their open form. They are made to be memorized quickly and passed on orally. People may not always love fairy tales, and some would even consider them old-fashioned, but fairy tales are timeless and can be made so with just a bit of imagination.

2. Lang, Andrew, editor. “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.” The Blue Fairy Book, vol. 1, Racehorse for Young Readers, 2019, pp. 58–69.

“The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood” is one of the earlier versions of the classic “Sleeping Beauty” tale. The story has three distinct parts. The first part tells of how an old fairy, not given a golden place setting at the gifting ceremony of the newly born princess, cursed the princess to die when pricked on the finger by a spinning needle. Another fairy did her best to reverse the curse by changing it so that the baby princess would only sleep for 100 years. Later on, the princess encounters a spinning wheel and falls under a sleeping curse, which the good fairy spreads to the entirety of the palace and then hides the kingdom within a wall of brambles. The second part of the story tells of a young prince finding the castle and waking the princess (no kiss happens in this version). The prince and the princess marry and have two children named Morning and Day. In the third part of the story, the prince ascends to kingship and goes to fight a war. He leaves his wife and children with his mother (who is part ogre). While he is gone, the prince’s mother attempts to kill and eat her son’s wife and children. Fortunately, the king comes back just in time to save his family. This work is not only a fantastic example of a traditional fairy tale but also introduces a key character, one I will call a “guide”, that can be seen in many classic fairy tales and a few of my own.

The guide is a character that may have a small role, but furthers the plot by helping the protagonist in some way. This is seen within “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood” when the prince encounters the bramble-blocked palace and is told its history by “a very good countryman” (Lang, 62):

May it please your royal highness, it is now about fifty years since I heard from my father, who heard my grandfather say that there was then in this castle a princess, the most beautiful was ever seen; that she must sleep there a hundred years, and should be waked by a king’s son, for whom she was reserved (Lang, 62).

This is the only time the country man speaks, and is mentioned, and thus his whole purpose is to help the prince find the princess. This is allowing the plot to move forward quickly, keeping the reader engaged, and gives the protagonist motivation and/or previously unknown knowledge or items that can be used to discover or reach a character or goal. Val’s grandmother within my story, “Of Slippers and Enchantment”, is a guide character who gives Val the “key” to discover what the twelve princesses are up to. This character helps to both motivate my character and provide him with previously unknown knowledge and items, just as the countryman does in “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood”.

3. Benko, Kamilla. Frozen 2: Forest of Shadows. Disney Press, 2019.

Frozen 2: Forest of Shadows takes place between the animated films Frozen I and Frozen II.

Within the novel, Anna and Elsa must reforge their connection with each other as they try to solve a blight that has taken over their kingdom due to the unintentional summoning of a Nattmara. A Nattmara is a creature that takes the form of a child’s nightmare. This novel introduces a way of looking at and thinking about mythology and other forms of folklore that I used when reading the other books within this appendix and tried to apply to my own writing.

The passage in Forest of Shadows that I feel emphasizes this way of looking at ancient stories is stated by Anna near the end of the novel in Chapter 26:

It’s like how Sorenson said all myths contain a kernel of hard truth. It wasn’t a magical sword that carved out a home on the fjord. The myth wasn’t about the creation of the actual fjord–it was a myth about how, through love, Aren and the others in his generation believed in each other, and trusted each other and loved each other enough to settle here and carve out a home for themselves. And for their future children, families, and friends. For us. A place where Arendelle’s flags could always fly strong. (Benko, 19:08-19:41)

Anna’s analysis that true love is the basis of folklore and the characters within it is something that I’ve tried to incorporate into all my stories, for as Elsa summarizes: “True love […] The thing that can move mountains and defeat nightmares” (19:43-19:48). This analysis and driving force throughout the Frozen films and novels is what I believe makes the stories so powerful and captivating, especially the fact that true love doesn’t have to be romantic in nature. This powerful feeling and bond between people is talked about and analyzed in many fairy tales, both modern, and ancient. True love can be good and bad, it can be seen between siblings, friends, and lovers (in different contexts of course). True love creates the Narcissus flower in Greek mythology, and awakens the princess in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. True love can be used as motivation and lends sympathy to a cause or character. True love and other strong emotions motivate folktales, and the ones that contain love as a central emotion tend to be the stories that are still told today such as “Rapunzel”, “Cinderella”, and “Beauty and the Beast”. Forest of Shadows uses love as a central emotion through the characters and their connections to each other. For example, Elsa shows love for her sister Anna by trying to protect her and keep her out of harm’s way; while Anna shows her love for Elsa by trying to be useful as well as trying to protect her. These similar ways of showing love often cause miscommunication between the sisters, but they always come back to each other due to their love for one another.

Though I try to make love a strong connecting force between all characters within my writing, I feel as though it shines through best in “Shape Me Into Ice and Fire”. This is seen especially in the relationship between Skadi and Leo. Both characters express their love in different ways, just as Anna and Elsa do, and thus their communication and understanding of one another is full of tension and longing. By understanding and expressing how my characters love each other I can not only interest the reader but also build strong and interesting characters over the course of a short narrative.

4. Alexander, Lloyd. The Book of Three. Vol. 1, Henry Holt and Company, 1964.

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander is the beginning of a bildungsroman that spans across five books. The story is a classic adventure tale similar to The Hobbit that tells of the kidnapping of a young assistant pig-keeper by the name of Tarin. He is rescued by one Princess Eilonwy, an outspoken apprentice sorceress. During their journey to find Tarin’s vernacular pig, they pick up several friends along the way who help them to find the pig, and defeat the Horned King. This has a distinct mission and ending. The plot is easy to follow yet still entrancing. The basic outline of the plot and unquestionable conclusion may sound insignificant, but the ability to make a story interesting while sticking to a basic plot-structure is a hard to master skill. That is why I look to Alexander’s The Book of Three.

The main goal of The Book of Three is to find Tarin’s lost future-seeing pig; just as the main goal of “Shape Me Into Ice and Fire” is for Skadi to rescue her sister. The reason The Book of Three is so entrancing is because the author has created characters with distinct personalities that are well-established and able to make even the most straight forward adventure interesting. For example, Princess Eilonwy is constantly talking, quick-witted, and defiant. Therefore, an interaction between her and the brave hearted yet rash Tarin will most likely lead to an argument that puts the group at odds or leads them down a new path altogether. Thus, while the end-goal is the same, the way one gets their makes all the difference. With the characters’ personalities established, Lloyd adds deeper connections and motivators to give the characters depth. For example, in The Book of Three, Tarin wishes to grow up and find glory in battle, he longs for adventure and honor. Just as Skadi longs for justice within her own kingdom and satisfaction within her romantic life. The Book of Three has a transparent, easy to follow plot structure. The book is made interesting by the characters within the work who grab the reader’s attention because of their motivations and personalities.

5. Christensen, James C. Voyage of the Basset. The Greenwich Workshop, Inc., 1996.

The Voyage of the Basset is a children’s book that stresses the importance of all myths, fables, folktales, fairy tales, and legends. A professor of mythology and ancient legends by the name of Algernon Aisling, along with his two daughters, Cassandra and Miranda, go on a voyage in the H.M.S. Basset manned by a crew of Gremlins and Dwarves. The Basset sails to many fantastical islands that house mythological creatures, some of whom, mostly the misunderstood ones, join the crew of the Basset. This was one of my favorite books as a child because it redeemed and re-imagined the villains of ancient mythology. Reading it as an adult, I realize how much this book influenced my perception of certain characters within mythology.

Christensen’s reimaging of villainous characters from mythology allowed me to shift the roles of certain characters within myth in a way that not only makes them likable but also rewrites their history. The Voyage of the Basset helped me to shift a villainous character into a likable one by acknowledging their history in a non-judgmental fashion and then proceeding to re-characterize them and give them sympathetic motivation to join the Basset’s journey that fits within their lore but hasn’t been discussed in their mythology. This can be seen when the crew of the Basset encounters Medusa: “’I do not believe you are a monster, milady,’ said the professor gently. ‘Why not?’ she replied bitterly. ‘When my only companions I’ve turned to scold stone’” (Christensen, 94-95). In this passage, Medusa is cast in a sympathetic role by being characterized as something that can’t help turning people to stone. Whereas, in the myth, it is implied that Medusa purposely turned people to stone. Medusa’s fate is made to be sympathetic, but it is also used to motivate her to join the crew of the Basset to avoid her loneliness.

I’ve attempted to make a normally unsympathetic character in folklore sympathetic through my story “Changeling”. Changelings are rarely the subjects of popular fairy tales and are often seen as merely the catalyst for tricks played by fairies on human families. However, there is a vast history of violence against women and children who become sick, moody, or act outside their societal role because they were suspected of being changelings. I wanted to create a story in which the changeling was the main character of the work and explore the character as a bridge between the human the feyish realms instead of a cursed child who was seen as simply a trick to be played on humans.

6. Howard, A. G. Stain. Amulet Books, 2019.

Stain is a fairytale set in a world where there are two kingdoms, one which lives in eternal daylight, and one which lives in eternal night. There is a prophecy that predicts the birth of a girl from the night realm in the day realm and the birth of a boy from the day realm in the night realm. Once these children come of age and can wed, the prophecy says that the sun and the moon will return to their natural places within the sky. Lyra, the night child born in the day realm, loses both her mother and her father and is left with her evil aunt and three cousins. One day, her aunt attempts to kill her and abandons her broken body in the woods. In Lyra’s absence, brambles grow around the palace and her cousin is manipulated by Lyra’s aunt to take Lyra’s place. Meanwhile, Lyra is rescued by Crony, a harrower witch. Eventually, Lyra finds her way back to her betrothed. However, after the “happily ever after”, it is revealed that the true reason for the prophecy was not to restore the sun and moon’s natural cycles, but to unite the two kingdoms. For long ago, the sorceress of the night kingdom wrote the prophecy on a cave wall because she knew that when the sun and moon returned to their natural states the kingdoms had to learn to live together. The key to the sun and moon returning to their natural states was Crony. Crony had absorbed the soul of the ancient drasilisk, who had the ability to control the sun and the moon. Because of this, in order to return the sun and moon to their rightful place, she had to die. This story presents itself as a fairy tale and uses aspects of “Snow White”, “Sleeping Beauty”, and “The Princess and the Peas” to anchor its reader in familiar territory while creating a completely new narratives.

Stain takes its influence from various fairy tales, which allows the reader to recall the childhood experience of reading a fairy tale. For example, Stain takes the idea of a trapped kingdom under the curse of an evil being from the classic “Sleeping Beauty”. Stain also uses the plot point of Lyra being rescued by odd company to connect the story to “Snow White”. These connections tap into a deep well of narrative history and tropes within the fairy tale genre. The previously oral stories referenced in Stain serve to create a modern tradition. Stain’s creation of a new narrative through a combination of classic fairy tales influenced me in my writing of “Briar Rose”. Within “Briar Rose”, I have reimagined two fairy tales: “Sleeping Beauty” and “The Three Heads of the Well”. Through the use of these two fairy tales, I am able to create a unique fairy tale while using aspects from both of these classic fairy tales.

7. Lee, Jennifer and Chris Buck, directors. Frozen II, Walt Disney Pictures, 2019.

Frozen II is a story about transformation. Frozen II takes the characters of Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Sven, and Olaf into an enchanted forest so they can right the wrongs of the past and release those trapped within its borders. At the end of the film, Elsa realizes that she and Anna are a bridge between the mortal and the magical realms. Thus, Anna becomes Queen of Arendelle, and Elsa becomes the fifth element of the “enchanted forest”. The way magic is expressed visually within this film inspired the way in which I express magic within my work.

The magic within this film is based off of the natural elements of fire, wind, water, earth, and ice (Elsa’s elemental magic). This elemental magic and its relationship with other magics is best seen in Elsa’s taming of the nokk, an elemental spirit embodying water. This scene depicts Elsa rushing into the raging waters of a black-sand beach and wrestles with the nokk until she finally tames the horse-like spirit and rides it to the mythical ahtohallan. This scene shows two forces of nature interacting with each other using elemental magic. When Elsa tries to freeze the water, the nokk breaks the ice, and when the nokk tries to drown her, Elsa freezes it (Lee and Buck, 1:00:05-1:02:30). This scene juxtaposes the fluid movement of water with the rigidness of ice. The fight is a battle of elements. When the water horse attempts to drown Elsa by pushing her beneath the waves with a hoof, Elsa turns the horse to ice (Lee and Buck, 1:01:36-1:01:40). In this instance, the physicality and the weight of the water is presented and addressed. The audience sees that Elsa struggles beneath the weight of the water, giving the water a physical presence, made even clearer through the physical representation of it in the form of a horse. The audience also sees how the heavier substance of ice briefly paralyzes the horse, causing its own forced transformation to work against it, dragging it down, just as it did Elsa. The idea of giving elements a physicality and forming them into creatures that interact in ways a person or animal would very much inspired the magic within “Shape Me Into Ice and Fire”. The physicality of the elements within Frozen II was different from the normal magic seen within fairy tales because the audience could see how the magic happened. In fairy tales, someone either snaps their fingers or moves their hands and something happens, but in Frozen II, the process of how something is created is seen. This is seen in the air elemental, “Gale”. During Olaf’s song, “When I am Older”, Gale is seen forming a tornado, the viewer can tell this because of the upward spiraling motion the leaves begin to take behind Olaf (Lee and Buck, 31:16-31:20). The tornado doesn’t just appear, it is formed slowly over the course of several seconds, giving an invisible element a distinct physicality that the audience can observe.

The characters within my work, “Shape Me Into Ice and Fire”, have abilities tied to elements and they can shift into animals that are also tied to those elements/environments. I use the visual physicality of the elements seen within Frozen II to understand how to bring the magic of my world to life and give it substance. This aspect of my work gives the reader a connection to the magic because it is based in the world around them, yet it is used and controlled in different ways, still making it a new experience for the reader.

8. Marillier, Juliet. Wildwood Dancing. Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.

Wildwood Dancing is a mix between the fairy tales “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” and “The Frog Prince”. The story is set in Transylvania, where five sisters sneak off to dance in “The Other Kingdom”, despite the patriarchal tyranny that invaded their household with their cousin Cazar. At the heart of Wildwood Dancing, there is a message of the belief in true love and magic over the practicality of common sensibility and self-protection. This is lesson is made clear when Jena, the main character in the novel, witnesses how much Sorrow, Tatiana’s (Jena’s older sister) Romantic partner in the fey realm, loves her: “He would let her go rather than see her die in his arms. This was the embodiment of true love in all its wonder and sadness. How could I ever have thought his intensions evil?” (Marillier, 393). In the beginning of the novel, Jena doubts Sorrow’s motives, but when she lets go of her skepticism and looks at what is right in front of her, Jena’s opinion changes. Jena’s mind opens to and learns from the fey realm throughout the book, accepting the fairy tale theme of true love by letting go of her human logic.

In most fairy tales, readers are asked to give up their pre-conceived notions of the world, and dive into a land of happy endings, normalized magic, punishment and redemption, and true love. In Wildwood Dancing, Jena tries to apply logic and rules to the fey realm, a realm that does not conform to the human world. Thus, Wildwood Dancing serves as a reminder to fairy tale readers that the world of fairies and magic operates differently than the audience’s and has its own rules that the reader must abide by if they are to enjoy their time there.

I attempt to transport my readers into another realm by taking familiar things such as love, the elements, and classic narratives and twisting them in new directions in order to give my readers a unique story and world in which to reside. I hope that all my stories open a portal into that mystical fairy realm, and I urge my readers to read my work the same way you might read a classic fairy tale.

9. Riordan, Rick. “Persephone Marries Her Stalker (Or, Demeter, The Sequel).” Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, Disney-Hyperion, 2016, pp. 89-120.

Riordan’s “Persephone Marries Her Stalker (Or, Demeter, The Sequel)” is a retelling of the classic Persephone and Hades story using the vocabulary of the fictional teenage demi-god Percy Jackson. The original version of this Greek myth is complicated and in, some cases, hard to understand due to errors in translation. Riordan makes ancient mythology easy and enjoyable to read and understand through the use of a well-known character and a modern dialect. This can be seen throughout the work, but especially in the opening lines of the re-told myth: “I have to be honest. I never understood what made Persephone such a big deal. I mean, for a girl who almost destroyed the universe, she seems kind of meh” (Riordan, 89). Not only is this piece not part of the original tale (obviously), but it is also a brief introduction of what to expect from the following tale as well as a teaser to the casual and joking tone of the work. In this brief introduction, Riordan establishes the stakes within the tale: the universe’s destruction. This allows for the reader to get a sense of what to expect from the work as well as entices them into asking how Persephone almost destroyed the universe and what stopped its destruction. Due to the modern, laid-back tone in which the introduction is told, the reader is comforted and can “turn off their brain” in a sense, while still receiving perhaps previously unknown knowledge of Greek mythology. The relaxed tone of the work, while funny, is useful in getting a more diverse group of people to read an ancient tale. Instead of gatekeeping through complex language and muddy translations, Riordan has opened up an ancient myth to a multitude of readers. The use of a known figure acts as a familiar story-teller who an audience is comfortable with and whose authority is unquestioned sense he is, after all, the son of a Greek god. I feel that this casual tone, familiar figure, and intriguing hook, harken back to the oral tradition from which many myths, legends, folktales, and fairy tales originated. Telling stories orally happened around familiar people of all ages and genders. Therefore, these stories must be told in a way that people could understand and become captivated by. Riordan’s “Persephone Marries Her Stalker (Or, Demeter, The Sequel)” uses all the classic staples of oral tradition in a written format to reach a wide range of readers.

I attempt to make the subject of the sphinx more familiar to any reader reading my work “Alice and the Sphinx” using similar methods as Riordan. I originally wrote this story for my younger sister in order to introduce her to the sphinx and her riddle, but I didn’t quite know how. Enter Alice. Using inspiration from Rick Riordan’s use of the familiar Percy Jackson to retell Greek myths, I used a character my little sister, and most people, would be familiar with Alice from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice carried all the clout and characterization of her former stories with her as she entered Giza through a history book, thus no further characterization or reasoning was needed; just as Percy Jackson’s reason for retelling the Greek myths goes unquestioned.

10. Wood, Christopher. Fairies in Victorian Art. Antique Collectors' Club, 2001.

Wood’s Fairies in Victorian Art tells the history of and highlights artists involved in the creation of fairy painting during the Victorian period. When Wood discussed why the Victorians were so interested in fairy tales, he says this: “The Victorians desperately wanted to believe in fairies, because they represented one of the ways they could escape the intolerable reality of living in an unromantic, materialistic and scientific age” (Wood, 8). I feel that we, even more so than the Victorians, require escape, not just from the seemingly never-ending pandemic but also from reality in general. We need an opportunity to let our imaginations get the better of us. Fairy tales are a place of imagination, an area in which painters such as Richard Dadd and William Blake were so interested they simply had to depict it on canvas. The fairy tale prompted plays, pantomimes, books, illustrations, and paintings during the Victorian period, and they continue to inspire modern day video games, literature, outsider art, films, and costumes. Fairies in Victorian Art gives me a visual reference from which to draw inspiration.

A piece within this book that I found particularly fascinating is Richard Dadd’s Puck (Plate 1). Dadd’s Puck is a circular work framed by four nude men who are painted to imitate the texture and color of a copper frame. Puck is painted to enhance its circular shape. Woodbine vines and leaves circle almost the entire edge of the image, glistening with delicately painted dewdrops. It is as if the viewer is made to play the part of one spying on the fairy people’s revels. The viewer behind the vines sees a mischievous looking baby seated a top a mushroom. Above Puck’s head is a convolvulus flower ringed with dewdrops. Around the mushroom on which Puck is seated, small, nude fairies dance in a circle. This piece is made mostly from imagination with reference to a line said by Titania’s first fairy within Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Ace 2 Scene 1: “I do wander every where/ Swifter than the moon’s sphere, / And I serve the fairy queen,/ To dew her orbs upon the green”. Dadd’s Puck is an important piece due to Dadd’s use of imagination instead of textual sources (Pontecorvo, 23-25). This work embodies the re-imagining that fairy tales foster. This particular image displays visually what I am trying to do within certain stories, by taking either a well-known element or character from a fairy tale and placing them in a different context. This image lends inspiration to my work through its tone. The mysterious and enticing resonance enunciated by the radiant moonlight and mischievous expression upon the face of the seated Puck within the work highlights the tone I want my story “Changeling” to embody. I want my readers to feel as though they are reading something that is other, something that can be understood if they would simply step away from the bushes and into the moonlit clearing.

Plates

Plate 1

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Richard Dadd, Puck, London, England, oil on canvas, 1841, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, PRSMG: 2011.88, 59.2 x 59.2 (WikiArt).