The Green Man

 

Green Man

 

This post is going to be entirely written in green to pay tribute to 'The Green Man'. 
The green man is basically a human head with a mass of leaves around it or coming from it. It can often be found decorating old buildings, particularly churches and gravestones. The earliest Green Man that is known of dates from the 2nd century and was found on a monument to a dead rich citizen. From the 4th century they have been known to be found on christian gravestones and monuments too.

A Jack-in-the-Green

The Green Man has its origins in pagan beliefs, with many being discovered in Britain before the widespread adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Britons. It is interesting that Christianity did choose to adopt the green man as a kind of symbol of its own. Some argue that Christians use it as a mark on their gravestones to symbolise the different stages of life- birth, life and death- and how Christianity or faith can overcome nature.


In the 19th century the Green Man became associated with May Day celebrations, particularly those of the Chimney Sweeps. As May Day is a bank holiday, the chimney sweeps would have a day off and would participate in the festivities (as well as earning a little extra cash through begging) by dancing round a Jack-in-the-Green in a morris dancing fashion. The Jack-in-the-Green would be made out of wicker and leaves and would have a real man inside!




The most modern reinvention of the Green Man is in the Green Man festival down in of course... Wales. It's a folk festival (again of course). Doesn't truly have anything to do with the tradition of the Green Man but I thought it was interesting. Here's a link in case any of you fancy going or just looking at modern day Green Men: www.greenman.net
There's also a Jack-in-the-Green festival on May Day in Hastings. Please actually do check out this website for some true Jack-in-the-Green antics (complete with the mandatory folk musical) : http://www.hastingsjack.co.uk/

Commedia dell'arte Characters

A list of characters to be found in the old Italian genre of theatre that apparently links to Carter's reinvention of Puss in Boots (I can't help but hear Antonio Banderes' voice whenever I type/read that).

As Carter was a feminist and because girls are better than boys here are the female characters first:

• Columbina "little dove"- mistress of Harlequin and wife of Pierrot. She is a comic, 'tricky', servant who is described as often being the only 'functional intellect on stage' (wiki)
• Isabella (a female inamorata). Isabella is Pantalone's daughter and is depicted as being flirtatious and headstrong, constantly trying to escape her controlling father's attempts to set her up with an older suitor. Most of the commedia dell'arte plays are about trying to get the lovers (Isabella and Flavio) together.
• La Ruffiana- An old lady character who used to be a prostitute. Nice. Pantalone is often romantically linked to her but his love can be unrequited. At times she is depicted as a witch (to make things interesting)
• La Signora- A beautiful self assured woman driven by her desires to be fulfilled materially and sexually. Sometimes she is depicted as being Pantalone's wife, at others she is a high class courtesan (prostitute).

Male Characters:

• Pantalone- Is the symbol of money in Commedia. Driven completely by money and ego Pantalone prizes intelligence highly. He is often the father of one of the two lovers (Isabella) and the man who depicts him does so hunchbacked to make him appear old.
• Il Dottore "The doctor"- Crude character that is an old man that claims to know everything about everything. Will not listen to experts in the fields that he claims to have knowledge about. Often one of the elder male characters that gets in the way of the two lovers being together. Has 'old' money.
• Tartaglia- The stutterer. An older male character that is given different ranks dependent on the play, ranging from servant to statesman.
• Scaramouche- Rouge like clown. Always wears black (a bit of a goth). An iconic character in the Punch and Judy puppet shows used in Commedia.
• Harlequin- A servant of one of the vecchio, known for his agility, gets in the way of the Vecchio's plans.
• Male lover- no point having a female lover without a male one. Usually called Flavio.

A nice bit of sex and violence...or not.

Well, we were asked to annotate pages 18-26 of The Bloody Chamber for our homework and after having done this write a blog post on something that caught our interest in the aforementioned passage. Really there were two things that caught my interest the most so here they are:

The imagery of the of the corridor leading towards the torture chamber is really interesting as the passage foreshadows to the reader what the narrator might expect to find in her husband's locked "den". The "Venetian, tapestries" depict images of violence with, "naked swords" and "immolated horses" which the narrator recognizes as "the Rape of the Sabines". The combination and association of violence and sexuality is certainly one that can be recognized in the narrator's husbands sexual tastes, with rape potentially being a climax in sexual ambition for him. The fact that the narrator recognizes the tapestry suggests that she is not quite so naive as the reader (and perhaps even herself) has been lead to believe up untill this point. The purpose behind the tapestries is interesting too as it is to hide what the very tapestries themselves show. The narrator describes how the "heavy hangings on the wall muffled my footsteps"  and the floor is "thickly carpeted". When I initially read The Bloody Chamber (not knowing there was going to be a torture chamber) this sent alarm bells ringing in my head as I recognized that the tapestries and the carpet serve to soundproof the corridor. The screams of the Marquis' victims would be audible were it not for the tapestries and carpets so their function ironically covers up in real life what it depicts in a corrupt fantasy. Pleasant stuff.

On a slightly more light hearted note- I think that the servants are definitely in on the whole torture chamber thing. They at least suspect if not know what the Marquis does to his wives. Evidence in the such as, "How careless I was; a maid, tending the logs, eyed me reproachfully as if I'd set a trap for her as I picked up the clinking bundle of keys" and "I knew by her bereft intonation that I had let them down again" certainly suggest that the servants are aware of the horrors that the keys connote. I think that the servants probably are the mechanism that the Marquis uses to spy on his wife and who keep him informed so that he can arrive back at the perfect time. One could argue that the "reproachful" look of the maid servant actually shows pity for the narrator in her naivety, yet also duty to inform the master which could be the "trap".

Just some ramblings, that's all till next lesson folks...

Mulvey's Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

Well, I've just been trying to read up on this topic, and I must confess, it is quite difficult. I initially started at Mulvey's article itself. Big mistake. Then through a synthesis of wikipedia and someone else's blog I think I understand the basics of the theory. It is very strange though.

Essentially the premises of Mulvey's argument are as follows ( I think):
P1: The woman represents the male other as she has no phallus.
P2: The lack of phallus stirs up anxiety about castration in men when they see women.
P3. HOWEVER men do get sexually aroused when they see a woman (little paradox here)
P4: Mainstream Hollywood allows the audience the opportunity to partake in vouyerism via the male lead thus OBJECTIFYING WOMEN (V.BAD)

There are 3 perspectives from which the female lead can be objectifyed:
1) The male lead's reaction to the female lead
2) The audience towards the female lead
3)The male audience relating to the male lead, allowing the female lead to become the male audience attendee's own sex object.

In all this it is important to remember that the woman is the bearer of meaning and not the maker, although this is where tha paradox of phallocentricism kicks in as the meaning of the phallus is dependent on the existence of females. Males would not see and assert their superiority if there were no women as they would not see the lack of phallus as a weakness as it would not be an option.

'Tis all very strange, and as I'm sure you can tell by the lack of coherency in this blog I don't understand the theory fully. It does all rest on Freud's psychoanalysis as a backdrop which as we all know is a little strange to say the least. However, I do agree that far too often the only point of the female leads is their beauty (shown through the ridiculous number of female leads in Hollywood) and thus the point of their role is merely soft pornography for the male audience members.
This could be adressed 3 ways:
1) Banning men from the movies (just silly)
2) More 'character' female leads i.e. hiring women that can act and don't just have beautiful legs
3) Continue doing what Hollywood is doing at the moment and hire more beautiful men, Mulvey doesn't explore female objectification of men in her essay and as long as the objectification is equal I don't have quite the problem with it.

Anyhow just some thoughts on a very strange homework task. Hope everyone's having a nice half-term :)

Blue Beard in 314 words exactamondo!

The ugly aristocrat ‘Bluebeard’ wants a wife. All of the girls in the area know that all his other wives have disappeared and are scared (but lets face it the blue beard wasn’t a turn on either). He asks to marry one of his neighbour’s two daughters which is apparently ok with their Dad. Eventually, one cracks goes to the palace is wooed by a banquet and stupidly says, “Yes” to marriage. Silly girl. Then they get married and she has a happy life in his Chateau… Jokes.

Bluebeard goes away for a few days and gives his latest prey the keys to his castle, telling her to have fun. He also gives her another key and tells her it opens a mysterious room in the cellar that she must open. The wife enjoys his absence and even throws a few house parties, cheeky thing. HOWEVER, she really wants to know what’s in the room and ignores her sensible sister’s advice to stay away and goes down into the cellar. In the cellar she discovers that curiosity didn’t kill the cat but the other wives!!! In her horror she drops the key in the blood that covers the floor and can’t wash the blood off!

Anyhow, she decides to run away with her sis the next morning but Bluebeard returns unexpectedly (should have just left when she saw the bodies). Bluebeard sees that she knows his secret and is about to behead her when she persuades him to give her 15 minutes to say her prayers. The wife runs up to the highest turret in the tower and locks herself in with her sis. Bluebeard, going crazy with his sword, is about to break down the door, but the girls have managed to call their two brothers (with what? A mobile?). The brave boys kill Bluebeard. The wife inherits and they have a party.

Second Wave of Feminism

Sooooo, as some of you might know/ have a tiny weeny little incling, I am a feminist. So when Mr Francis said look second wave of feminism I was like 'Wooooooo' 'Yeahhhhh' (well a little bit more excited and less sarcastic then that looks in print). Angela Carter is a feminist and The Bloody Chamber is  basically setting Fairytales in a Matriarchy in essensce. Role reversal. 'How would you like it?' fashion. And this is a good thing, let us not forget that even though the publication of The Bloody Chamber may have come in 1979, towards the end of the big second wave of feminism, 33 years later we still live in a patriarchy. Great.

This post could just turn into me having a big moan, but we've been told to look for images of the second wave of feminism so I've been racking my brains to see what I can come up with...



The Society for Cutting Up Men



Andy Warhol after being shot by Valerie Solanas



I'm not personally a fan but...



Equal Pay Campaign!



Changelings

Well, seeing as we have been asked to blog on an aspect of fairytales that interests us, I've decided to blog about Changelings as they combine two key things in fairy tales- fairies and children.

Fairytales are meant to convey moral messages to their readerships. They are essentially a collection of folklore tales amalgamated from a variety of different sources across Europe. A lot of the now famous tales were very dark when they were composed as they were told mainly to adults, not children. It was only in the Victorian era that fairytales were deemed to be more appropriate for a child audience and their content was tuned down. Interestingly, the sexual nature of fairy tales was reduced, an example of this is in Rapunzel when the witch notices the Prince's visits because Rapunzel's clothes have become tighter (she's pregnant!!) not because Rapunzel remarks that the witch weighs more than the witch.

I think that we now teach fairytales to a child audience, albeit usually via the media of Disney, because in the 21st Century adults cannot suspend their disbelief to the same extent that a child who believes in fairies can. It also provides a great medium for conveying morals to children, learning through storytelling. However, going back in time many people were very superstitious. Back in medieval times it would not be uncommon for people to believe in witches, fairies or ogres- partially because of the lack of travel that people did, they never fully explored their worlds.

How does this all lead me on to Changelings? Well children are a recurrent theme in fairytales, they often play the lead roles and a lot of the strife that occurs in the stories results from children leaving home. Back in t'olden days people would try and explain the disapperances of children as being the work of the fairies. In some circumstances the fairies would take the children without replacing them, this might be used to explain a child disappearance. In other circumstances, the fairies would switch the children with fairy children- hence changelings. Changelings helped to explain things that medical science at the time couldn't, many parents who had children with disabilities both physical and mental believed that their original child had been switched. Unfortunately, the rejection that is also associated with changelings would mean that some parents wouldn't acknowledge the child and would leave it outside untill it died. :(. I'm not sure whether the concept of changelings is derived from people hearing fairytales or vice versa but either way it is a sad, albeit mystical explanation for the feeling of or actually losing a child. Examples in literature of changelings are huge, one famous example is that when Titannia and Oberon are fighting over a human child (which Titannia has presumably switched) in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I also mentioned that my dad often played a song about fairies taking children last lesson. I knew it was a poem put to music but couldn't remember who wrote the poem, what it was called and who put it to music. The poem/ song is called "The Stolen Child" and was written by W.B. Yeats in 1889 (ok- famous poet, should have known him really). It is based on Irish legend and folklore. The poem was put to music by The Waterboys and here is the video below, enjoy!