Fairy Tales

The Three Little Pigs

By Paul Galdone

3 Stars

This is a fairly typical version of the story of the three little pigs.  The three pigs are sent off by their mother, the first little pig builds a house of straw, his house is blown down by the wolf, and is quickly eaten.  The second little pig builds a house of sticks, his house is blown over, and is eaten by the wolf.  The third little pig builds his house of bricks, and ends up outsmarting the wolf, cooking the wolf when he tries to climb down the pig’s chimney, and ultimately eats the wolf. 

Trying to look at this book with a critical perspective, I have heard someone mention that this story is disrespectful of the need of people in third world countries to build using materials such as straw, sticks and mud.  The pigs who use these materials are depicted as less intelligent and more vulnerable.  In this version of the story, the illustrations and text do make the third pig seem more cultured and intelligent than the other pigs.  When the wolf comes to his house, we see him sitting inside a room with pictures on the wall, flowers on the table, and reading a book.  I still think this is a ridiculous theory.  The story wouldn’t work if the wolf in either the straw or stick house survived and the pig in the brick house was eaten.  I sincerely doubt that any of the authors of the various versions of this story were trying to be critical of third world building practices.  I think that this is a story where the pig who uses the most sturdy materials is subsequently given the opportunity to outsmart the wolf.  The wolf doesn’t turn out to be all that difficult to outsmart, and in a weird little twist of the story, the final pig ends up eating the wolf.  Call it pig karma, the punishment fitting the crime… whatever.  This is a classic tale that I for one, don’t feel like over analyzing.

Rumplestiltskin

By Paul Galdone

½ Star

This is the classic version of this fairy tale, where the miller brags about his daughter’s ability to turn straw into gold.  The king locks the girl into a room filled with straw and demands that she turn the straw into gold by morning or he will have her killed.  A strange man appears and spins the straw into gold for her three times.  On the third night, she has to promise the man her first child in return for his spinning the straw into gold.  The king marries the girl, they have a child, and in order for her to keep her child, she must discover the little man’s name.

This story has never made any sense to me.  First of all, in my mind, the two biggest villains of the story are the girl’s father and the king, who eventually becomes her husband.  Her father makes a ridiculous boast about his daughter, apparently turns her over to the king and disappears from the story.  The king wants her to produce gold or he’ll have her killed, but after three nights of making gold, he apparently never asks her to make any more and marries her.  He also disappears from the story after this.  If this were my fairy tale, I’d let them learn the lesson.  In this version, the only one who actually seems to be punished is Rumplestiltskin, who comes in and saves the girl from being killed after making a deal with her and actually gives the girl a chance to win back her child.  I’m not sure what the moral lesson of this story is, but I don’t feel sorry for the girl.  The illustrations of this version make her seem simple and passive and only too willing to marry the king who demanded that she produce gold or be killed.  The baby might have been better off if Rumplestiltskin had taken it away.  What a dumb story!

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