Tuesday 27 March 2012
Just a Fairy Tale?
What do you have to say about Erna Brodber's short story "Sleeping's Beauty and the Prince Charming" in Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad? What about the title and the message(s) in the story, for example? What's the significance of alluding to well-known fairy tales in the title and the narrative, do you think?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Brodber`s short story very interesting as it included a different alternative to the well known fairy tale. I enjoyed the modern day Sleeping rather than Sleeping Beauty who had a Caribbean twist with her afro- head and Charming`s black manicured hands. Her desire to become human once again and to bear physical pain for a man echos stories I`ve heard and read about who let their love for a man overshadow all reason. Charming`s escape from both her and her situation makes me remember the lectures my mother and aunts told my cousins and I of never fully giving your all to a man, to keep something for yourself. Its an age old tradition I believe, especially in Caribbean homes, where a man`s permanent presence was uncertain. This story is more than just twist to Sleeping beauty, but its Brodber`s way of carrying on that tradition of passing this knowledge for all who read it.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Sleeping Beauty" is a well known childhood tale in which (all known iterations)tell of a the white princess (representative of the archetypal damsel in distress) who needs to be saved by the dashing prince. Brodber's short story makes allusions to the well known tale and on this way she is able to make her changes all the more apparent. The first noticeable change is seen in the title: the typical "damsel" doesn't remain nameless and is not characterized by her beauty, Brodber's heroine is indeed not a push-over but a strong, independent working woman. Needless to say the fact that she is black, like the knight she meets in her dreams is another interesting change made by the writer. Also, the depiction of the heroic Prince Charming is grossly downplayed arguably by the fact that Beauty is not a naive girl who is impressed by his travels but has herself experienced life. She is not subordinate to this black knight and is certainly not dependent on him. In the end Brodber shows that life does have its ups and downs and is not always a fairy tale romance but more importantly, in her retelling, she shows that Beauty does not need saving by any Charming man, she can do this on her own.
ReplyDeleteBroadber’s story definitely puts a spin on the “Sleeping Beauty” most children would have grown up reading. In making allusions to this fairy tale she succeeded in highlighting the differences of the old storyline with her take on it. "Sleeping's Beauty and the Prince Charming” in my opinion is a story about the role of women. In this short story she was able to reflect the Caribbean woman with her characterisation of ‘Sleeping’ as strong, intelligent and not easily impressed. She also demonstrated the issue of the Caribbean women’s relationship with the opposite sex, through establishing the uncertainty of the male presence which is evident in the Caribbean.
ReplyDeleteErna Brodber's short story has a Caribbean spin on it. I think that this story serves as a moral to individuals and it should be read to young children instead of the American version. She does not stick to that typical fairy tale love story where Sleeping Beauty desperately needs to be saved. She presents a real life situation to us where Sleeping Beauty is seen as independent, strong and fully capable of handling life on her own without the aid of a male figure. The title, "Sleeping's Beauty and the Prince Charming" is also significant in that Sleeping's face is not seen at the beginning and her beauty is not revealed to the prince. I think that Brodber depicts that physical beauty is not deemed as the most important thing of a person and one should not be judged based on their physical attributes. She moves away from the Western version of fairy tales where the beauty of the characters is seen to be a major part of the story.
ReplyDeleteThe title of Brodber's piece helps to put her story in context as it alludes to the fairy tale but it also establishes the text's purpose as a re-conceptualization of the fairy tale. Unlike the fairy tale, Brodber's story is about a Sleeping not a Beauty. This "sleeping" deals with the woman being blind to her burdens as a woman which is activated only when she begins to explore her mind and crosses paths with a man. In the text, the implied author is saying that the woman can exist as an individual bearing her burdens on her own but by doing this she is only half awake as it takes a man to help unlock other mysteries about herself. Therefore the story discusses the woman as individual and the woman as man's partner, but in the end it appears as though the woman chooses that half existence.
ReplyDeleteI must say, of all the stories I read in Blue Latitudes, this is my favourite. The language of the story adds a certain folk element and the magical realist feel bolsters the notion of ‘fairy-tale’ and fantasy. The most appealing aspect of the piece however was the way in which Brodber re-wrote and re-imagined traditional and popular fairy-tales with a Caribbean sensibility; replacing the original white faces with black Caribbean ones. I remember when she came to the West Indian Conference at UWI last semester, she said, that she saw her role as being able to write for the children around her, the people of Jamaica: and for these people to recognize themselves in the stories she wove, which is evidently the case here.
ReplyDeleteSleeping’s Beauty and the Prince Charming deals with many gender related issues. In my estimation, the story tells us as women that life isn’t a fairy tale; we may dream of the perfect Prince Charming who would come and sweep us of our feet and bring us ‘back to life’, but in fact this is rarely ever the case. Sleeping is left to achieve salvation on her own, as the Prince cowardly runs away.
I think that one of the major points in the story is the inability of Black men and women to be able to relate to each other. in an article written by Helen Tiffin, she suggests that although African men share the same colonial heritage as their their female counterparts, they are far removed and distant from them.
ReplyDeleteThe use of the Western Fairy tale title also speaks to the erasure of culture experienced during the colonial period. This is now the only medium through which we can communicate with each other.
I think that this is typical Brodber. She reels you in with her language and a little ambiguity and by the end you have fully grasped her meaning. I agree with Shelly that this reconceptualization pits the old story with this new Caribbean version that eschews the saviour-figure in favour of a strong woman figure.
ReplyDeleteIn this story, the woman is constructed as powerful and Prince Charming, the opposite of that. By his own admission he cannot bear one quarter of the pain that Sleeping can and doesn't stick around. I think that Brodber is making a statement on the inherent power of women and how unnecessary it is for them to be saved.