Reference no: EM133330147

Assignment:

In a Norwegian tale, a woman makes a pancake. Seven children stand near the oven. The first says: "Mother, give me your fat pancake." The second: "Mother, give me your sweet, fat pancake." The third: "Mother, give me your beautiful, sweet, fat pancake." The fourth: "Mother, give me your wonderful, beautiful, sweet, fat pancake," and so forth. But when the pancake is ready, it runs away and goes out into the wide world. It meets a rooster, a cat, a dog, etc. and runs ("rolls") away from them. At long last, it meets a pig, which pretends to be hard of hearing. It asks the pancake to come nearer, still nearer, and even jump on its nose, to hear what the pancake is saying. Then it swallows the pancake. In a tale from India, a cat meets a parrot, then a rat, then a thrush. After dark they put up in a grove. The cat stays in an open place but talks its companions into spending the night in a hollow tree. At night, by various tricks it makes the three companions leave the tree and eats them up.

What structural principle is consistently used in both tales? How important is this principle in folklore? How would you characterize the role of the pig and the cat? (Is there a "label" for such creatures?) Vladimir Propp would probably have called the tales variants of the same story. Why? Would Antti Aarne have agreed with him?

In H. C. Andersen's tale, an ugly bird is born, is mocked by everybody, including its siblings, runs away, experiences numerous hardships, and finally discovers that it is no longer an ugly duckling but a beautiful swan. If such a tale passed off as folklore, would it be a typical animal tale? If so, why? If not, where would it belong? By contrast, the protagonist of "The Happy Prince" (I read it at one of the lectures) has everything, loses all, but perishes convinced that he has done the right thing. The counterpart of the magic helper also dies. Would this inverse morphology prevent us from classifying Oscar Wilde's fiction with fairy tales?