Friday, September 27, 2013

Vielma- Cutting a Fairytale apart?


Most of the fairy tales I recall from my childhood are all pretty tame. A girl falls asleep in a bed then runs away when seeing bears, a girl bites an apple passes out and wakes up due to a kiss. All boring and plain. But when finding out about the original tales you find that these tales were quite violent. The girl was killed, the apple was poison. It all was actually gruesome, but I saw them as just pretend. In our contemporary life violence is everywhere and people say life is no fairy tale. But isn't it? We see people killed for power everyday and dozens of princesses were plotted to be killed by a stepmother for their power. Isn't this the same as a gang shooting of their leader in order to gain new leadership? Fairy tales are much like our contemporary lives and we juts choose to ignore that or think of fairy tales as the pristine violence that is justified later or even soiled before the violence comes to happen. The violence in the fairytales is seen as morally correct. As in when a stepmother wants to kill the princess the stepmothers plan is discovered and foiled and we learn an important lesson about persevering or keeping to your dreams and somehow those will save you. TA-DA, the moral of the story justifies the violence to be had in the fairytale. 
But in our current life is our violence justified? Is the shooting of a little boy while playing in the park justifiable? Is the morality in the cops that put their sirens on in order to get to McDonald's in time to still catch the breakfast deal?
In Edward's own suburbia there are immoral people that are only lightly covered by morality. Joyce seems "innocent" if you avoid the cleavage, but to her neighbors nothing is really questioned. But when she tries to seduce Edward then accuses him of rape, we see how her immoral behavior is not even close to being justified. Edward is a simple plain person, trying to connect with others and trying not to hurt anyone. in actuality all the violence done by Edward is done completely by accident and is thought to be done purposely. The opposite of our fairytales, the harm done later justified with a moral, is here a moral act causing harm thought unjustifiably. The entire scene of suburbia that Edward is put in is backwards as they justify the immoral and treat the moral acts as unjustifiable and create so much hate towards Edward. 

1 comment:

  1. It seems like everyone in the town covers up each other’s flaws and at some point they even try to cover up for Edward when he’s caught breaking into the house. But they turn their backs toward him afterwards because he’s different from all of them. Their whole idea of being perfect and united and whatnot just truly make them show their ugly side. They don’t accept the unique and creative because they are fearful of having change. – Ximena Garcia-Ruiz

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