A cautionary tale is a traditional story told in folklore, to warn its hearer of a danger. A narrative or story is a construct created in a suitable format (written spoken poetry prose images song Theater, or Dance) that describes a sequence of History The concept of folklore developed as part of the 19th century ideology of Romantic nationalism, leading to the reshaping of oral traditions to serve modern ideological There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. First, a taboo or prohibition is stated: some act, location, or thing is said to be dangerous. A taboo is a strong Social prohibition (or ban) against words objects actions or discussions that are considered undesirable or offensive by a group culture Then, the narrative itself is told: someone disregarded the warning and performed the forbidden act. Finally, the violator comes to an unpleasant fate, which is frequently related in large and grisly detail.
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Cautionary tales and conformity
Cautionary tales are ubiquitous in popular culture; many urban legends are framed as cautionary tales: from the lover's lane haunted by a hook-handed murderer to the tale of a man who shot a cactus for fun only to die when the plant toppled onto him. Popular culture (or pop culture) is the Culture — patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance — An urban legend or urban myth is a form of modern Folklore consisting of stories thought to be factual by those circulating them Murder is the unlawful killing of another human person with Malice aforethought, as defined in Common Law countries A cactus (plural cacti) is any member of the Spine plant family Cactaceae, native to the Americas Like horror fiction generally, the cautionary tale exhibits an ambivalent attitude towards social taboos. Horror fiction is broadly Fiction in any medium intended to scare unsettle or horrify the audience The narrator of a cautionary tale is momentarily excused from the ordinary demands of etiquette that discourages the use of gruesome or disgusting imagery because the tale serves to reinforce some other social taboo. Etiquette is a code that governs the expectations of Social behavior, according to the contemporary conventional norm within a Society,
Those whose job it is to enforce conformity therefore frequently resort to cautionary tales. The notorious German language anthology, Struwwelpeter, contains tales such as "Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug" (The Dreadful Story of Pauline and the Matches); it is fairly easy to deduce the ending from the title. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Der Struwwelpeter (1845 is a popular German Children's book by Heinrich Hoffmann which has been translated into English. Social guidance films such as Boys Beware or Reefer Madness are deliberately patterned after traditional cautionary tales, as were the notorious driver education films of the 1960s, or military films about syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. Social guidance films constitute a genre of Films attempting to guide children and adults to behave in certain ways Boys Beware is a film released through Sid Davis Productions The film deals with a perceived danger to young boys that of predatory homosexuals. Reefer Madness (aka Tell Your Children) is a 1936 Exploitation film revolving around the tragic events that ensue when High school Driver's education or driver's ed is a class or program offered by independent agencies and most High schools in the United States. The 1960s decade refers to the years from the beginning of 1960 to the end of 1969 Syphilis is a Sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirochetal Bacterium Treponema pallidum pallidum. A sexually transmitted disease ( STD) or venereal disease ( VD) is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between Humans The framework of the cautionary tale became a cliché in the slasher films of the 1980s, in which adolescents who had sex, drank alcoholic beverages, or smoked marijuana inevitably ended up as the victims of the serial killer villain. A cliché (from French, klɪ'ʃe or cliche is a phrase expression or idea that has been overused to the point of losing its intended force The slasher film (sometimes referred to as bodycount films and dead teenager movies) is a Sub-genre The 1980s was the decade spanning from January 1 1980 to December 31 1989. Sexual intercourse, in its biological sense is the act in which the male reproductive organ (in humans and other higher animals enters the female reproductive tract Cannabis, also known as marijuana or marihuana, or ganja (from Hindi / Sanskrit: गांजा gānjā hemp) is a A serial killer is a person who Murders usually three or more people with a "cooling off" period between each murder and whose motivation for killing is largely based
On the other hand, in the adolescent culture of the United States, for more than a hundred years the traditional cautionary tale gave rise to the phenomenon of legend tripping, in which a cautionary tale is turned into the basis of a dare that invites the hearer to test the taboo by breaking it. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Legend tripping, also known as "ostension" is a name recently bestowed by Folklorists and anthropologists on an Adolescent practice (containing
Reactions to cautionary tales
The genre of the cautionary tale has been satirized by many writers. Hilaire Belloc in his Cautionary Tales for Children, presented such moral exemplars as "Jim, Who ran away from his Nurse, and was eaten by a Lion", and "Matilda, Who told lies, and was Burned to Death". Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (27 July 1870 &ndash 16 July 1953 was a French -born Writer who became a Naturalised British subject Lewis Carroll, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, says that Alice
- had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked "poison", it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (ˈdɒdsən (27 January 1832 &ndash 14 January 1898 better known by the Pen name Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/ was an English Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865 is a novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson better known under the Pseudonym Lewis
In The Complete Tribune Printer, Eugene Field gave cautionary tales an ironic inversion, as in The Gun:
- This is a gun. Eugene Field Sr ( September 2, 1850 - November 4, 1895) was an American writer best known for his children's poetry and humorous Is the Gun loaded? Really, I do not know. Let us Find out. Put the Gun on the table, and you, Susie, blow down one barrel while you, Charlie, blow down the other. Bang! Yes, it was loaded. Run quick, Jennie, and pick up Susie's head and Charlies lower Jaw before the Nasty Blood gets over the New carpet.
Some films, such as Gremlins, satirized this framework by imposing very arbitrary rules whose violation results in horrendous consequences for the community. Gremlins is a American dark comedy horror Movie directed by Joe Dante and released in 1984 by Warner Bros
Cautionary tales are sometimes heavily criticized for their ham-fisted approach to ethics. The Cold Equations is a well known example. " The Cold Equations " is a Science fiction short story by Tom Godwin, first published in Astounding Magazine in 1954 In the story a man has to throw a young woman out of the airlock, otherwise his rocket will not have enough thrust to deliver some badly needed medicine. Her death is justified because she ignored a 'no entry' sign and because 'when the laws of physics say no, they don't mean maybe'. However, any number of items in the cabin weighed far more than the woman did, and these could have been thrown out the airlock instead.
References
- Clover, Carol J. Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Carol J Clover born in 1940 is a professor of film rhetoric and Scandinavian at the University of California Berkeley (Princeton, 1992; ISBN 0-691-04802-9).
- Jones, Steven Swann. "On Analyzing Fairy Tales: 'Little Red Riding Hood' Revisited", in Western Folklore, vol. Little Red Riding Hood is a famous fairy tale about a young girl's encounter with a wolf 46, no. 2 (Apr. , 1987)
- Schmidt, Gary D. , "Secrets beyond the Door: The Story of Bluebeard and His Wives (review)", in The Lion and the Unicorn, v. 30, no. 1, (January 2006) - Discusses the traditional folktale of Bluebeard as a cautionary tale. History The concept of folklore developed as part of the 19th century ideology of Romantic nationalism, leading to the reshaping of oral traditions to serve modern ideological Bluebeard is the title character in a famous Fairy tale about a violent nobleman and his curious wife
- Smith, Ken. Ken Smith can refer to Ken Smith (architect (born 1953 Kenny Smith (ice hockey (1924-2000 professional ice hockey player Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945 - 1970 (Blast Books, 1999: ISBN 0-922233-21-7). Mental Hygiene Classroom Films 1945 - 1970 is a 1999 book by former Comedy Channel writer Ken Smith, about a large genre of Social guidance films
- White, Beatrice, "A Persistent Paradox", in Folklore, vol. 83, no. 2 (Summer, 1972) - the tale of King Yunan from The 1001 Nights as a cautionary tale. This is a list of characters within the Medieval collection of Middle Eastern Folk tales One Thousand and One Nights.
See also
Morphology, broadly is the study of form or structure Folkloristic morphology, then is the study of the structure of folklore and fairy talesDapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic