Although it did get a horror film adaptation. So.... that apparently happened.
However, what I find most remarkable about the story is not its staying power despite lacking a Disney adaptation. Instead it is that we have continued to hear it despit the fact that is has no clear moral. I have been telling several Grimm tales over the last serval days and at the end of several stories people have asked me " so what is the moral exactly?" Which caused me to automatically ask.... What the heck is the moral of Rumplestiltskin?!?
What is the lesson? It can't be "always keep your promises," because the woman clearly got out of having to give up her first born child by crying until Rumplstiltskin relented. Furthermore we, as the audience, clearly don't want the mother to be parted from her child, so keeping promises can't be it.
The lesson that Rumplestiltskin learned.
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/01/01a76400ed7c979aa543084630dd612e3c195fbd547202707c67829ae5940ef5.jpgThe moral can't be "don't boast unless you can make good on your word," because the father was the person guilty of that and it was not he that was punished for it, it was his daughter. The father also disappears half way through the story and is not heard from again (maybe his daughter was rightfully ticked off and did not want him in her life). Apart from being worried about his daughter (presumably) the father does not suffer at all. So "don't boast" can't be it.
On a side note, after the lady appears to have turned straw into gold the first time why does the king keep threatening to kill her? She has seemingly already done this feat once. Why risk killing the person who could potentially provide you with infinite wealth?
It can't be "don't be greedy," because only the king is guilty of that and he gets everything he wants. Not once, not twice, but three times is straw turned into gold for him, he marries a woman whom he believes is capable of turning straw into gold, and he gets to keep his firstborn child. This guy gets everything he wants!
So the moral appears to be: you should seek to always appease your ever growing greed... Well that's a new one.
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110123012542/hercxena/images/e/eb/Sumerian_Treasure.jpgThe moral can't be "don't make promises you aren't prepared to keep," because if the girl had not promised to give Rumplstiltskin her child then she presumably would have died (although he only said he would marry her is she succeeded, but I feel it's a pretty safe assumption since he threated that the two times previously). As the audience don't want an innocent prison to die because of the stupid boasts of her father, so the previously mentioned lesson does not really aply. But what is left?
So remember, keep your promises children, unless there is a mysterious, gold-spinning elf involved. In which case all promises, agreements, and contracts are null and void.
Does this story even have a lesson? Does it have a moral that the audience is supposed to take away? Or is this story just .... well, a story. A series of events that capture the audience's attention and provide entertainment but achieve nothing else?
Shut up children and you shall hear
A tale I'm currently pulling out of my... ear.
The closet thing that I can pull from it is that "good will always prevail in the end, and the perpetrators of evil will be punished for there wickedness."
...By ripping themselves in half!!!
This is not a bad lesson, it just feels..... broad. Compared to some more applicable morals in other stories (Snow White= your envy and jealousy will make you do bad things and may make you into a bad person) this feels more like an outlook that one it trying to impart as opposed to a directly applicable life lesson.
What do you guys think? It there a moral? Is this just a really catchy story that has survived the test of time? Is it a tale showing that good will prevail over wickedness? What is it? WHAT IS IT?!?
Good enough for me!
4 of 5
I think that the moral may have something to do with overconfidence. Rumpelstiltskin is confident that his name is so obscure that the miller's daughter will never guess it, that he gives her some small sliver of hope that she can keep her child, by changing the terms of the deal so that if she can guess his name, he will not take the child. But the overconfidence comes into play with him boasting, to no one as far as he knows, that she will never guess his name. His arrogance and overconfidence is his downfall, basically. So maybe the moral is not to be proud.
ReplyDeleteThat seems like a logical guess to me. I agree with the article that it can be hard to narrow down just what the moral is. It may very well be that there is none but if there is, overconfidence is my bet.
DeletePride definitely comes up as a recurring theme in terms of morality stories, and the best (read "most interesting to me") villains are almost always someone who thinks that what they're doing is "right".
ReplyDeleteThat said, I am totally in support of stories being just stories. Bonus points when the author/teller is just in it to tell the story, but the audience takes a good message from it anyway.
Ahh that's certainly a tough question as far as Rumpelstiltskin. I definitely do agree though that "keep your promises" cannot be the absolute moral of this story considering the fact that the miller's daughter certainly didn't give up her child- thus breaking a promise. And as far as the Once Upon A Time version....I literally have no choice of words for that crazy episode.
ReplyDelete