 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
Lector: intende, laetaberis |
|
TRIP FOR LITTLE CHILDREN |
|
| 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 this tales often give a coprolaliac
amusement. The main actants, be female, male, or male and female ones, made no wish and no way they acted: they must react to a dangerous trouble or to a maternal or paternal injuction. 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 take shape, when there is a normal fear of punishment and no sense of responsibility. Nevertheless, this kind of innocence is not enough to avoid the little ones deadly dangers and anguishes, 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 win a big and powerful enemy. Their beloved adults may easily become threatening. |
|
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF THE IMPOSSIBLE TASKS |
|
| If life is a
task, it surely is an impossible task. Youths
who take it get in 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 they can perform it? This tour’s fairy tales tell that when the female or male main actants get in the way to perform an impossible task, they invariably cross 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 his own way. |
|
|
FABULANDO
FAIRY TOUR OF THE GROWING
UP HAMPERED
|
|
 |
The
adolescent daughter normally feels herself
impeded by her mother, who she now perceives as
unfair, while in childhood her mother had been
the object of the unbounded admiration of her
daughter. The feeling of imprisonment comes from
the rush to grow up of the female main actant,
to impose herself upon the mother and get 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 go to follow them segregated in the fireplace and into the tower, representations of their feeling to be hampered. We will see how from this lonely condition they can find a way to exit and find their way to grow, to find their princely happy ending. |
| In this
Tour of the Excessive Desires, we are going
to see fairy tales tied by the injunction of
The Labyrinth of the Impossible Commitment.
They may be very similar to other stories
tied by the injunction of The Peak of the
Impossible Task, but they are distinguished
for their initial motif, which starts the
young actant’s succession off. 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 them as
autonomous subjects, because the actants can
here find a new form of balance accepting to
inherit a lack. This leads to the happy
ending, never failing in their complex
stories, particularly rich in symbols.
|
|
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF A DANGEROUS UPBRINGING |
|
| The
injunction of the Fork of the Possible
Task includes four stories. Their main
actants are not asked for 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 magic
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 look 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 |
|
| 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, Parchae or Norns. The
same ambivalence characterizes
the fairies (fate) as
well, but positivist pedagogists
zealously tried to repress it
together with ambivalence of
children – and parents.
Goodness, kindness and
generosity could 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
really 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,
destiny. We should however try
to go beyond the surface, to
understand 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
bell safe and sound, ready
to rule the world after their
parents. |
|
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF DERELICT YOUTHS |
|
| There
is a feeling that we all know: we get
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
useless for the future. No-one ever
really loved us, and our own love, if
we ever loved something or someone,
never actually gave anybody anything.
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
Marsh of Dereliction. It tells of
youths who lack any resource and
support. They risk dying of
starvation, and yet they always find a
way out, all the way up 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 which seems useless, such as a
doll, a cat or a goose. (Ed.) |
|
| The
youths of this Tour do not fit for their
parent’s wishes. We are going to visit a
mother who can't bear her children
because they are too beautiful, and a
mother who a mother who casts out by
dint of beating her wastrel son. We will
also read of a son who take to his heels
when his father, exasperated by this
son’s spending spree, would kill him
beaten. Another son must leave his
father because he does not want to learn
anything else than knowing the thrill of
fear. While in the Tour of the dangerous upbringing we met parents who ignore or remove 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 of children who have to leave alone. They go faraway along unknown roads, and the cut that separates them from their native house turns into a chance to find their place in the world, where their parents are eventually absent. These fairy tales do not tell of realistic separations, but of the experience of every upbringing’s limit. They tell of the dramatic vital moment in which a parent or a master stop trying to give their child or pupil what they have not. Conversely, a child or a pupil stops demanding them what is elsewhere. |
|
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF MISFORTUNE |
|
| The Tour of
the Misfortune leads us into kingdoms where a
innocent youths are harshly scarred from a bad
fate. We will find a girl whose Fate destroys
everything around her, and another one who falls
into a deadly sleep, and no one knows whether
she can it 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 can make them 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 |
|
| 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 occupying
her mother’s place - the main actant of these
tales is invariably motherless - the daughter
cannot leave her father, because together 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 an invitation to travel, and we are
leaving to visit eight stories in three
different realms. The female main actants move
from an incestuous dependency to the encounter
with a stranger. To do it they suffer through
tragic events, flee covered by animal filth, or
accept the company of monsters and beasts. (Ed.) |
|
FABULANDO FAIRY TOUR OF THE GILDED CAGE |
|
| The main
actants of this tour live isolated like
Narcissus, having no relationships with
the world. They don't want to get married, and
are happy with the life they lead. Their difficult adventures, very long and complex, or even gory, begin when they feel a sudden 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 stories in this tour. The path of their female and male actants is very hard, and includes some terrible moments. Let's go with them and follow 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 |
|
| Six fairy tales -
Hänsel and Gretel and the five variants of
The Green Beau Bird - refused to come into
one of our Quadrants and forced us to organize for
them an impossible quadrant with all the
cardinal points. We had to do this to tell these
beautiful fairy tales in Fabulando even if it was
an inelegant move; it was necessary because
here there are not a maternal or paternal
injunction, and we have not a female or a male
actant. In these fairy tales there are maternal
and paternal actants sentencing their male and
female descendants to death, be they children or
newborn. We see encounters, salvations, alliances between male and female actants in most fairy tales, up to the happy ending, but only the fairy tales of this impossible quadrant have brothers and sisters acting together. Only the joint action of both of them delivers them from death driving them to salvation. Hänsel and Gretel kill the cannibal old witch and go back home rich and safe; the three princes of the other fairy tales save their slandered mother, made their father change his mind, get their parents together after a long separation, and they get their father's acknowledgement. |
|
 |
 |
 |
| © Claudia Chellini
& Adalinda Gasparini Firenze, 2015-2023 |
|