On
Fairy
Stories and Environment
Julio
Enrique Correa
Dr. Julio Enrique Correa
M.P. 40.353
Médico
Psicoterapeuta. Terapia Familiar
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Dirección :
Pacheco de Melo 2949 2º"D"
(1425)
Buenos Aires Argentina
TE.:
(54 11) 4-8025950
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Into the Woods is a 2014 film, with Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp amongst other actors, directed by Rob Marshall, and adapted to the screen by James Lapine from his and Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name[Burlingame, 2015]. It features the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales characters ("Little Red Riding Hood", "Cinderella", "Jack and the Beanstalk", “The childless baker”, "Rapunzel") interacting in a genre crossover that centers in the correction of their individual archetypal behaviors[Kit, Siegel, 2013], into group articulated behaviors. The melting pot for such transforming bricollage is the forest, the woods, offering an appropriate “fairy-story” stage for the adventures of men in the Perilous Realm or upon its shadowy marches [Tolkien, J.R.R.]. Such environment would come to express ancient limitations from which fairy-stories offer a sort of guidance to follow: “Our fates are sundered, and our paths seldom meet. Even upon the borders of Faërie we encounter them only at some chance crossing of the ways” [Tolkien, J.R.R.]. According to W.G.Sebald, there are many forms of writing, but only literature can undertake an attempt to restitution. “Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark”, recited Dante Allighieri - From The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri:
Inferno, Canto I
Dante
Alighieri, 1265 - 1321
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.
I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.
But after I had reached a mountain’s foot,
At that point where the valley terminated,
Which had with consternation pierced my heart,
Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,
Vested already with that planet’s rays
Which leadeth others right by every road.
Then was the fear a little quieted
That in my heart’s lake had endured throughout
The night, which I had passed so piteously.
And even as he, who, with distressful breath,
Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,
Turns to the water perilous and gazes;
So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward,
Turn itself back to re-behold the pass
Which never yet a living person left.
After my weary body I had rested,
The way resumed I on the desert slope,
So that the firm foot ever was the lower.
And lo! almost where the ascent began,
A panther light and swift exceedingly,
Which with a spotted skin was covered o’er!
And never moved she from before my face,
Nay, rather did impede so much my way,
That many times I to return had turned.
The time was the beginning of the morning,
And up the sun was mounting with those stars
That with him were, what time the Love Divine
In
this occasion the poet is not alone and meets other poets singing different
verses accounting to their respective tasks. As in William
Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night's Dream” play, various interconnecting plots unroll,
connected in between by a celebration of the wedding of Duke Theseus of Athens and
the Amazon queen, Hippolyta,
which is set simultaneously in the woodland and in the realm of Fairyland,
under the light of the moon. “Into the
woods” fairy land is located in the woods in close relation to a
Swamp eco
region, which naturally holds a big number of species of plants and animals.
Poetry
and drama evolve through the magic of fairies, elves and artists
that connect to the lovers as if were inspired by the Greek names and their
myths and philosophy. Here so, the swamp banishes the witch and her magic,
attempting to preserve Rapunzel from contamination with the other character
stories. Therefore Fairy
Stories creativity
seems to align with Environmental creativity...
Although fairy tales refer to supernatural events, those are always
related to common events in nature. The village in the story is itself located
at the edge of the woods. Protagonists celebrate “more than life/ more than
jewels” as these would turn equivalents in the poetic realm, all of them are
directly (Birds in Cinderella) or indirectly (Cow in Jack and the beanstalk,
Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood) helped by animals and hopefully
sheltered by trees. . Flocks of “little birds, from leaves and eaves, over
fields, out of castles and ponds”, “the woods are just trees, the trees are just
wood, into the woods and down the dell, the path is straight, I know it well”,
an oak tree for Little Red Riding Hood’s granny’s home. The witch makes her
“potion” cooking all together,
characters’ animals (“a cow as white as milk”), body or spirit (“a cape as red
as blood”), plants (“the hair as yellow as corn”) and metals (slippery as pure
as gold”), respectively related to harvest/ alchemy mythologies. Poetic language
nurtures fairy tales storytelling searching to re-discover meanings enclosed in their messages (see excerpt Correa, 2006a).
The archetypal patterns express in a concrete
way the main images and symbols (...) constituting a man’s resource for self
and world’s understanding, providing different ways of understanding by
bridging different cultures in the collective as in the personal worlds. The
Grimm brothers hinted the difference in between the saga (historical) and the
fairy tale (poetical): “Das marchen poetischer, die daga hystoricher”.
Supernatural highlights in the former, not in the saga where it appears as a
confrontation of man with nature. Collaboration of a grateful animal or the
talking bird exerting magical power is a universal theme associated to the
Paradise myth; inter-communication powers are evident in the animals helping
humans, providing a paradisiacal status (Cooper, 1983). In turn, the folklore
story hasn’t a happy ending. As for the structural story type, “Into the woods”
constitutes a contemporary version of fairy tales that corresponds to children
stories conventionally holding a moral at the end of the story, as i.e. Charles
Perrault’s
“Little Red Riding Hood” does (Cooper, 1983).
Moral: Children, especially attractive, well bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf. I say "wolf," but there are various kinds of wolves. There are also those who are charming, quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet, who pursue young women at home and in the streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all.
As result of the interaction amongst group members that is provided by the group recreational setting for storytelling (see excerpt Correa & Hobbs, 2007), the story reaches a new way of meaning comprehension “You brought us to light” says Little Red Riding Hood to the baker, while in between him and his wife starts recognition about the powers of association: “You’ve changed. You’re thriving. There’s something about the woods. You’re daring. You’re different in the woods. Be sure, more sharing. You are not the man that started. And much more open hearted that I knew you to be. It takes two of us. It takes patience and fear and despair to change. You’re changed. Not just surviving. You’re blossoming in the woods. At home I’d feared we’d stay the same forever. I’m becoming ... Each accepting a share”. The moral at the end attends such connectedness amongst father and children, as an evolution from the initial witch commandment “Children must listen. This world is dark and wild”, supporting over involvement and enmeshment in the parent’s / child bond (see excerpt Correa, 2006b), attempting to maintain a lost early mother type bond, from which the father is deserted.
The witch: “What did I clearly say? Children must listen. What were you not to do. Children must see and learn. Why could you not obey? Children should listen. What I have been to you? What would you have me be? Handsome like a prince? But I am old and I am ugly. I embarrass you. You are ashamed of me. You are ashamed. You don’t understand”.
Rapunzel: “I am not longer a child. I wish to see the world”.
W: “Don’t you know what’s out there in the world? Someone has to shield you from the world. Stay with me. Stay at home. Who out there could love you more than I? What out there that I cannot supply? Stay with me. The world is dark and wild. Stay a child. While you could be a child with me”.
While in the woods, the baker’s wife BF becomes involved with the prince in a confusing episode: “What I am doing here? I’m in a wrong story”. [Prince: “Right and wrong don’t matter in the woods. Only feelings”. BF: “Was it wrong? Am I mad?”].
After she disappears by the ogre woman steps, her husband B decides to desert from his children: “I depended on my wife for everything. She was the one who helped”. Cinderella: “Would you leave the child?” [B: “”He’ll be happier in the arms of a princess”. But soon afterwards when he finds his own father in the woods, he recalls he also deserted him when he was a child, explaining he did it so because he hated himself and run away from his guilt and his shame, when in turn his own wife died: “Be better than me”, “Do better”, moving the baker to return to fetch his own son: “People make mistakes. Fathers. Mothers. Holding to their own. Thinking they’re alone.// Someone is in your side. Someone else is not. You´re not alone. No one is alone”. Then, after the giant woman gets killed as the very tall tree falls down (any deforestation alarm allusion coming?), the children ask the baker to move together whereas “just calm the child. Tell him stories. Be father and mother. You’ll know what to do”. Hence, the father starts telling his story: “Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom there lay a small village at the edge of the woods. Careful the things you say. Children will listen. Careful the things you do. Children will see and learn. Guide them along the way. Children will listen. Children will look to you for which way to turn, to learn what to be. Careful before you say: Listen to me. Children will listen. Careful the wish you make, wishes are children. Careful the path they take, wishes come true. Not free. Careful the spell you cast, not just for children. .... Sometimes the spell may last past what you can see and turn against you. Careful the tale you tell, that is the spell children will listen…”
At last two missing commandments arise in the father/ children family story as a moral at the end of this film story, enlightening transcendent two tasks taking the woods as metaphor for both: 1) Do not abandon/ neglect the children; 2) Do not abandon/ neglect nature, the environment. The first commandment attempts to repair contemporary children bonds with their missing parents by securing the father to fulfil both father/ mother roles instead to leave them forsaken and completely alone, wether the second commandment seems more a punishment coming from loss of mothers (from all characters), together with the castration of mother nature (the chop of the tall "giant" tree as logging); no fairies nor elves will now preserve nature or environment from witches threat of earth condemnation to the denial of helplesness:
"Careful the spell you cast, not just for children. .... Sometimes the spell may last past what you can see and turn against you”.
________________________________________________________________________________
Excerpts
Correa,
2006a “A narrativa poética: a recriação
e interação pela concordância", Revista ACB:
Biblioteconomia (Florianópolis, Brasil), v11, n. 2: 333-343 [http://www.acbsc.org.br/revista/ojs],
Poetic narrative: a multicultural vision. Poetic
language may simulate a dance with ability to merge together linguistic and
body expressive means and resources, a permanent language motion through rhythm
and sound searching to re-discover meanings enclosed in their messages. In
order to explore such a statement it is shown the concordance interplay:
1) between the Portuguese and Italian versions from a poem written by Italian
poet Giacomo Leopardi: “The infinite”, 2) in the poetic dialogue made by the
movement narrative depicted by dancers when devoting to create a choreography
based on a story about a journey through South America, and the storyteller message
built up during the dance rehearsal of the choreography work. The role of
poetic narrative is discussed concerning esthetic education leading to the
social construction of reality along to its expression in democracy.
Correa & Hobbs, 2007 “Storytelling to the group and group recreation of the story/ Narration du contes au groupe et recréation du conte pour le groupe”, Interfaces Brasil/ Canadá, 7: 109-135.
This paper
describes the process of story-telling and group story recreation, that
developed in a workshop which applied storytelling to group bereavement issues
within a small multicultural group context. The original trigger story that was
told to the group, was selected for working the mourning subject and was studied in comparison to the elicited recreated group stories and to a renown novel which was selected because of its
relevance to the matter [“L’Étranger”, A.Camus].
Structural analysis showed self-centered characters in the authors’ narrative,
whereas the group recreation of the story transformed the original plot based
on a lonely protagonist’s fate into a new one where characters need to share their losses
with others. This was simultaneous to the forging of a significant “fraternal” kind
of communicative style between participants, focused on sharing their
experiences of loss. At the final stage, participants retold personal stories
on the grounds of overt expression of feelings, emotions and thoughts as well
as critical comments that are not usual to observe in recent acquaintances. Such a group
dynamics is discussed in the framework of narrative spaces: storytelling roles
for every group member seems crucial for dealing with mourning themes as
well as to practise the “right of speech”, that families and social groups
currently endow with different priorities to the groups’ members, languages and
cultures.
Correa, 2006b “Communication through stories to promote differentiation of enmeshed family groups”, Human Systems: The Journal of Systemic Consultation & Management [U.K.], Volume 17, 67-80.
This paper addresses an original approach to family
therapy employing metaphoric language of storytelling and story creation in
parent/ child communication, as a means of encouraging children’s learning of
autonomous behavior in families with insulin dependent diabetic children that
failed in the learning of diabetes self care. Family groups attending medical
diabetes care meetings were invited to participate in two different narrative
treatment schemes: 1) a four family interview therapy schedule [Ft] using
storytelling and 2) a multiple family bibliotherapeutic program based on
storytelling workshops. Only two families attending these meetings fulfilled
the FT schedule, one of them attending a workshop of the latter program. Three
years later mothers reported sustained changes in children’s learning of
diabetic control. these issues are discussed in the framework of a possible
role of narrative therapy in shaping family communication by establishing
narrative spaces for every family member, together to help them in the sharing
of grief by selecting mourning themes in the stories. storytelling used in Family
therapy seems legitimised as a relevant method for designing new relational
structures in enmeshed families, enhancing learning skills in the family
process of adaptation to serious illness.
Specific
therapeutic interventions with stories were designed to shape the structure of
the family: 1) settling boundaries by promoting new conversational settings
between members, in which learned or self created stories could be further
listened by parents in the family session or observed under the therapist’s
guidance at the one way mirror room; 2) displacing the family members’
relations to the stories’ metaphoric structure -as i.e.: to children’s created
or recreated stories or to comments and interactions on storytelling
performances-, or else permitting parents and children to argue or to be
confronted by the therapist on the storytelling roles instead of directly on
their parental disfunction-. We had previously claimed that in telling stories
to the family, “children build up their own imaginary space that has to be
respected by parents and children”; and this relates to develop their autonomy
and development of symbolic thought in order to learn new behaviors (Correa, González
& Weber, 1991). By telling, creating and recreating stories, children may
find a way to decentralize from an enmeshed relation with a parent, replacing
it with an imaginary one that becomes a “companion” in the learning process.
This scope supports narrative tasks to be given to children in order to build
up a separated environment for the child’s creativity with the story.
Furthermore by opening up new narrative channels among members (Bowen, 1991),
differentiation
is promoted also in parents helping them to enlighten their orientation and
guidance
roles (Correa,
Gonzalez and Weber, 1991). In order to achieve differentiation for both members
of the dyad with
high emotional fusion, it is necessary to consider that if over-involved
children
are to detach,
parents also need a gain for achieving a successful disengagement. B.
Bettelheim
(1988) quoted
T.S. Elliot’s advice to parents to use children’s nightmares as an opportunity
to
explore their
own, which would benefit both. Accomplishing a common positive emotional
experience has,
therefore, a two-fold effect, and Bettelheim claims the same for story reading
by parents:
through it, the latter could get better understanding of their own childhood,
while
children might
find a way of communicating with parents as well as sharing with them (Shrank,
1979). In this
paper the aim of creating an enriched setting for emotional interaction would
meet
those mother’s needs
of sharing with their children actual emotional experiences that they didn’t
have an
opportunity to practice with their own mothers. Bowen (1989) states that
‘developing
person-to-person
relations is a first step in differentiating from the parental family’. He
proposed
to tell the
“secret family stories” to the involved relatives and to ask recollections of
past events
with the families
of origin as opportunities for starting it. We claim these same features make
storytelling suitable for helping families under bereavement. Storytelling
indeed is a cultural habit of recalling past events or ancient social and
family myths, that survive under different group storytelling settings
following a “family narrative model” that nurtures from a close and differentiated
relationship between individuals -which could be properly characterized as
inter-personal- and maintains an intimate environment for sharing conversations
with deep emotional content amongst the family members at the same time that promote
individuation/ differentiation in each of them. When families and other social
groups undergo bereavement experiences are challenged to recreate their stories
about loss (Correa, 1993a; Correa & Hobbs, 2007), that otherwise will
remain the same. Inability to cope with loss and disease as well as belated
mourning processes indeed are family patterns “transmitted” from parents to
children (Paul & Grosser, 1965). M. Selvini Palazzoli et al (1982)
described a clinic case where a child displayed psychotic symptoms in order to
replace his grandfather’s interaction with his daughter after his death. Bowen
(1980) mentions among several examples the very intense emotional relationship
between the mother and her schizophrenic child, whose birth happened a short
time after the mother’s mother death. The child’s symptoms may then play a substitute
for a lost family member, helping parents to avoid accomplishing difficult
separation tasks from their families of origin. In the present study the two
diabetic girls showed how to replace an intense and lost bond of the over-involved
mothers with their own parents. Therefore vulnerability to separation stemmed from
the same difficulty the latter had with their own parents, being detoured
through intensive control of the child’s illness and treatment. Children
responded with a similar behavioural pattern to parents’ vulnerability, fearing
their own parents’ loss. If this is so, replacing an absent family member with
another one, would aim not only to cope with loss (Paul & Grosser, 1965,
Simon, Stierlin & Wynne, 1988), but to continue to be linked to the family
of origin. In this experience we selected specific stories for parting
experiences to be used with families dealing with unresolved longstanding
grief. Also we built a bibliotherapeutic multiple family format with substitute
grannies that may be seen a replicate of a natural family pathway to help
children in their process of differentiating from parents, supporting a deep
person to person relation with the former. Moreover mothers attending such
workshops find on storyteller grandparents substitutes to play a function with
their children their parents couldn’t play (Correa, u.p.). Maintaining and
recreating in memory specially made stories with a therapeutic objective –as literature
specially selected or made for coping with separation and loss in the
therapeutic aid of mourning (Bernstein, 1988; Gersie, 1991; Correa, 1992), as
well as folk stories (Hagglund, 1976)-, may help those under bereavement to
cope with desertion, creating an intimate sense of protection or everlasting
closeness (Correa, Lema, de Artiagoitia et al., 1979; Correa & Vazquez, 1982).We
had proposed a psychotherapeutic model for treating both the terminal patient
in the dying process and his/ her family group, supporting the use of
storytelling and body contact techniques as based on the natural learning of
detachment in the early mother-child bond (Correa, 2006), hence providing
relief from fears of unfavorable outcome and death (Correa, 1993b). Helping
children to speak with their own family through literary imagination -whose
narrative structure mirrors the storyteller (Correa, 1982) or the story writer
(Correa, u.p.)-, at the same time that encouraging parents to understand
children through their own storytelling and play languages, may prove a path
for children and parents to respectively develop and respect such
narrative spaces.
This family narrative model helps family groups to differentiate and find their
own responses to
difficult human situations as the ones of grief, by establishing and sharing
narrative spaces
for dealing with mourning themes and empowering every family constituent
members to find
storytelling roles in order to differently express the telling of their own
stories.
References
Alighieri, Dante. “The Divine Comedy”, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Burlingame, Jon (November 4, 2014). "Rob
Marshall Boldly Explores Disney’s Take on Twisted Tale ‘Into the Woods’". Variety
(Variety Media, LLC). Retrieved January
7, 2015. [From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]
Cooper, J.C.; “Fairy Tales.
Allegories of the inner life”, The aquarian press (1983) –Spanish version
“Cuentos de hadas. Alegorías de los munos internos”, Barcelona:
Editorial Sirio (1986).
Correa, J.E., “A narrativa poética: a
recriação e interação pela concordância", Revista ACB:
Biblioteconomia (Florianópolis, Brasil), v11, n. 2: 333-343 [http://www.acbsc.org.br/revista/ojs], 2006a.
Correa, J.E., “Communication through stories to promote
differentiation of enmeshed family groups”, Human Systems:
The Journal of Systemic Consultation & Management [U.K.], Volume 17, 67-80,
2006b.
Correa, J.E. & Hobbs,
N., “Storytelling to the group and group recreation of the story/ Narration du
contes au groupe et recréation du conte pour le groupe”, Interfaces Brasil/
Canadá, 7: 109-135, 2007.
Kit, Borys; Tatiana Siegel (May 14, 2013). "Chris
Pine, Jake Gyllenhaal Circling Musical 'Into the Woods' (Exclusive)". The
Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September
5, 2013 [From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia]
Kuffer, Paula -Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona-, “Representación, melancolía y resistencia: el materialismo espectral de W.G. Sebald”, *Boletín de Estética Nº 30 *(Verano 2014-2015), Programa de Estudios en Filosofía del Arte del Centro de Investigaciones Filosóficas, Buenos Aires
http://www.boletindeestetica.com.ar/
Perrault, Charles. “Little Red Riding Hood”
Tolkien, J.R.R.:”On Fairy Stories”. [From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REFERENCES from excerpt Correa, 2006b “Communication through stories to promote differentiation of enmeshed family groups”, Human Systems: The Journal of Systemic Consultation & Management [U.K.], Volume 17, 67-80.
Bernstein, J.E. (1988), Books to
help children cope with separation and Loss, New York:
R.R.Bowker.
Bettelheim, B. (1988), A good
enough parent, New York: Vintage Books
Bowen, M. (1980), Esquizofrenia y familia, in D. Jackson, Etiologia de la esquizofrenia, Buenos
Aires: Amorrortu (The Etiology.of
Schizophrenia, N.York: Basic Books, 1960).
Bowen, M. (1989), ”Sobre la diferenciación del self”, in M. Bowen, La
terapia familiar en la
práctica clínica, Bilbao: Biblioteca de Psicologia Désclée de Brouwer, Vol.
2: 185- 242.
(Family Therapy in Clinical
Practice, N.York: Jason Aronson, 1978).
Correa, J.E., Lema A.E., de Artiagoitia M, et al. (1979), “Bereavement in the cancer
patient
history: the story tellin
attendance” (Abstract), Advances in Medical Oncology, Research and
Education, 12: 580. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Correa, J.E. y Vázquez, O.R. de: (1980), “Los dos cuentos:
una investigación psicoanalítica del
cuento de estructura maravillosa”, Ludo : 4- 5: 10-29.
Correa, J.E. & Vázquez O.R.
(1982b), “Telling stories to terminal cancer patients”, XIII
International Cancer Congress
(Seattle), .Abstracts: 497.
Correa, J.E., González, O.B. &
Weber, M. S. (1991), “Story telling in families with children: A
therapeutic approach to learning
problems”, Contemp.Fam.Ther., 13 (1), 33-59.
Correa, J.E. (1992), “Story telling
for the family of a dead child”, 11th International Congress
of Group Psychotherapy, Montréal,
August 22-28, Abstracts: D3.02b.
Correa, J.E. (1993a), “Story telling
to the bereaved group and group recreation of the story”,
Résumés des communications du 10°
Colloque de l’Associatión des art-thèrapeutes du Québec,
Montréal: 8.
Correa, J.E. (1993b), “Facing fear
of cancer and unfavourable prognosis: creation of stories
together with ill children and their
families”, Résumés des communications du 10° Colloque
de l’Associatión des art-thèrapeutes du Québec, Montréal: 7.
Correa, J. E. (2006), “Modelo de terapia familiar en
pacientes terminales: las técnicas del
aprendizaje natural de la separación materno-filial”, Acta Psiquiátrica y Psicológica
de
América Latina, 52 (2): 127-135.
Correa, J.E, “Children’s literary
imagination: a hidden language leading to communication with
the family”, (Unpublished paper).
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T-B. (1976), “Dying. A
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Into the Woods [From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]
Script
|
James Lapine
|
Based in
|
Into the Woods by James Lapine y Stephen Sondheim
|
Music
|
Stephen Sondheim
|
Photography
|
Dion Beebe
|
Year
|
2014
|
