Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Kathleen Esling
LIBR 271A-10
June 18, 2015
One of the literary genres most often associated with children is that of fairy tales
and folklore. Images of princesses, witches, ogres, and kings fill childrens heads, and
these figures come from a variety of backgrounds. English-speaking readers can find
stories about characters from all over the world. Thanks to translations and adaptations,
no story is too distant to be told. Unfortunately, retelling other cultures stories often
changes the original meanings of the tales: humor gets lost, stereotypes emerge, and other
nuances do not translate. Betsy Hearne explores the problematic nature of translating
folktales in her article Swapping Tales and Stealing Stories: The Ethics of Folklore in
Childrens Literature (1998). While the essay is seventeen years old, it explores issues
still prevalent in childrens literature. The We Need Diverse Books movement is a new
campaign that focuses on the need for diverse voices in childrens literature. The
campaign also emphasizes importance of letting each culture tell its own story rather than
letting the dominant culture control the canon. As Hearne notes, there is a constant
struggle between aesthetics (poetic license) and ethics (ownership) in folklore that has
been introduced to the canon of childrens literature. Who gets to tell a story? What, if
anything, can be changed during the revision and adaptation process? At what point does
revision become appropriation? These are all difficult issues that are part of adapting
folklore for children.
To help balance out the ideas of story theft and sharing stories across cultures,
Hearne introduces an idea that she calls swapping. In a swap, a new culture may take
a story from another culture and inject the new groups meaning into the story. If they
share the story with the old culture while acknowledging the storys roots, Hearne argues
that this swap is acceptable. Hearnes conclusion that swapping is the solution to the theft
of folklore falls somewhat flat. It sounds much too much like simple appropriation; she
proposes no checks or balances to differentiate swapping from stealing. There is no way
to force readers to learn the context for a folktale. Hearnes ideas regarding swapping,
however, can be adjusted to reflect a real need in the youth literature genre: diversity.
Hearnes concluding arguments may not be satisfying, but her ideas can be used to create
a more useful system of story sharing.
Hearne notes that a central issue in the world of folklore is ownership. The issue
is multifaceted, as she explains in her abstract:
Beyond the need to acknowledge the storys source, especially if it is outside the
adaptors own culture, is the larger question of who owns stories, specifically
folktales, but also story in a broader sense as folktales serve as a bridge to
legend, personal narrative, oral history, history, and fiction. (Hearne, 1998)
She exposes an important issue, mainly that folktales are not a separate genre from other
aspects of literature; folklore blends genres together. It connects history with fiction as
well as connecting people with their history and other cultures. By blurring these lines,
the sharing of stories connects people to all mankind. This global connection may be a
beautiful idea, but it does not give readers a universal understanding of all cultures. A
readers home culture will always influence how he or she reads a given text. Hearne
explains this difficult personal context in order to make a necessary point: every reader
and researchers personal context will inevitably be a silent subtext. When reading
stories from another culture, this is an important factor to keep in mind. Not every
cultures storytelling follows the same conventions (Hearne, 1998).
The idea of folklore revision is not new; as Hintz and Tribunella write, it is a common
way for fairytales to be shared and made relevant for new generations. Even so, how
much change is acceptable? (Hintz & Tribunella, 2013; Hearne, 1998)
The issue of poetic license, or aesthetics, is also a major concern in the folklore
field. Poetic license is a concern directly opposed to ownership; authors fighting for the
rights to artistic freedom are arguing for the ability to tell any story regardless of its
origin. Authors such as Jane Yolen argue that it would be criminal to limit authors to their
own cultures for storytelling material: We humans are made up of stories. Almost all
those stories have already been cross-fertilized by other cultures, other tongues (Yolen
as cited in Hearne, 1998). As Hearne notes, authors fight to tell stories for different
reasons: We all have culture; we all tell stories; we all have to make a living. That
being said, the issue of poetic license is a delicate one. If authors do not tread carefully,
they may revert to using stereotypes of the cultures they are plumb[ing] for their source
material. By appropriating another cultures story without providing the right context,
authors present a stereotype to their readers, not real people. Hearne explains that while
folklore is meant to be stories that remain throughout generations, cultures themselves do
not remain static: The Inuit of today are different from the Inuit of eighty years ago.
Interpreting their old lore without their input essentially freezes them in time as well as
potentially misrepresenting them entirely. Cultural appropriation is a difficult and
complex issue; even though this article is from 1998, readers in 2015 are still struggling
with the stereotypes that run rampant in youth literature (Hearne, 1998).
Hearne ends her paper with an example of a folktale that had been revised to
reflect a new tragedy. One version of the Swain Maiden tale involves the devil being
stuck in a box and ending up on Irelands shore. Once released from its container, Death
wipes out Ireland, and many of the remaining Irish people flee to America (Neely, as
cited in Hearne, 1998). Hearne points out an important shift:
The folktale suddenly becomes personal narrative which
shortly checks in somewhere between personal myth and
fiction as we reshape it to fit our changing needs and turn it
into family history. Hearne explains that folktales are
flexible, and when a story fits, we wear it. Is this
literature, but she is hopeful that by performing a swap, many of the awkward
elements of stolen stories will be rendered null (Hearne, 1998).
Ultimately, Hearnes final arguments are not satisfying. She does not provide
examples of a good swap, and the argument feels incomplete. The idea of a swap is a
promising one, however, if the right criteria are in place. We Need Diverse Books
(#WNDB) works to point out the need for more people of more cultures to be heard.
Story after story of white children and white history erases the stories of all other
children, and often, stories written by members of the dominant culture skip over
elements of all other communities. When members of the dominant culture do include
people from other cultures in their work, those characters tend to veer towards
stereotypes, even if the author had meant to truly create a three-dimensional character.
Tokenism is a major issue in this literature, and it is something that #WNDB is working
to end. Instead of authors from the dominant culture taking the fore, it would better for
readers and writers alike if cultures stories could be told firsthand. The canon of authors
needs to be expanded. By allowing people to retell stories from their own cultures, we
will allow for more stories to come through. This does not mean that white writers need
to be cut from publishers lists, but we do need to allow more input from nonwhite
voices. More works by these authors needs to be purchased, read, and shared. These
diverse works need to be in libraries where young people can find and read them.
Children deserve to see their own stories told well.
The idea of swapping is something that can be emphasized in young adult
literature with a stronger focus on using tales from the dominant culture to reflect life in
other groups. Taking a source text and swapping in new contexts by the right voices when
applicable can help ground readers in a known tale and help them to connect to new
ideas. An example of a powerful story swap is the novel Ash by Malinda Lo. It revisits
the Cinderella tale type but involves a lesbian love story instead of the traditional
heteronormative romance. This story swap allows non-heterosexual readers a break from
the heteronormativity commonly found in childrens literature, bringing richness to the
swap that other adaptations may not. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and
asexual youth do not often have many books where they can find their own stories
reflected. While this is beginning to change, the amount of heteronormative books on the
shelves far outweigh any LGBTQIA books being published. By using an existing tale
type and including some of these readers, Lo opens up the world of traditional folklore to
more readers.
Another swap in young adult literature is Guadalupe
Garcia McCalls novel Summer of the Mariposas. In this revision
of The Odyssey, Odilia and her sisters travel to Mexico to return
a dead body to his family. Returning home to Texas becomes a
difficult and trying journey; figures from Mexican folklore take
the place of Homers nymphs and Cyclopes and work to hamper
the girls travels home. By weaving characters from her folk
community into Homers tale, Garcia McCall creates a rich novel for young readers.
Children familiar with the mythology of The Odyssey will be rewarded with a new
understanding of Mexican folklore. Mexican children will be able to see their own
folklore in a new light; this swap is a beautiful exchange of storytelling.
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References:
Garcia McCall, G. (2012). Summer of the mariposas. New York: Tu Books.
Hintz, C., & Tribunella, E. L. (2013) Reading childrens literature: A critical
introduction. Boston | New York: Bedford | St. Martins.
Hearne, B. (1998). Swapping tales and stealing stories: The ethics and aesthetics of
folklore in childrens literature. Library Trends, 47(3).
Lo, M. (2009). Ash. New York: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.
Meyer, M. (2011-2016). The lunar chronicles [Book Series]. New York: Feiwel and
Friends.
Pearce, J. (2010-2013). Fairytale retellings [Book Series]. New York: Little, Brown
Books for Young Readers.
Rex, G. (2014). City hall/Swan maidens [Photograph]. Retrieved from
https://flic.kr/p/oeiCrb
Summer of the mariposas [web page]. (n. d.) Retrieved from https://www.goodreads.
com/book/show/14342632-summer-of-the-mariposas
Tu Books. (2012). Summer of the mariposas [Book Cover]. Retrieved from https://d.grassets.com/books/1337982323l/14342632.jpg
We Need Diverse Books (2015). We need diverse books [Blog]. Retrieved from
http://weneeddiversebooks.tumblr.com