These three picture books have their own origins. The first one is in Chinese. We read to her when she was very young. The second book was published with the toy set and published in Belgium. It is a pure "comic book" without words, which is very suitable for cultivating children's ability to look at pictures and speak. The plots of these two stories are basically the same. The last one is in English, painted by Matsuoka May, published in the United States, and used by four-year-old children to read and write. Although the plot of this book is not divorced from the big framework of three little pigs, I can't accept some details in the book and the attitude of the author revealed in the article. It is this book that has aroused my addiction to textual research. I want to know more about the past lives of the three little pigs.
Version history
I don't know. I don't know. At first sight, I was shocked. The story of three little pigs really has a long history. This is an English fairy tale, and the classic story is familiar to everyone: three little pigs built their own houses with straw, wood and bricks respectively. In front of the wolf, the straw house and the wooden house were vulnerable, and two little pigs almost died. Finally, they escaped into the brick house and successfully resisted the wolf's attack. The moral of nature is to do things down-to-earth, and laziness will eventually pay for itself.
Like all fairy tales, the original version is oral folk literature. The oldest extant text appeared in English Nursery Rhymes published in 1886 by James Halliwell, a British Shakespeare scholar and ballad arranger. This book is called "Collection of Nursery Rhymes". As the name implies, most of the contents are catchy nursery rhymes. The book is divided into history, literature, stories, proverbs and riddles 18 parts. The story of three little pigs appears in the legend. Compared with most of the contents in the book, the story of this article is relatively complicated, and the language is more prosaic than nursery rhymes.
A few years later, Joseph Jacobs, an Australian folklorist and literary critic, edited and published English Fairy Tales (1890) and More English Fairy Tales (1894), which almost completely incorporated the stories into Hayes' collection of children's stories, only modified them.
In the past ten years, Three Little Pigs has been included in different collections of fairy tales, the most famous of which is the version of andrew lang, a Scottish poet, novelist and literary critic. Lang has published more than a dozen fairy tales named after cover colors such as red, orange, yellow and green. This story is included in the Green Fairy Book published by 1892, which is much longer than Hay's version. The story is also the most complicated of all the versions I have ever seen, but the general trend of the story is basically consistent with its educational significance.
Subvert the classics
Disney's cartoon movies can be said to be Hay's version of the "clean book". Like many fairy tales, in the era when Zhang talked about Wang Mama and Wang Mama talked about Liu, oral literature was re-created every time it was told, so collectors of folk stories always found many different versions. But as long as Disney has made movies, the Disney version is the most widely circulated "King James Version", which is an irresistible trend of mass communication in the industrial age. If we want to innovate on the Disney version, the only way is to subvert the classics.
Two of the most famous subversive versions are The True Story of Three Little Pigs written by Jon Sizeska under the pseudonym "A. Wolf" in 1989, which tells a story that conforms to the laws of nature from the perspective of wolves.
Wolves eat cute little animals, whether they are three little pigs or little red riding hood rabbits. This is just the instinct of carnivores, and we artificially give wolves the role of evil and greed. This subversive version of Xi completely changed the image of the wolf. The wolf in the story is a filial boy who sneezes when he has a bad cold and makes a birthday cake for his grandmother. Just as the sugar at home ran out, he went out to borrow sugar from his neighbor pig. The timid pig naturally dares not open the door for the wolf-I wonder why he dares to be a neighbor with the wolf and has been living in peace. The wolf sneezed carelessly and blew down the straw house. Unfortunately, the pig was crushed to death in the accidental collapse of the house. For the wolf, the accidental death of the pig is like a pie falling from the sky. Who doesn't eat for free?
If West tries to reveal the real world for children (or adults) without fairy tale implication, then another subversive version is somewhat meaningless, that is, The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig published by Eugene Weizaz in 1993. This story can be said to be black and white upside down, the wolf becomes weak and pitiful, the pig is a demon, and tries every means to eat the wolf. The house has also been upgraded: three little wolves cooperated to build a strong brick house as soon as they came up, but they were hit by a big bad pig with a hammer; The second house is concrete, which was destroyed by the big bad pig with an electric drill; When the third house was built, the little wolves did everything they could, and the iron chain and power grid were greeted, which was stronger than the prison where the felons were held. Unexpectedly, they were blown up by the big bad pig with explosives. Finally, the little wolves gave up their defense in despair and built their last house with branches full of flowers. Seeing such a humble house, the big bad pig fell down with one punch, but just as he was about to blow it down, the fragrant flowers moistened the big bad pig's heart, and he put down his butcher knife and turned over a new leaf. From then on, he became a good pig and lived happily with three little wolves.
I borrowed these two subversive picture books from the library and put them in the study to write this article. Unexpectedly, my little girl was sharp-eyed and saw "Three Little Wolves" and insisted that I tell her.
Te is a Greek, a lawyer, and received a doctorate in criminology from the University of London. After returning to Greece, he taught and studied criminology and sociology in universities, and wrote children's literature in his spare time. In 2006, he was nominated for the Andersen Fairy Tale Award. This subversive version of The Story of Little Wolf and Big Pig is his first children's story book. I don't know if it is influenced by his main business criminology research. In this book, the villain becomes a Buddhist and the wolf and pig become friends, which may reflect his exploration as a sociologist to find a way out of social contradictions, and is in the same strain as the so-called "fraternity" spirit. However, this utopian plot always makes people feel weird and not suitable for children, at least not for children who are too young.
Violent plot in the classic version
In fact, not only the subversive version is not suitable for children's books, but even the classic version may not be suitable for children from today's perspective.
Disney's version is pure, of course, and it is the same routine as the popular picture books now-the pigs who built straw houses and wooden houses finally escaped to the brick houses, and successfully escaped the wolves. The wolves were driven away by three pigs and never dared to come back. But few people know that in the original works of Hayes and Aristotle, the first two piglets were eaten by wolves. This is of course more realistic than the logic of fairy tales-it is hard to imagine that pigs can escape wolves. However, such a scene is too bloody and violent, which obviously does not conform to the tone of Disney, and the happy ending is more in line with the children's world. It is understandable that such a change did not hurt the theme of the story.
Anti-violence didn't start at Disney. Lang's version of the pig also survived. The villain in this story is not a wolf, but a fox-this is an isolated case in all versions. In this version, the three little pigs have three-dimensional personalities and are directly related to their houses. Three little pigs also have their own names for the first time-brown, white and black. Piggy used to live with her mother. Before she died, her mother called her children to her side and asked them what kind of house they wanted. Little brown is dirty, stupid and playful. He rolls in the mud every day, so he asks his mother for a house made of mud. Xiaobai is a girl, a little smart, but greedy and selfish. Every time she has a meal, she pushes her younger brother Brown and her younger brother Blackie aside, so that she can get the biggest and best share. So, she was scolded by her mother. She asked her mother for a house with cabbage as the wall, so that she could lie in the house and eat. Mother pig was disappointed with the choice of her two children, but she still met their requirements. Only the youngest black people are smart and diligent. He asked his mother for a solid and safe brick house that is warm in winter and cool in summer. After tearing down the mud house and eating the cabbage house, the fox in the story did not eat the little brown and the little white in a hurry, but took them back to the fox hole and shut them up. After killing the fox, the witty little black found the fox hole and rescued his brother and sister.
Lang's violence is not thorough enough. On how to deal with the fox, he followed the Hayes version of the way to deal with the wolf-boil a pot of boiling water with the fire on the fireplace, and the wolf or fox just fell into the water and was scalded to death when climbing in along the chimney. Lang is a little warmer. The fox died and Blackie left. Hay keeps pigs by the fireplace and cooks wolves into delicious soup for dinner. When describing such a plot that ruined childhood, the words are extremely polished-"cook him, eat him for dinner, and live happily ever after"-is it so cool that people dare not think about it?
Why did the early version write like this? Both Hai and Ya collect and arrange fairy tales with the rigorous attitude of scholars. Stories are collected from folk customs, so they will never make up the plot. Basically, it is certain that cooking wolf soup and eating wolf meat were the stories told by British aunts to their children. In the preface of the fifth edition, Hay said that these nursery rhymes and stories are for young readers, hoping to replace adults' right and wrong concepts with these seemingly absurd stories and open children's imagination. In the author's introduction at the end of the book, Aristotle said that Aristotle read these stories to his three children to test whether they were suitable for children. After such a rigorous test, these violent plots are still preserved, which shows that people's tolerance for violence was normal at that time, or that these violence that we see as unacceptable today is not a thing at all.
If we use Disney's standards to examine China classics such as Grimm's fairy tales, Andersen's fairy tales and The Journey to the West, violence in the name of destroying the strong and helping the weak is also everywhere. Don't go back too early. Monkey King Thrice Defeats the Skeleton Demon, Cha Na Nahai and Sheriff Black Cat, which we were used to when we were children, are full of violent plots. Even though many jokes in Disney's early Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and MGM's Tom and Jerry are based on violence, they will be considered unsuitable for children by teachers and parents today.
Then, the question comes: Is the current anti-violence standard too strict or is the cultural tradition of human beings for thousands of years too tolerant of violence? I don't want to answer this question, and I can't. You are so smart that you should have your own answer.
Tolerance and connivance
Fairy tales delete the language and plot suspected of violence, which reflects the anti-violence trend in the real world, which is also in line with the development track of human civilization in the long history. The other side of civilization and progress is tolerance for vulnerable groups. After World War II, due to the relative peace of the world and the unprecedented growth of social wealth, the society's concern for vulnerable groups has reached an unimaginable height. This is the historical background of political correctness.
As a result, a few people who were discriminated against by the majority were filled with hymns. Projected into education means replacing criticism and self-criticism with praise and self-praise. Under the current educational concept, children do not do well in one aspect. Instead of criticizing, it is better to find out what he has done relatively well and praise it. Doing so does have its positive side, which can enhance children's self-confidence and inspire everyone to maximize their development and play their potential. On the other hand, the diversity of evaluation criteria makes many things no longer black and white, and values will be blurred.
This is my biggest dissatisfaction with this Mars-painted literacy book "Three Little Pigs". Piglets who build straw houses and wooden houses in this picture book choose straw and wooden sticks as building materials, not because they are lazy, but because they happen to meet people who transport straw and cut wood. Although similar plots have appeared in Heinz and Aristotle's classic versions, this American picture book is written in a completely different way.
Pay attention to the text. The first two piglets are all bought building materials. It is more polite to use the question "May I ask?". The third little pig just found some bricks gently. I don't believe anyone who says there is no love-hate relationship between the lines.
With such a written arrangement, readers simply don't feel any criticism of laziness and shortsightedness. On the contrary, because of laziness and stupidity, the two little pigs became "vulnerable groups" and accepted the help of the industrious third little pig without guilt. The story came to an abrupt end after the wolf was driven away, and there was not a word about whether the pig had learned a lesson in his later life. According to the principle of positive guidance, of course, the book will not criticize the pigs who built straw houses and wooden houses, but unfortunately, it did not praise the third pig. He worked hard to build a brick house and provided selfless help to the other two pigs. It seems that everything is fate. Both the straw house and the wooden house were blown down by the wolf, but the two little pigs were just unlucky.
Looking back on the version evolution of Three Little Pigs in the past hundred years, the trend of de-violence and value neutrality of children's literature is clearly presented to us. I believe most parents and educators welcome the former. For the latter, the voice of controversy will never stop.
However, the problem of education is never just the problem of education itself. If we look for the reasons from the development of social thoughts, it is not difficult to find that these two trends of children's literature are actually in the same strain. From the 1960' s, the liberalism that gradually influenced the whole world from Europe and America was the source of this trend. From the perspective of overthrowing traditional values, the source of the two subversive stories mentioned above can also be attributed to liberalism.
Here comes the question again: What should parents do with these twisted fairy tales? I still can't answer this and I don't want to answer it. But what is certain is that I will not let my little daughter touch those two subversive stories again until she reaches my age.
References:
English nursery rhymes by James Orchard Halliwell, Frederick Walling Publishing Company, 1886, 5th edition, scanning electronic version of Toronto Library; Joseph jacobs's English Fairy Tales, published by Everyman Library 1993 according to the first editions 1890 and 1894; Andrew lang "Green Expo Books", Dover Publishing Company 1965, reprinted without abridgement and change according to the first edition1892; Jon Scieszka, The True Story of Three Little Pigs, Viking Penguin1989; Eugene Terry Vizasz's Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, the first edition of Egmont 1993, the second edition in 2003; Mei Songgang's Three Little Pigs, Pulegon Books Co., Ltd. 2017; Hans Blomen's Three Little Pigs, Intelligent Game 204; He Jia's "Three Little Pigs" Jilin Fine Arts Publishing House 20 12 Edition