Last Monday, I had cause to realize what makes people go wrong. Get mean. Get shrewish. Turn evil. Maybe Snow White's stepmother had allergies, coupled with food poisoning, coupled with an accidental self-inflicted stab wound with a pair of dull scissors.
Maybe the wicked witch in "Hansel and Gretel" came home from a vacation, and even though she is normally vigilant about spoiled food, grabbed a bottle of milk 11 days past the expiry date. poured it in a glass and took a big swig. Maybe she tasted a brew so vile, so foul, so beyond simple spoilage, that she found herself very sick indeed over the next 36 hours.
Maybe Baba Yaga had a house on chicken legs and iron teeth because she went insane after realizing that one of her cats lay beside her head all night on Sunday night, and her relatively mild cat allergy flared to epic proportions the next day. She became old, ugly and squinty because her eyes were swollen shut and she couldn't see to do her hair or makeup.
Maybe, after all of this, Sleeping Beauty's persecutor was silly enough to to trim a stray piece hair with big dull scissors, and as she braced herself with an elbow, the scissors slipped and jammed her left hand, right in the soft part between the thumb and first finger.
Maybe none of these incidents seems big enough to go bad -- really, really bad, but add them up, all in one 24-hour day, and you've got a recipe for going 'round the bend. Maybe these bad girls end up evil because they had one too many minor catastrophes in one short day.
I'm just sayin' ...
Image of Baba Yaga by Ivan Bilibin.
17 comments:
Those are some pretty awful days they're having! I wonder if that really is how they became evil....?
I see this. Only maybe more like they were treated poorly at some point by people. To be perfectly honest this is true of me. When I was young I was all sunshine and smiles then we moved and I entered middle school. Thanks to treatment that would scare Carrie, I'm often sarcastic, grumpy and very untrusting. I've always thought something terrible must have happened to those wicked witches and evil fairies, but then again what happened to my persecutors to make them so mean to me? Maybe the wicked are just that... wicked.
Heh, are you telling us something about your own recent experiences?
I have read a few very amusing adaptations of some fairy tales that use that kind of reasoning on why the "wicked witch" is so wicked... she happened to be caught at a terrible time and acted on surly impulse. Some of us make bitter remarks and some of us cast spells.
I've been meaning for years to write a version of Hansel and Gretel in which a harmless old woman is terrorised by two brutal teenagers who break into her house and totally smash the place up, before burning it down with her in it.
Your profile pic -- is that a Richard Dadd painting?
It's wonderful whatever it is.
'
masterymistery at cosmic rapture
masterymistery, I would read that story! And you might want to check out the Hansel & Gretel adaptation that Vivian Van Velde wrote in her wonderful collection, Tales from The Brothers Grimm And The Sisters Weird. So far, it is my favorite adaptation of the tale and it would probably be right up your alley!
Wow! I think that even a few of those examples would be enough to make me turn “evil”. Definitely the allergies would be the worst and foremost reason to send somebody over the edge. Even if those were spread out over a period of a weekend, I would turn batty, it’s absolutely horrifying to think of all those things going wrong in one 24-hour period! It is like a downward spiral effect or a house of cards. When one thing happens it sets the others in motion.
Here is my opinion on Hansel and Gretel. I think that the witch was just desperate for some alone time. Time for her to be just her and not have to answer to the calls and demands of people , or have everyone completely dependent on her. So the witch builds her little house in the woods and tried to “escape” for some alone time, however, after finding two little brats eating at her house and interrupting once again her very brief moment of quiet and solitude, she just snapped! Can we really blame her? All she really wanted was some time to herself, even if just for the weekend.
Kristi S-T390
Having a string of very bad things happen to a person could indeed bring a person to the exploding point. There are people who want others to suffer because they have to suffer as well. One day my younger brother about eight fell and cut himself badly on a sharp edged can. I was standing nearby and he glared at me and said, “This should have happened to you.” I can laugh at it now, but I was startled at the time. We can imagine this being the case in some of the fairy tale witch’s or stepmother’s situations. Being a mother of six children can bring temptations to want to do evil, but in a normal mother’s life it last for a short time. This leads me to think that maybe these characters could have had a very bad day, but evil leading to severe harm of children is suspicious. The evil was already resident inside waiting to vent itself.
LindaC. T-390
It is easy to see the obvious evil in fairy tales, and even have a good time speculating why these characters developed the personality of a snake, but there are plenty of times in fairy tales that I am amazed that the good people haven’t turned to the dark side of life! The princess in “Donkey Skin” should have gotten a mean streak a mile long when she found out that her father wanted to take her as his wife. Or how about when the character in “Little Mermaid” changed herself into a human form so that the prince, whom she loved with all of her heart, would marry her, and then he runs off to marry another woman! She didn’t join the elite group of evil doers, she just committed suicide. Of course, we also have to question if Snow White continues to be beautiful and naive after she finds out that her step-mother tried three times to kill her. Perhaps we should take a step back and also examine why these good girls didn’t turn into stone after their traumatic experiences!
Vicki G.
This post is hysterical! But man have I had my share of days like that – a few more and in hundreds of years young children could be reading fairy tales based on me! Though, I agree with Vicki, if anyone had reason to go mad and turn evil it had to have been the princess in “Donkeyskin,” geesh! A lot of times it’s the innocent princesses that deserve to have a real evil streak and seek revenge to those who have spoiled their lives. Its interesting that fairy tales are so short, leaving no room for the “backstory” of what “really” led to the evil feelings which lead to evil actions. Maybe Maria Tatar’s next book will be an annotation of the fairy tales and possible “prequels” to the fairy tales. Though I still say jealousy brings out the worst in these evil witches and villains, even more so than just a bad day.
Angie, T390
This reminds me of a headache that would never go away, or better yet the first nights of having a new born screaming all night long. I remember all I wanted to do was pull my hair out,that would have given me a scary look. I certainly can relate to the correlations that can trigger people to perform in ways that seem to be inhumane. Many people have a threshold to a point that if annoyed enough they can explode. I believe in Baba Yaga’s defense though, I feel she has the need to be alone and what better way to keep people away than that hut. Maybe her hut is the result in the inability to get rid of trash so she stock piles all the bones and skulls.
We all have a button and when it is pressed, we act foolishly. However, some more foolish than others but overall we are not ourselves. The key is to remember it always will not be like this, just a glimpse of life. It happens all the time. Terry B
After reading this it does really make you wonder how evil can evil be, how bad can bad really get. I know that there have been times in my life where I feel like it just cannot get any worse. It feels like there is a curse on me and it something I cannot stop. Sometimes I see fairy tales as being this way. Maybe they are just curses that happen that no one can stop. In addition, throughout this class, I have found a new way of thinking about fairy tales, and it may not always be the good side. It just drives me insane of how much impact these fairy tales can have an effect on who are and who we become. I cannot imagine what it would be as if these tales got any worse than what they are sometimes. I mean it is a story; we can change it any way we want. Does it really always have to about the evilness?
I love this post! It is a very good question. What made the villains go bad or where they just born wicked, as one of the other comments pointed out? The one about Baba Yaga and her cat allergies was my favorite. While I was reading it I came up with my own version of why Baba Yaga turned evil. Maybe she woke up one morning and realized she was to fat to fit into her mortar anymore so she had to go on a diet and stop eating people for a little while. Or maybe she looked in a mirror one day as a child and realized how hideous her long hooked nose was. Then she felt really bad about her appearance because she wasn’t pretty like the other girls who made fun of her and she decided to start eating them up in order to gain their beauty. That did not work though because she was still scary and ugly so she stayed evil because it suited the way she looks.
Kaitlin C.
I was looking on the blog for some more ideas for our final paper and I came across this blog post. This post is pretty crazy and I think all these situations would make for a horrible day for someone and would put them in a descending spiral and making them the bad guy in the situation. I mean some of these situations are pretty out there and unlikely to happen. But they always say “never say never.” My favorite was the “Hansel and Gretel” exert since that is one of the more recent fairytales we read. It is funny to think maybe that is what happened to the witch and maybe she did drink some really soared milk and that put her in a whirl of disaster. And with those reasons that was why she was acting so horrible. But who is to say why the witch acted so vulgar and vicious? Tiara J
Justin F
I have never thought of why the bad people in the fairy tales behave the way they do. You have a very good idea there that I would never of thought of. Things that don’t go my way make me mad or cranky to others. However, there is up to a certain degree of anger you can/should exhibit before one is just out of control and where the “spoiled milk” excuse or the I tripped and fell down excuse does not fly anymore. People must control their own anger and emotions. A great example of this would be in Snow White in the Grimm’s version when Snow White’s evil step mother kept coming to where she was staying at repeatedly to try and kill her because her mirror kept saying Snow White was the prettiest one of all. But what makes it way beyond an excuse of “I had a bad day” to jealousy and evilness is when Snow White tells her huntsmen to kill Snow White and take her lungs and liver out so she can eat them. We all have bad days and became a little cranky to others but we still have to remain in control and not go into an evil rampage to others.
I know that if all or even a little bit of those would happen to me it would make for one terrible day. However I cannot say that it would turn me evil or into someone that could look to harm someone else. I can see that these events, if happening over time and time again could lead to some awful times and could cause someone to stray from their normal lives or thoughts. However in order for them to go bad or turn evil I feel that they would have to surrender to those thoughts and feelings. There are some people out there who continue to have problems and think that these things may have a place in everyone’s life, they may then seek to take their anger from these problems out on someone else who may not have them. This is where the evil would set in and that surrender I was talking about, this would create a snowball effect that would start to consume them. That would be the one way I could see those events leading to an evil or bad way of life taking form.
--Tyler Biller
I can see where you're coming from. There are some days when everything seems to go wrong and you just feel like you want to rip your hair out, or someone else’s. Some days you spill your morning coffee on you in the car, which is the one thing in the morning can make us happy. Then you get to school and become late to class because there are no parking spots. Then, you get your exam back that you thought you did well on, and turns out you failed. Then the bad things just keep rolling in. There even comes a time in those days where something or someone spectacular can happen, but at this point, you will find some reason why that good thing is indeed just another annoyance in your day. These bad days, however are no reason to punish others. Although I am sure we all do it occasionally. We get snappy at the one's we love or get mad at them when they have done nothing wrong. I can understand actions like this. Snow White's evil step mother on the other hand, did a lot more than just cause a silly argument, she attempted to kill Snow White. No one, no matter what the circumstances, ever deserves to die over a matter as petty as "beauty."
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