midterm reflection 1500 words due in 12 hrs

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Hsiang Ning (Victoria) Lin

CR Exercise 3: Audience in Context

Professor ​Stefan Karlsson

11 Oct, 2018

CR Exercise 3: Audience in Context

In the Fitcher's bird tale, the authors use pathos or emotions to appeal to the reader. It is

emotional to read how the sorcerer who masquerades as a poor man captures innocent girls and

takes them to his house against their will. The readers’ emotions run even higher on reading that

girls that fail the sorcerer’s test are killed in a cruel manner. It is also sentimental when the

second girl discovers body parts of her older sister in the secret chamber. The author also uses

pathos when the youngest sister is able to out-smart the sorcerer. She joins the body parts of her

murdered sisters who come back to life (Grimm J, Grimm W & Hunt, 2012). This strategy is

aimed at stirring emotions in children who would feel sorry for the girls and get angry at the

sorcerer.

The authors show that curiosity can be both beneficial and dangerous. The first two

sisters who were captured by the witch got killed because of their curiosity. Had they not been

curious to know what was in the secret chamber they would not have ended up dead. Curiosity

can be of benefit as shown by the youngest girl who is able to rescue and save her dead sisters.

Here, the authors show that for curiosity to pay off one has to be clever too. It is a blend of the

two; curiosity and cleverness that the youngest girl applied to save her sisters. From the story,

children learn that being clever is a valuable attribute and it can be used to ones rescue in times

of trouble (Wilder, 2014). The youngest sister used her cleverness to save herself. She was able

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to dress herself up like a fitcher’s bird in order to escape the from the witches house. She was

also clever enough to make a mascot that looked like her and put it on the window so that the

witch would think it were her staring out through the window (Grimm J, Grimm W & Hunt,

2012). She was also able to device a scheme to save her sisters when she demanded that the

witch take a basket full of gold to her parents. She cunningly hides her sisters in the baskets and

instructs the witch not to put it down or rest along the way. The authors show that cleverness

does not come with age; younger people can be cleverer than their older counterparts. The witch

had a clever way of testing whether his brides to be followed his instructions. The first two

sisters were not clever enough to crack the witches trap, they fell right in and got killed.

Even though the spiteful witch looked to be winning at first, in the end good prevails over

evil. The tale teaches children that those who do bad things to others will always be defeated by

those who do good. Children also learn it is not good to punish innocent people. The witch is

torched in his house together with his relatives and friends for punishing and killing innocent

girls. In general the tale aims to entertain children but also impact them with good morals.

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References

Bompas, C. H. (1909). Folklore of the Santal Parganas. In D. Nutt, ​Animal Brides​ (pp. 254-256).

London. Retrieved from https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0402.html

Darnton, R. (1890). ​Peasants Tell Tales.​ France. Retrieved from

http://www.justinecassell.com/CC_Winter04/pdfs/darnton_peasants.pdf