Expanded Narrative – The Wolf – Santa Claus?

The last lecture of the semester was on expanded narrative, focusing on the Wolf through narrative history. From totems, to little red ridding hood, to a film clip that I really wish could be unseen. But instead of going down the interesting but disturbing route of the wolf, I have decided to explore the history of the figure of Santa Claus since it is coming round to that time of year again. Santa Claus was originally the 4th century saint Nicholas from Turkey, who lived around the time of emperor Constantine. Who supposedly once slapped a bishop for saying that Jesus wasn’t holy enough.

St. Nick slapping the bishop. picture from : http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/the-3-creepiest-facts-about-real-santa-claus/

I’m writing this as I watch Arthur Christmas, which is about Santa Claus in the 21st Century. I’m from the UK so my Santa Claus tradition is that Santa comes on Christmas eve ( the 24th of December) and delivers presents to good children and coal to the bad. We leave out either beer or whiskey, a mince pie and carrots for his reindeer. And Santa is dressed in a red and white suit and hats with black boots and belt.

A classic Glendinning Christmas tree.

However not only is the jolly old fellow not the same in every country but the gift giving figure is pre- Christian. Odin who did feature in the wolf lecture can be seen as a Santa figure. As he used to head the yuletide hunt on his eight legged horse Sleipnir. Odin gave gifts to those in need, much like St. Nicholas who is said to have helped those in need of money, such three sisters who didn’t have enough for a dowry and were about to be sold into prostitution. Odin gave bread and was the father god of the Norse gods.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin

Odin, the Wanderer by Georg von Rosen, 1886.
picture from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Georg_von_Rosen_-_Oden_som_vandringsman,_1886_(Odin,_the_Wanderer).jpg

Odin was a big figure in Norse folklore but was transformed from his pagan roots as Christianity spread though Europe. Santa has ridden goats and given naughty children sticks. And he doesn’t always give presents for Christmas. In some European countries the main St. Nick gift giving happens on December 6th on St. Nicholas’s day. With gifts on Christmas day being more to do with Jesus. Christmas and Santa now are just a huge amalgamation of many different Christian and pagan traditions and figures. Each country has its own variations.

St. Nicholas also has this shared function of gift giver/ donor and justice/ authority figure, which can still be seen in one of the more modern Christmas traditions of the shopping centre Santa. I recently listened to a Radio 4 feature called the “The Santa Tapes”, the Santa’s talk about their experiences and one of the reoccurring things is the fact that children confide in Santa and tell him everything from the mundane to the harder family or social issues. Now I don’t think I have ever visited a shopping centre Santa, I may have once sat on Santa’s lap at a Christmas party when I was little but I don’t think I ever told Santa what I wanted for Christmas. Through it may have had something to do with my younger sibling’s dislike of people in costumes. The idea of a strange man coming into the house every Christmas eve didn’t help this matter. Saying after it was explained that Santa was a benevolent character all was well. However just as my younger sibling got into the Christmas spirit and began to believe in Santa. I figured out that for the most part it was my parents giving me presents and doing my stocking, I think I was maybe five or six. I still entertained and liked the idea of Santa but I had ruined it for myself in part. I wish I had believed for longer and when watching Christmas films I find myself wishing it even harder. Because of Miracle on 34th Street I really wish Richard Attenborough was Santa, it and films like Elf and The Polar Express leave me with the overwhelming feeling that good, truth and the spirit of Christmas will and is triumphant. That is the feeling that those films set out to create and I’m a sucker for them. But just once a year its nice to get nostalgic about the belief you once had and not be cynical about the Christmas spending and the like. My parents are Christian so I quite like the religious aspect but also the fact that on Christmas there is a genuine spirit of goodwill that people make time for. And Santa Claus reinforces that, if one man, nine reindeer, and some elves can deliver a present to every good child in the world then it should hardly be a pinch to be extra nice around the Christmas period. Obviously you should try to be nice all year round but if Scrooge taught us anything Christmas is a time for hope and reconciliation and  couple of weeks later you can make a new years resolution.

Though Santa has become rather lost in commercialism. I’m not a fan of the Coca Cola Christmas, it never changes, I do appreciate the thought put into the Marks and Spencer’s and John Lewis adverts. The Marks and Spencer’s ad Christmas clothes ad : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Xw1IL3oh0 it references the wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Little Red Ridding who featured heavily in the Wolf lecture, Hansel and Gretel and Aladdin/ Arabian Nights. Fairy tales are in needless to say. And Santa Claus is one of the oldest folk characters if you take out the Christian element. Most story’s have a gift giving character who gives the hero a key item. This happened in the Lion, the witch and the Wardrobe where Santa gave our three (Edmund was off with the witch at this point) hero’s their weaponry, definitely not toys but it was what those good children needed.

It is rather sad that major mythological characters and fairy-tale motifs have been used and abused so much commercially but it does show their enduring influence and relatability that such things have on society. I think its how narrative evolves in the modern age even if some of its charm and originality is lost. This happens to most things. Its kind of inevitable. Yet,  I think some small part of people want to believe in something good and just that comes at the end of a hard year. So Merry Christmas and a Happy Hogmanay to you all in this coming season of goodwill.

References and Links to webpages that helped me write this post :

Wikipedia Santa Claus. Available at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus

JENNER, G. A weird history and Christmas. Part two. Who on earth is Santa?!. Available at : http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/greg-jenner/santa-weird-history-of-xmas_b_2302854.html.

DEIN, A. The Santa Tapes. BBC radio 4. Available at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pbrt6

All the above links were accessed on the 25.11.2013

Lewis ,C.S. (1950) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Harper Collins Children’s Books.

Dickens, C. (2008) A Christmas Carol. Puffins Classics.

Note : I’m sorry if anyone has had problems with my blog loading or loading incorrectly. I’ve viewed my blog on a mac and a pc and the only issues I came across were the occasional image being squashed and some text escaping from photo text boxes. But everything was still readable. Fingers crossed 🙂

In The Pursuit of Realism – Renaissance – Focus on the Pre – Raphaelite Brotherhood

A study in red chalk by Raphael for the Three Graces, 1518. picture from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Raffaello,_studio_per_le_tre_grazie_della_farnesina.jpg
This was not the PRB’s cup of tea at all.

This lecture began with the work of Renaissance artists such as Da Vinci, Raphael and Durer. But went on to go through many artistic movements bringing us up to Modernism. Which will be tackled in some form along with Post – Modernism in my next post. I decided to do a post on the Pre – Raphaelite Brotherhood, which was founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. There was four other members, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Fredric George Stephens and Thomas Woolner. But I am going to focus on Hunt, Rossetti and Millais. The Pre – Raphaelite Brotherhood or PRB’s work was viewed sometimes very harshly by critics (among them Charles Dickens) and the Royal Academy. The PRB rejected the work of Raphael and other Renaissance artists, hence the name, and sought as they put it in the manifesto to :

• “to have genuine ideas to express
• to study nature attentively, so as to know how to express them
• to sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parodying and learned by rote
• most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues “

Pre – Raphaelite Brotherhoods manifesto, 1848, from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Raphaelite_Brotherhood

The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt 1856. picture from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_Holman_Hunt_-_The_Scapegoat.jpg

The themes that all the painters shared were nature, medieval tales and religion. Hunt painted many religious works, especially after his trip to the Holy land. It was this trip that inspired the painting of “The Scapegoat” in 1856. Prior to this Hunt’s work had been very occupied with nature but still inspired by classic tales and characters such as the fallen woman. He became famous for his religious works whereas his paintings such as “The Hireling Shepard” and “Awakening Conscience” were regarded as inelegant and unsightly.  A great attention to detail can be noted in both the work of Hunt and of Millais.

Ophelia by John Everett Millais 1852. picture from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Everett_Millais_-_Ophelia_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Nature was very important to the PRB and possibly one of the most lush examples of nature can be found in Millais’s “Ophelia” 1852, which depicted the suicide of Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. “Ophelia” is one of my favourite paintings, I think I saw it at a very young age and was captivated by the rich flora and the beauty of the model, Elizabeth Siddal, who modelled for the PRB and married Rossetti and was an artist herself. Millais was child prodigy and did gain the patronage of critic John Ruskin. Though this did not last due falling in love with Ruskins wife of five years Effie Ruskin whom was still a virgin. But that’s a story for another day.

Love, sexuality and symbolism was another key theme for PRB, especially Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I find Rossetti’s style quite different from the other members of the brotherhood, Millais in particular whose style is very classical. Rossetti style feels to me to be a precursor of sorts to Art Nouveau. I think its his reoccurring use of beautiful, goddess like women. Of which their were quite a few and many whom he had relationships with. There was Elizabeth Siddal whom he met in 1850 and married in 1860 but she died two years later from a laudanum overdose. Siddal was famous for her near death experience brought on by modelling for Millais’s “Ophelia”. Like most of Rossetti’s muses Siddal had brilliant copper hair and a pale complexion. Rossetti painted her as Beatrice from the story Dante and Beatrice.

Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1867 – 1870. picture from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_Beata_Beatrix,_1864-1870.jpg

http://fascinatinghistory.blogspot.co.uk/2006/01/dante-and-beatrice.html

Rossetti’s other models included Fanny Cornforth, Alexa Wilding, Marie Spartali Stillman, Annie Miller and Jane Morris. Jane Morris was the wife of William Morris the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement. The three were good friends but it could be described as something of a love triangle. Jane Morris shared the other models pale complexion but her hair was raven black. But like Siddal she was one of Rossetti’s great muses and beauties.

Proserpine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1874. picture from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_Proserpine.JPG

The Pre – Raphaelite Brotherhood were controversial, disliked and avant – garde for their time in the rather stuffy Victorian London. Their lives and loves have been fictionalised many times. Their work was beautiful, naturalistic, religious and for the time just a little bit naughty. The PRB pursued their own kind of realism that was just a tad inventive at times.

References and Links to webpages that helped me write this post :

The Tate gallery. Pre – Raphaelites : Victorian Avant – garde. Available at : http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/pre-raphaelites-victorian-avant-garde

BBC news article on the selling of Rossetti’s Proserpine. Available at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25004793

MASTERS, T. Lizzie Siddal: Victorian model’s tragic story on stage. Available at :  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24803177

Desperate Romantics programme page. Available at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lvyq2

Wikipedia. The Pre – Raphaelite Brotherhood. Available at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Raphaelite_Brotherhood

All of the above links were accessed on the 20.11.2013.

Narrative – Fairy Tales

One of the things that interested me from the narrative lecture was the work of Vladimir Propp. I have always enjoyed folk and fairy tales. So my interest was piqued at the mention of an analysis of the narrative structure of Russian folktale. Propp was a Russian critic who in 1920 decided to study the components that made up Russian folktales. Character that remained constant were the hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero, the helper, the princess and the princesses father. And between these characters certain situations always occur and are key to the plot such as the struggle between hero and villain followed by the villain being overcome and the hero being recognised and rewarded with a kingdom and/or a princess. And a happily ever after but often a moral lesson is also learnt.

One of Pienkowski’s silhouette fairy tale illustrations. picture from : http://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2008/dec/19/booksforchildrenandteenagers#/?picture=340934959&index=4

Two of my favourite folktales books are “The Amber Mountain and other folk tales” by Agnes Szudek, illustrated by Jan Pienkowski, who is better known for his work with Helen Nicoll on children’s favourite Meg and Mog, and “The Wise Doll” by Hiawyn Oram and illustrated by Ruth Brown. The former being a collection of folktales from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Germany.  Some the story’s are familiar as they have been retold such as ” The Amber Mountain”. You may also know this story as “The Seven Brother” or “The Six Swans” or “The Twelve Wild Ducks” or “Udea and her Seven Brothers” or “The Wild Swans” or “The Twelve Brothers”. At the core its a story about a daughter trying to save her brothers of varying numbers.

Illustration for The Swan princes by Anne Anderson. picture from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Swan_Princes_-_Anne_Anderson.jpg

Some versions include the sewing of shirts, seven years of silence, infanticide by jealous Queen mothers, two daughters named Rosy red and Snow white who sound very familiar, cannibals, various forms of execution, treacherous aunts, moon people, princesses, peasant girls and evil flying toe nails. Some are rather gruesome, with beheadings, burnings, disfigurements and quite a bit of blood-letting and blood smearing. I think the original fairy tales that are a little bit more grisly have more merit that the watered down versions that are told to children now. Even the big bad wolf doesn’t die in little red ridding hood anymore. Some hero’s have to kill their villain, in cinema and literature we are returning to dark fairy tales. For example I was never a big superman fan, I’d only seen the squeaky clean ‘kid’ version so was adamant about seeing the Man of Steel reboot. I was pleasantly surprised but the death of the antagonist was very violent and emotionally fraught. Superman (the hero) doesn’t want to kill Zod (the villain) but he has no other choice. Something as permanent as a death of a character in a story line should be a resolution of the conflict and disorder but also define the hero’s morality. One example where I felt robbed of this resolution was in Thor: the Dark World. SPOILER ALERT do not read if you don’t want to know what happens at the end, concerning Loki and Thor, look away now.

picture from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Hiddleston_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg

So Loki dies, but he has redeemed himself and aided his brother and has been honourable. And though this was sad, the upset relationship that Thor and Loki shared through the first film and the Avengers movie was finally at rest. But no,  the joy of the money spinning franchise that is the Marvel superhero movies the last two seconds of the film and the story were ruined for me at least. For once Thor has told his Father of Loki’s redemption and Thor leaves to be with his mortal love. Odin shape shifts into a smirking Loki. I am sure Vladimir Propp would not approve or would he? Do characters like Loki inhabit both the villain and false hero role. Though it feels very much like Marvel money grabbing for more films because people will pay to see Tom Hiddleston as Loki the lovable and hateable trickster of Norse mythology.

The Wise Doll by Hiawyn Oram and Ruth Brown.
picture from : http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-525-45947-7

But I digress. My other book is “The Wise Doll” by Hiawyn Oram and illustrated by Ruth Brown. It a retelling of the Vasilia the Beautiful. Which included the Baba Yaga, who is a key character in many a tale. This retelling is very much for younger audience so emits some of the original stories more complex aspects but is still very gruesome and scary in places. One particular illustration of Baba Yaga her eyes glowing orange like hot coals still freaks me out, this book used to really scare me when I was younger. But I still wanted it read to me and I still read it. Baba Yaga is a villain and a tester of people. That’s what she’s there for, a good scare the book tells us. Sometimes we need to be scared. Like hiding behind the couch from the monsters on doctor who, or fearing that certain page in the children’s book where you really see the villain for the first time.

Illustration from Vasilisa the Beautiful by Ivan Bilibin. picture from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vasilisa.jpg

Fairy tales will always be retold, whether it be in cinema with superhero’s, or in children’s books with classic tales. They will or they should retain the key points that Propp analysed and if the don’t do they still have any constructive effect on us. As they say the moral of the story is that fairy tales are ingrained in our minds and our society and if they are tainted where does that leave us. Manically holding on to a wish of a sugar sweet happy ending or the complete opposite, humbugging our way though life without any belief or want of redemption.

Also just to point out I did really enjoy the second Thor movie, it was far better than the first and Tom Hiddleston is great as Loki. Just wish Marvel would, and this goes for many other comic book/ superhero franchises, would just let some characters die… permanently.

References and Links to webpages that helped me write this post :

Here is a link to a vimeo video of somebody ready “The Wise Doll” :http://vimeo.com/10822274

Szudek, A. (1976) The Amber Mountain, and Other Stories. Hutchinson.

Oram, H. (1997) The Wise Doll. Andersen Press Ltd.

All of the above links were accessed on the 19.11.2013.