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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
CapriUni BS: CapriUni's blog: disability in folktales (228* d) RE: BS: CapriUni's blog: disability in folktales 09 Oct 11


Yes. ...Those are two of my favorites, and remembering that the witch (wise woman) at the beginning of "The Goose-Girl" uses her disability to test the character of the Prince/Hero made me so happy, because that gives me reason to share it and pontificate on it (And I've often wondered, in the back of my mind, if that Germanic-quasi-Goddess witch figure, who watches over the abused, and protects them by transforming them into geese is the root/origin of "Mother Goose").

I also love "The Six Swans" -- the imagery of the shirts woven from asters being thrown over the backs of flying swans is just so visually striking. And the chutzpah of the protagonist heroine when she realizes she cannot trust her father to protect her, so she strikes out on her own, makes me gleeful.

But I've been going back and forth on whether her six years of voluntary mutism counts as a "disability" or not. On the one hand, her situation mirrors the lives of many people who cannot speak (including children with more severe forms of cerebral palsy) who are at the mercy of others in authority who make all the decisions about their lives. But on the other hand, her muteness is imposed from the outside, and not any limit of her own abilities, and the whole story may be more a reflection of cultural sexism, rather than ableism.

So I haven't made my mind up on that, yet...


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