Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The Philosophers Stone
The Philosophers Stone has the length of a short story, but managers to maintain its fairy tail status by the way it is written and the random use of magic. The way that it is written still sounds like it could be told orally in many parts. its as if the author is telling us the story one on one. The first page alone sounds as if it should be narrated, with the exception of the difficulty of some of the words. At the beginning of the story, magic is viewed in almost a disdainful way, but suddenly after the king is taken for all he has, a fairy appears. This random and ludicrous appearance of the absurd lends itself to the fairy tale genre. The quest for happiness that the king continues on also lends itself to being a fairy tail. He transitions between every level of society in order to give himself a more well rounded worldly view. The path he follows is almost that of reincarnation. Because of his bad karma in the beginning, he comes back as a donkey. He then is able to progress his way to peasant. At the end he is offered the chance to become a king, once again following the idea of coming back higher than the last life. At this juncture, he makes the fairy tale decision and stays as the peasant, thus teaching us all that happiness doesn't necessarily come with title or possessions. The different transformations that occur in regards to identity and deception, especially on the fairies and peasant girl's part, give this tail a fairy tail feeling as well. The idea that nothing is as it seems in the real world, but everything will turn out okay helps make this a fairy tail.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I like how you identify randomness as a crucial element of the fairy tale, distinguishing it from short stories or simple allegories. I always got the sense from the traditional fairy tales we've read that the "rules" of the world we're learning about are more or less being made up as the story goes along, bending and breaking whenever the storyteller needs to emphasize this or that point. Short stories, on the other hand, usually operate with the assumption that the world they speak of is fundamentally coherent or understandable, and the purposes of such stories often involve showing how its characters come to grips with those hard and fast rules (e.g. dealing with death, injustice, lost love, etc.). What makes The Philosopher's Stone so tricky is that King Mark has to learn "real world" lessons (inflation, honest work, etc.) despite residing in fairy tale realms. I'd agree that TPS is a fairy tale at heart, but its focus on Mark's development as a character and the lessons he learns really confuses the issue.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you mention the class system. I had not thought about this aspect of the story, but it is true that fairy tales seem to favor the peasants. Yes, there are kings and princesses, but they are the reward for the peasant usually. This story definitely focuses on how being a peasant is a good thing... that is essentially the reward in the end. I also like how you mention the quest in a fairy-tale like realm. This is true and the magic and unknown "rules" about what can and cannot happen in this world makes the story even more like a fairy-tale. Despite the length, it is definitely more like a fairy-tale than any normal short story.
ReplyDelete