Madeline Simon
Cline
Essay #2
ENG 102
September 16, 2011
Fairy Tales
The poem “Fairy-tale Logic” by A.E. Stallings stimulates the brain and creates a page-by-page imaginary book. Talking about fairy tales and how they are not always peachy keen. There is not always a happy ending to fairy tales; there is always a mystery or some type of goal to accomplish. When most people think of fairy tales they think queens, talking animals, princesses, ogres and fire breathing dragons that turn nice in the end. Not everyone sees the big picture, that a fairy tale can be harsh to the mind, be scary and not have a happily ever after. The poem “Fairy-tale Logic” reminds a person of that.
A.E. Stallings wrote her poem and made it very easy to read; yet leaving one confused and left to ponder. When reading any poem, starting off with a blank slate an empty minded outlook and open for anything that may come into thought is very important. Imagination is a huge part of poems and that either makes or breaks the poem or sometimes writer. The reader must take each line with huge importance while reading the poem. The imagery in the poem is very strong and easy to bring up into thought. In the poem “Fairy-tale Logic” the first line reads “Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks:” (Stallings Line 1) it immediately opens the reader up to think “Well, not really.” Which isn’t true, watch any movie or read any book that is considered a fairy tale. There is always some type of task to accomplish or in some cases fail at. The poem reads almost depressing; giving dark imaginary thoughts. If looking into a book the colors are cold and dark the pictures are jagged and rough. Reading on in the poem “Gather the gin of hairs of a man-eating goat, Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat, ” (Stallings lines 2-3) now the lines give the impression that some comedy is apart of a fairy tale, yet some despair that maybe that leaky boat might not make it, depression of the thoughts of death may be the end. The poem like mentioned earlier is nothing happy and when given the opportunity to be positive it gets shut down almost immediately with the next line.
Most happy fairy tales have royalty and talking animals that live in real houses. Like the poem A.E. Stallings mentions “Select the prince from a row of identical masks, Tiptoe up to a dragon where it basks And snatch its bone; count dust specks, mote by mote,” (Stallings Lines 4-6) Reading it, imagining a handsome prince seeing the royal blue eyes though the holes in the mask he has laying over his face. It is so unbelievably important to read the lines thoroughly and keep the imaginative side of the brain going. Stallings brings a type of distress when reading for example, the royal blue eyes of the hidden prince, but the masks are all the same leaving one wondering and scared of the decision that has to be made. Crossing a dragon in happy fairy tales usually is scary at first then somehow the dragon falls in love with the horse the prince finds his princess and the journey home comes steadily but surely. Stallings has the attitude set to not so positive so reading it happy doesn’t exactly come to mind. The stress of crossing a dragon, snatching its bone sounds like a deadly game that could result in horrible outcomes.
Continuing on in the poem reading, “You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe that you have something impossible up your sleeve,” (Stallings Lines 9-10) what fairy tale doesn’t have magic? Whether it is an evil witch who has a magic apple that kills the princess or a fairy godmother that turns a pumpkin into a beautiful riding carriage with white horses. Stallings calls out on all the fairy tale stories and manages to get the reader imagining these tasks being dangerous and as the first line in the poem, impossible tasks.
The whole idea of a fairy tale has to be impossible, that is what makes it a fairy tale in the first place. Fairy tales are stories that help an imagination grow. They have life lessons, meanings that one could relate to life experiences. For instance in the poem it reads “The will to do whatever must be done: Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.” (Stallings Lines13-14). Now, anyone reading it could say it is just a fairy tale little do they know the last lines of this poem are the strongest and refer to life more than ever. Seeing a real person have to do what they have to get out of a situation that is deadly, having the will to do whatever it takes to get out of there. Marrying a person who later turns into a living nightmare, where in the situation, dreading to wake up in the morning to have hell served on a silver platter for breakfast. These lines have so many meanings and can have so many different outcomes. The strongest that hits is “Hand over your firstborn son.”(Stallings Line 14) Not one human living in the world would ever want to think of something so horrible. Now if Stallings had a more positive beginning to the poem the thoughts would be so much more becoming and happily ever after feelings.
A.E. Stallings captures the reader and creates the imagination to flow with what she writes. Fairy tales are no baseball game; fairy tales are definitely something easily misunderstood. They are scary, full of excitement and tasks only a fairy tale would have. Given the situations Stallings expresses thoughts of fairy tales and they aren’t happy feelings she seems to have a negative outlook leaving the reader somewhat in the dust. Even though the poem is short and simple it has depth and meaning behind every single line. It makes one wonder how the poem could have gone if Stallings wrote the poem with a tad of positive thoughts.
WORKS CITED:
Stallings, A.E. “Fairy-tale Logic” from Poetry March 2010
September 16, 2011 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/238826
Just wanted to make sure my MLA format is proper.
As far as the MLA format, one thing I did notice is I don't think that you need the "Essay #2" at the top. It's just supposed to be your name, the professor's name, the course name and the date. It's really interesting reading all of the different essays for the same poem. Everyone seems to have interpreted the poem in a slightly different way. I did notice one element about your essay that we seem to have agreed upon. I, too, thought that fairy-tales can be related to our lives. Your quote about the chin hairs on a man eating goat seems to be a little off so you might want to take a second look at that part. Good job!!
ReplyDeleteYour poem is very good you get straight to the point and the first, and that is always good when writing to get your readers attention. you have good detail and you explain them very well. your third paragraphs is longer then the other which is fine but you want to still give specific detail but narrow it dont the best well possible. well done.
ReplyDelete-Amber W.