Tales Forces Beyond Their Control -- What

¶ … Tales

Forces Beyond Their Control -- What does not kill you, makes you stronger in the fairy tale as well as the real world

The idea that what does not kill or harm you makes you stronger is a popular cliche. However, in many fairy tales, this theme is underlined by the introduction of a protagonist whom is regarded as weak or strange by society, but whose personal gifts not only enable him to overcome this negative self and societal impression, but also ultimately help him or her to deploy what at first seemed to be a negative characteristic, in a positive fashion.

For instance, at the beginning of the first Harry Potter book, the young Harry Potter is a wizard whom is still unaware of his identity. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter is forced to live amongst Muggles, of whom he is the disfavored son, as compared to his cousin, the oafishly conventional Dudley. However, Harry Potter's magical powers seep into the narrative framework early on over the course of the text, as Harry liberates an oppressed and confined snake from the zoo, without even intending to. This incident shows how compassion with the underdog is within Harry's heart from a young age. However, Harry must learn to control the difficulties he experiences as a wizard-in-training with practice as well as emotional intelligence, else he do harm as well as good to Muggles and other beasts. At the end of the tale, Harry has liberated his school temporarily and gained a secure place in the world as well as a more secure identity.

However, perhaps even cleverer than Harry is the young, Chinese-American protagonist of The Year of the Boar. This young woman, circa 1947 but much like the modern young wizard Harry Potter, finds herself in an alien culture, namely that of San Francisco. Her adjustment from the China of her birth, as well as the Chinese background of her home life in her new land, makes it difficult for her to feel secure in her American identity. However, this sense of not having a place to call home and a lack of a secure ethnic identity -- is she Chinese or American, as with Harry, becomes a source of strength. The young girl becomes passionate about baseball, and thus gains a more certain sense of her identity. She identifies with the struggles of Jackie Robinson, an identification that is possible because she, like he, is of minority status, unlike most of her peers. And even beyond her love of home and her love of her family, the girl's loyalty and devotion to the new world of America speaks well of her flexibility as a character, her ability to forge a new identity without secure role models around her, an ability even the wizard Harry Potter lacks.

The ability to overcome forces within the self that are difficult to control becomes sharpened in an oppressive societal context, however. In the book of African-American folklore, the characters are continually oppressed by a larger, outer lying social structure that attempts to hem them in as people. However, ultimately the characters remain undaunted by these attempts to check and reign in their sense of identity. Perhaps the character that best exemplifies this characteristic is Doc Rabbit, in the story of "Tar Baby," as the rabbit is a small creature that is far more delicate than those who would make him a tasty dinner, but who uses his delicacy and wiles to survive.

Characteristically, the rabbit survives by begging to be thrown into a briar patch. This way, he might escape becoming a hungry predator's dinner. This rabbit, unlike the young protagonists of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and The Year of the Boar is older and has had to survive for many years in the wild. In his social world, not just his immediate family, he is alien, but he snares with a trick and thus uses his cleverness and apparent lack of stature to good effect. Unlike Harry, he has no community of individuals whom are supporting him and encouraging his survival in the form of the academic community of Hogwarts. Unlike the Chinese-American girl's love of baseball, the rabbit has no cultural talisman to help him through the wilds of predatory life -- he has himself and his own sense of solidarity, however, and that is enough. This sense of self-reliance is repeated over and over again, over the course of the rabbit's tale, and the force of this repetition stresses the loneliness, cleverness, and ultimately the triumph of this small rabbit against all the odds. The smallness of the rabbit ironically, combined with the wizardry of his cleverness, is what enables him to survive.