Body Paragraphs Many versions of the novel Briar Rose include the archetypal theme of the Ogre

The use of multiple layers of narrative in Jane Yolen’s- Briar Rose is highly effective in communicating the story and the story and themes concerning Gemma’s past experiences of the Holocaust and Becca’s quest for truth and fulfilment of her Grandmother’s legacy. Yolen uses a number of voices or accounts of events to give the reader a dramatic sense of the extent and the horror of Gemma’s experiences. The fairytale story, Becca’s quest and Joseph Potocki, all add richness of detail to the novel as a whole. Techniques that incorporate this include symbolism, allegory, intertexuality, narrative structure and language.

In her article, “Cinderella: Not So Morally Superior,” Elisabeth Panttaja illustrates the important role of parents in a childhood. She talks about the importance the mother plays in all versions of Cinderella as well as evidence showing what lack of parenthood does to children. Panttaja claims by way of the Grimms Brothers version of Cinderella and how each mother wants to guarantee a bright and happy future for their daughters by marrying them off to the prince. The similarities between the wanting of Cinderella and the stepsisters married- and doing anything to get it- contradicts the idea that Cinderella and her mother were morally superior, or different at all, from the stepmother and sisters.

Part of the novel Briar Rose takes place during the Holocaust, the mass murder of Jews during the time frame of 1941 to 1945. During the Holocaust, more than 6 million Jews, as well as members of other persecuted groups, including homosexuals, were killed at concentration camps. In the story, Becca travels to Poland to learn more about Gemma, her grandmother’s, fairy tale stories that she tells Becca and her two sisters throughout their adolescence. She meets Josef, who upon arrival, Becca discovers was the “prince” in her grandmother’s stories. Josef explains the story of his life, focusing on when he was involved in the Holocaust. In Josef’s story, he tells of how they meet and revive a young lady who has completely lost her memory besides

Jane Yolen, in her novel Briar Rose, has used an allegory of Briar Rose or Sleeping Beauty as a metaphor to hide the real experiences and emotions suffered from the Holocaust during World War Two. The development and techniques employed within the story are extremely effective for the use of the allegory.

Violence is the most recurrent gothic convention used in Jane Eyre, which is prominent in Charlotte Brontë's effective development of the novel and the character of Jane Eyre, who, throughout this novel, is searching for a home in which she would have a sense of belonging and love which would ultimately resolve this exact unfulfilled need she had as a child. The neglect she experienced in her childhood is manifested in the way she is treated by her aunt, Mrs. Reed, as in the first page of the novel Jane Eyre admits: ‘Me, she had dispensed from joining the group, saying, 'She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance’’. This opening shows how there is a clear line of separation drawn between Jane and her relatives due to her complicated family background which consequently results in their reluctance to accept her into their environment. These complications lead to her maltreatment, which also adds on to the violence she experiences acting as a catalyst for the development of the character and her subconscious quest.

The idioms of everyday American speech in a middle-class domestic situation are used in showing the events and relationships of the Berlin family. In contrast to the conversations of Becca and Stan, usually presented as straight dialogue, the discussions among the three sisters are conventionally presented, often with “she said” and other interpolations to give explicitly the emotional level of the sister’s disagreements. Madga, the Polish student who acts as Becca’s guide to the death camp site speaks fluent English but at times awkward English “Oh, they are much in appreciation” she says when given a pair of jeans. Contrast between the formal, traditional language of the fairy tale and childish, informal chatter is shown when the children comment or question as Gemma proceeds with her Briar Rose fairy tale story telling. Her contrast revisiting of just this one fairy tale shows the reader that while her conscious memory has buries the details of her past horrors, she cannot help returning to the fairy tale allegory. Contrast is also shown between the warm, happy imagery of life in the Berlin house and the bleak, harsh details of the holocaust.

Christopher felt guilty of all the negative, preconceived thoughts he had before going to Leonie and Andrew’s wedding on Friday. The night before, while getting his outfit ready for the wedding he dreaded meeting a few people at the wedding tomorrow. For some unknown, (apart from devious idle gossip by those who relish hate instead of love, war instead of peace and grief instead of joy. And to his surprise he allowed these negative emotions seep through his heart like poison ivy. Worse still, on meeting them he wanted to slap them in their faces without a given reason other than; they deceived, betrayed, misunderstood and forsaken him in ways that are blurry, patchy, but hurts every time he thinks about what was said. Yet within reason his

Bruno Bettelheim, the author of the article “‘Cinderella’: A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts” expresses his opinions on how the fairytale Cinderella causes the views of sibling rivalry and also displays oedipal conflicts. Bettelheim argues throughout his article that the tale Cinderella leads children to feel emotions such as jealousy and envy towards their siblings. He also depicts the belief that the story Cinderella leads children into oedipal jealousy and makes them feel that they need to get rid of the parent of the same sex. Bettelheim expresses his opinions and beliefs to uncover the secrets held within the fairytale Cinderella.

A figurative language is used in part 1 to characterize her and using the senses, an old little lady that walked into the room was described as looking “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and that of a pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face

When she sees that it is her friend Charlotte in this heart breaking situation, she says: “gracious heaven is this possible? And bursting into tears, she reclined the burning head of Charlotte on her own bosom; and folding her arms about her, wept over in silence” [125]. In this passage, Mrs. Beauchamp proves how sentimental and good she could be because not only does she have a sick child at home, but she finds the time to actually care about others and because she actually cries for Charlotte, a person who is not even her relative. She is a sentimental person because she is the only one that in the beginning offered Charlotte her friendship and because thanks to her, Charlotte’s father is able to see Charlotte one last time and forgive her. In many cases, this might be confused with weakness but it is not weakness. It is the ability to feel others pain as your own, it is the ability to care for others as you would your own relative; it is being a moral person and only through the act of sensibility can this be shown. In a situation like this, an immoral person might have only thought about their own problems and not the problems of others.

Whether Female antagonists within fairy tales are portrayed in a positive or negative light their roles within the stories are very important if not crucial to the development of the protagonists. Karen Rowe in “Feminist and fairy tales” explains the divide between different female antagonists. Female antagonist come in all forms, Faeries, ogresses, evil queens, and evil witches step mothers and or step sisters. For the most part these characters are often divided between good and evil, or light and dark, but what is often realized, is that there isn’t much of a combination between the two groups in which an antagonist falls in between both categories. In this essay I will lay out the thematic roles of these different types of female antagonist’s portrayed within fairy tales.

When someone mentions the name “Cinderella”, the first thing that usually comes to our minds is the fairytale in which the fair maiden who works so hard yet it treated so poorly gains her “fairytale ending” with a wave of a magic wand. However, the fairytale of Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers has multiple differences in plot from the fairytale we all usually think of. The plot of the Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers, written in 1812, is that a young female’s mother passes away early in the story, departing with the message to Cinderella to remain “pious and good”. Cinderella remained true to this message given to her by her mother, and she showed this in her work ethic. Because Cinderella had remained pious and good, her mother, in return, watched over her in the form of the birds above her grave that gave Cinderella help and material things that she needed. In the end, Cinderella has her “happily ever after”, for when the prince held a festival to find a new bride, she was chosen due to her insurmountable beauty. The feminist lens critiques how females are commonly represented in texts, and how insufficient these representations are as a categorizing device. These representations of women often include them being passive and emotional—staying back while the men do the work. Cinderella relates to the feminist lens because she fits into the typical representations of women created by men. Feminist criticism is important to recognize because women are often falsely represented as helpless, thus needing a man to come to their rescue. It is common in literature to see helpless women, crying and begging for help instead of being able to work out their own problems and hardships. Others, however, may believe that it is still important to uphold the fundamentals of the feminist lens because it keeps the man in power, which they say is important in keeping the man the head of the household. Cinderella thoroughly represents the feminist lens because it shows how women in literature uphold the representations of passive and emotional, created by the man.

Despite gender, living conditions or cultural backgrounds most people grow up reading or hearing stories of heroism and damsel in distress scenarios. Anne Sexton turns stereotypes on their head in her satirical poems of classic fairy tales, including Snow White and The Seven Dwarves and Cinderella. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves tells the tale of a young princess with hair as black as coal and skin as pale as snow, whose life is thrown into turmoil at the hands of her overbearing stepmother. Cinderella tells the story of a young girl who she spends her life is yearning for the prince’s ball, and similar to Snow White, Cinderella’s stepmother is influencing her life, however she is a positive character throughout the story. This sheds light on the stepmother in Snow White’s piece as despite the fact that Snow White’s stepmother clearly does inherently evil things, a re-reading demands a re-examination of why. It is throughout these tales’ where stepmothers are only trying to protect their children from the world around them, however in Snow White an outside motive, the beauty provided by the mirror and the pride manifested by poison, creates a barrier between the queen and her stepdaughter, thus giving her the title “Evil”.

Children fairy tales are some of the first books we’re introduced to growing up. Typically, the princess is saved by the heroic prince and they lived “happily ever after”. Some may think our life should be like a fairy tales while others don’t. These tales created gender roles in which appeared to be very important. In the Grimm Brothers fairy tale, “Hansel and Gretel”, the parents leave the children in the forest to starve due to not having enough money to buy food in order to sustain life. The children later find a house deep in the woods where an old, evil witch lures them in and tried to eat Hansel and Gretel. They eventually kill the witch and find their way home to their father with no stepmother to be found as she has died while the children were away. In the fairy tale, “Hansel and Gretel” gender and feminist criticism are highlighted throughout the tale by defining characteristics, consequences from their actions, and societal roles and expectations that were both prominent in German history and modern society.

Clarke explores the similarities and importance of Brontë’s use of the Grimms’ version of Cinderella within the story of Jane Eyre. She outlines how the two stories are parallel and then skillfully explores the symbolism that is present in both. Through her analysis of the ways the two stories are similar, Clarke concludes that the combination of the Grimms’ Cinderella within Jane Eyre allowed Brontë to critique and explore societal views and treatment of women as well as question and suggest alternative religious views such as those of a maternalist system.