When it comes to the twentieth century, we find the traces of Tolkienian functions of dwarf stories which accentuate, reinvigorate and revitalize the elements of escape, fantasy, recovery and consolation in the minds of the contemporary readers.
Other masculine hegemonic practices can be held responsible for the canonized corpus's predomination by male authors (the Grimms, Andersen, Perrault, even Disney, the latter showing the image of dwarf as a kind of treasurekeeper and -seeker) and the recognizable representational patterns sustaining gender inequality and themes of female submissiveness. The possible dualistic arrangement between their helpfulness and their daemonic look has been both adapted by numerous authors and used as a figure to hide several messages as well as sociopolitical estimations: During the Enlightenment era, rationalism shaped assumptions about the necessary requirements such as a short and simple form and didactic moralizing message with the help of dwarves whereas during the Romantic era, nationalism accounts for fairy tales' association with the cultural heritage and patriarchal institutionalization. Zealous, sharp and small in statue they are often shown as counterparts to the inane giant.
Mythology itself presents dwarves not only as treasurekeepers and remarkable workers, but calling them gnome, kobold, bogey, brownie or leprechaun. Dwarves have always been a recurring image and a character from the fairy tales to the novels. Speaking of the history of stories and especially fairy-tales, we may say that the Pot of Soup, the Cauldron of Story, has always been boiling for centuries. Today more than ever fairy tales permeate pop culture, literature, music, fine arts, opera, ballet and cinema.
On the Footsteps of Dwarves: Different Readings of a Mythical Figure in Popular Culture (Essay Collection)
0 kommentar(er)
