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Lector: intende, laetaberis |
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TRIP FOR LITTLE CHILDREN |
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We planned this
trip for kindergarten children, a little tour with
one or many stops, up to seven stages, the seven
fairy tales preferred by the little ones, not only
because these tales often give a coprolaliac
amusement. The main actants, be they female, male, or both, made no wish and in no way acted: they must react to a dangerous trouble or to a maternal or paternal injunction. The actants in this Fabulando fairy trip have no fault in the misfortune they suffer; this absolute innocence may correspond to the feeling of the little children, before a moral conscience takes shape, when there is a normal fear of punishment and no sense of responsibility yet. Nevertheless, this kind of innocence is not enough to avoid the little ones' deadly dangers and anguishe, even if their parents and teachers take good care of them. We can understand their ending jubilation, when they find out that even the smallest kid can defeat a big and powerful enemy. Their beloved adults may easily become threatening. |
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF THE IMPOSSIBLE TASKS |
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If life is a
task, it surely is an impossible task. Youths
who take it get on the way for a long and
difficult journey that requires all their
efforts. Furthermore, if it is an impossible
task, like a peak too hard and risky to climb,
how can they perform it? This tour’s fairy tales tell that when the female or male main actants set out on their way to perform an impossible task, they invariably go through terrible tests and invariably reach their goal. We are going to visit four realms, to meet commoners, princes, princesses and animals. All of them have to deal with their impossible peaks to climb, each of them in their own way. |
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FABULANDO
FAIRY TOUR OF THE GROWING
UP HAMPERED
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The
adolescent daughter normally feels impeded by
her mother, whom she now perceives as unfair,
while in childhood her mother had been the
object of her unbounded admiration. The feeling
of imprisonment comes from the the female main
actant' rush to grow up, to impose
herself upon the mother and gain for herself the
benefits enjoyed by the Queen of the House. This tour will lead us to visit two very famous fairy-tale actants, Cinderella and Parsley. Let us follow them segregated by the fireplace and into the tower, representations of their feeling of being hampered. We will see how, from this lonely condition, they can find a way out and their way to grow, reaching their princely happy ending. |
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In this
Tour of the Excessive Desires, we are going
to see fairy tales tied to the injunction of
The Labyrinth of the Impossible Commitment.
They may be very similar to other stories
tied to the injunction of The Peak of the
Impossible Task, but they are distinguished
by their initial motif, which sets the young
actant’s succession in motion. The main
actants here voluntarily assume the task of
finding a new equilibrium, to remedy an
initial imbalance, which would stop the
generations’ movement. They face an
insurmountable obstacle, too big at first
sight, and this gives rise to their becoming
autonomous subjects, because the actants can
here find a new form of balance by accepting
the inheritance of a lack. This leads to the
happy ending, never failing them in their
complex stories, particularly rich in
symbols. |
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF A DANGEROUS UPBRINGING |
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The
injunction of the Fork of the Possible
Task includes four stories. Their main
actants are not asked to do anything
impossible, just to go and see their
grandmother or to bring grist to the mill. It
may also be the case that they roam around the
world without any precise task, or that
eventually a magical being appears offering to
grant them three wishes. In the first three
cases, the main actants die, in the fourth one
they return to the starting point. Fairy
tales usually begin with a mortal risk or an
impossible task. The protagonists defeat their
antagonists and overcome any obstacle through
their perseverance and some magic. But the
ethics of fairy tales often looks absurd: not
having fatal enemies or insurmountable tasks
leads, here, to death or to a stalemate.
Continuing through this Tour of a
Dangerous Upbringing, we can understand
that this fairy truth - paradoxical and
unacceptable to common sense - has a lot to do
with everyday life. |
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF KILLER PARENTS |
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The Italian word fata
comes from the Latin fatum
(fate, destiny), and it
reminds us of the ambivalence of
the ancient goddesses of fate,
Moirai, Parcae, or Norns. The
same ambivalence characterizes
the fairies (fate) as
well, but positivist pedagogists
zealously tried to repress it,
together with the ambivalence of
children – and parents.
Goodness, kindness, and
generosity are thought to come
from repressing our destructive
impulses. Also the word fatal
comes from fatum; and it
characterizes an encounter or a
living being that overwhelms us,
something that we revile and
celebrate, desire and fear. Our
killer parents, who are
truly ruthless, fail to
eliminate even one of the
protagonists of this tour and
end up suffering the very pain
they sought to inflict. The
parents are fatal because
we do not choose them and we
cannot change them, like fate
or destiny. We should, however
try to go beyond the surface. We
could remember that these
fairy-tale parents gave life to
their children before trying to
kill them, just like the Moirai
spin the thread of human life
before cutting it. In the fairy
tales the killer parents always
fail to devour their children or
grandchildren, because Time,
as fatal as the Moirai, does not
play on their side. Saturnus
eventually must leave his throne
to his child Zeus and his other
two sons and three daughters.
And they all come out from his
belly safe and sound,
ready to rule the world after
their parents. |
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF DERELICT YOUTHS |
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There
is a feeling that we all know: we
experience it sometimes for just a few
hours, and sometimes for longer
periods. At these times, nothing we
ever did seems fruitful, and our
resources seem to be useless for the
future. No-one ever really loved us,
and our own love - if we ever loved
something or someone - seems never to
have given anything to anyone. We feel
not merely alone, but forsaken. We do
not know how to move, we cannot see
any direction. In Fabulando the name
of this state is the Marsh of
Dereliction. It tells of youths who
lack any resources or support. They
risk dying of starvation, yet they
always find a way out - all the way to
their happy ending. What helps them to
get out of this marsh? In all these
fairy tales there is a little magic,
the power of which does not exist
except for those who love and take
care of any little thing that seems
useless, even a doll, a cat or a
goose. |
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The
youths of this Tour do not fit their
parents' wishes. We are going to visit a
mother who can't bear her children
because they are too beautiful, and a
mother who casts out her wastrel son
by dint of beating him. We will also
read of a son who takes to his heels
when his father, exasperated by his
son’s spending spree, is about to kill
him by beating. Another son must leave
his father because he want to learn
nothing else but the thrill of fear. While in the Tour of the Dangerous Upbringing we met parents who ignore or overstep the limit of their function, in this Tour we find a breaking of the upbringing itself. We are going to see stories of parents who cast or delegitimize their children, and children who have to leave on their own. They go far away along unknown roads, and the cut that separates them from their native home turns into a chance to find their place in the world - a world where their parents are eventually absent. These fairy tales do not tell of realistic separations, but of the experience of the limits inherent in every upbringing. They tell of the dramatic, vital moment in which a parent or a master stop trying to give their child or pupil what they do not have. Conversely, the child or pupil stops demanding from them what lies elsewhere. |
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF MISFORTUNE |
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The Tour of
Misfortune leads us into kingdoms where innocent
youths are harshly scarred by a bad fate. We
will find a girl whose Fate destroys everything
around her, and another who falls into a deadly
sleep. No one knows whether she can be awakened.
We are then going to see a young man turned into an animal by a curse hurled at his mother before his birth. The main actants of these fairy tales are forced to face a misfortune that caise them to lose their family, their human shape, or their life itself. How can they not succumb? |
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF YOUR FIRST LOVE YOU NEVER FORGET |
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The little
girl loves her father with all her being, and
his love makes her feel like his ideal lover. If
she grows up thanks to the illusion of taking
her mother’s place - the main actant of these
tales is invariably motherless - the daughter
cannot leave her father, because with him she
feels like the most charming creature in the
world. So, being in love with her ideal lover,
she remains in the gilded cage of her father’s
castle. How can the girl get out of this total
love? Fairy tales don't provide recipes but
invitations to travel, and we are now leaving to
visit eight stories in three different realms.
The female main actants move from an incestuous
dependence to the encounter with a stranger. To
do so, they go through through tragic events,
flee covered in animal filth, or accept the
company of monsters and beasts. (Ed.) |
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF THE GILDED CAGE |
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The main
actants of this tour live in isolation, like
Narcissus, having no connection with the world.
They do not wish to marry and are content with
the lives they lead. Their arduous adventures - very long and intricate, or even gory - begin when they are sized by a sudden and violent desire for an ideal husband or wife. Let us therefore set out with courage and discover the stories belonging to this tour. There are five tales in all. The paths of their female and male actants are harsh and marked by dreadful moments. Let us follow them and the unfolding of their stories up until the longed-for happy ending. Our five main actants, each in her/his own way, will all be able to attain it. |
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OR INLAND VOYAGE AMONG UNCLASSIFIABLE FAIRY TALES |
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Six fairy tales -
Hänsel and Gretel and the five variants of
The Green Beau Bird - refused to fit into
one of our Quadrants and forced us to devise for
them an impossible one pointing in all four
cardinal directions. We had to do this in order to
include these beautiful fairy tales in Fabulando
even if it was an inelegant move. It was necessary
because here there is not a maternal or a paternal
injunction, but both together. And we do not have
a female or a male child actant, but both
threatened and acting together. In these fairy
tales, the maternal actant, together with the
paternal one, sentences their male and female
descendants to death, whether they are children or
newborns. We see encounters, rescues, and alliances between male and female actants in most fairy tales, up to the happy ending. But only the fairy tales of this impossible quadrant feature brothers and sisters acting together. It is only through theor joint action that they escape death and reach salvation. Hänsel and Gretel kill the cannibal old witch and return home rich and safe; the three princes of the other tales find their parents, save their slandered mother, and make their father change his mind. It is through the siblings quest that the king and queen’s long and painful separation finally ends.” |
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| © Claudia Chellini
& Adalinda Gasparini Firenze, 2015-2023 |
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