Variations on Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty

The first reading for my honors course had us reading different versions of the classic stories Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty. From different times and countries, some of the variations are startling.
The morality tale for children to learn obedience, Little Red Riding Hood has sometimes included blatant references to canabalism where the wolf makes Little Red eat some of her grandmother and drink her blood. The earliest version of the tale actually describes the wolf as a sort of werewolf creature, half man, half wolf. The sexual danger posed by the wolf depending on the tale-- some version play on the idea of the wolf as a sexual predator, making Little Red take off her clothes and get into the bed with him.
Some version do allow Red to be more than an unwitting victim, but rather she cleverly outsmarts the wolf. In an early Chinese tale that also shares elements with The Three Little Pigs, three young sisters outsmart and kill a wolf that comes to their door while their mother is away.

Sleeping Beauty also contains canabalism in several versions of the story. A jealous wife or mother to the beauty's prince/king lover tries to eat both the Sleeping Beauty figure and her children on several occasions. The earliest Sleeping Beauty story in the book involved a philandering king coming upon Talia (the beauty) unconscious and basically raping her in her deep slumber. The Brothers Grimm story, Briar Rose, is by far the tamest version of the tale, but tells it more from the perspective of the prince. The chapter wraps up with "Sleeping Beauty and the Airplane" a clever modern take on the idea of the unattainable sleeping princess from the perspective of a modern day would-be prince.
It's just interesting to analyze how these stories have changed over time and what each change enhances. Sleeping Beauty seems to promote female passivity in most version, while Little Red Riding Hood encourages wariness and obedience.

Why Getting Flowers is Terrible

I went on a rant this evening about how awful flowers are as a token of love. In a purely symbolic sense, it is very discouraging.
For example, giving flowers to a dying relative: your relative is dying, so to cheer them up you give them flowers that have been cut off from their life source so that they can watch them whither and die while all their family stands around watching them (the relative) whither and die. I would be so annoyed.
From an admirer I understand the deeper metaphor of a rose representing romance because they are beautiful, delicate, rare, and they hurt like hell. I have been given flowers once or twice and I appreciated the gesture, but I had to consider the other implications. Does the relationship, like the flowers have no "roots" or solid foundation? Will it be very pretty for a short while, then wilt and decay? Will all the petals drop off and reveal that all that's left is an ugly thorny stem of dead love?
For goodness sake, I would say give me a living plant, so it can grow and bloom *like our love* (excuse, I just made myself dry heave a little). Please excuse my rant, I've had a migraine for three days. I've always wondered if my migraines are caused my me over analyzing everything, such as the symbolic implications of flower-giving.

Teaser Tuesday: Sons and Lovers

It's slow going through Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence. Here's an interesting passage from the end of the first chapter (page 26 in my edition):

Mrs. Morel knew him too well to look at him. As she unfastened her brooch at the mirror, she smiled faintly to see her face all smeared with the yellow dust of lilies. She brushed it off, and lay down. For some time her mind continued snapping and jetting sparks, but she was asleep before her husband awoke from the first sleep of his drunkenness.

I'm comparing Gertrude Morel to Connie Chatterley of Lady Chatterley's Lover as I read- I've read excerpts of L.C.L. before. It's interesting that Lawrence seems so fascinated by marriage from a woman's point of view, especially about a woman's view on a bad marriage. A theme of going into marriage with one set of expectations and finding disappointment in marriage, in the person you thought you loved pervades his text. Lawrence is quite obsessed with these ideas as a matter of fact. He also plays a lot with class and the lifestyles of an emerging, industrial workforce and that of the somewhat antiquated nobility and the upper class in general.