Week 10 Jewish Folktale Tradition

In class this week we read numerous Jewish folktales and after discussing them we found that Jewish tale traditions differ from western tales in several distinct ways.  Firstly the Jewish tales, much like the American deaf culture’s tales, poke fun at the majority.  The Jewish culture uses folktales as an instrument of empowerment by making fun of the majority population.  It is commonly known that the Jewish people have been made scapegoats throughout history, so they use stories as a form of release.
This leads us to another distinction between Jewish tales and western tales: humor.  Jewish folktales contain a lot more humor than western tales do.  For example, in “A Dispute in Sign Languages” a wicked priest summons the chief rabbi and gives him an ultimatum: either present a Jew for a dispute in sign language in 30 days or he will have all the Jews killed.  Just when the thirty days are about to run out, a Jew takes up the challenge and has a dispute in sign language with the wicked priest.  The priest goes through a series of signs and the Jewish poultry dealer answers to the priests satisfaction and thus passes the test.  After the dispute, it is revealed that the poultry dealer translated the priests signs using logic and reason and thus mistranslating the priest’s intended meaning.  The poultry dealers signs were still accepted by the priest because the priest mistranslated the Jew’s signs.  The whole dispute was a complete miscommunication that ends up saving all of the Jews.
Another distinction of the Jewish folktale tradition is that the main character is commonly a Rabbi.  This departs from the western tradition of having children or young adults as the main character.  The Rabbi by definition must be an adult.  Having a Rabbi is also different because it involves religion directly in the story.  Western tales mainly use religion in the form of motifs.
Jewish folktales are also more realistic than western tales.  They contain little or no magic or enchantment. Rather, the characters in the tale use intelligence to accomplish what magic does in other tales.  In the Jewish tale “The Rabbi and the Inquisitor”, the town judge tries to falsely persecute a Rabbi for murder by tricking him.  After losing in argument, the judge forces the rabbi to put his fate up to chance.  The judge decrees that the Jew must pick his sentence from a hat, that contains two slips of paper: one with “guilty” written on it and one left blank. However, the judge secretly writes “guilty” on both  so that the rabbi must be found guilty no matter which paper he picks.  The rabbi guesses the judge is going to do this and eats the slip of paper he chooses so that no one can read it.  Since the only slip left in the had says guilty on it, every thinks that the one the rabbi ate must have been blank so they had to release him.  This is a much more realistic story than are seen in western tale traditions, where magic and enchantment are common tools for achieving one’s goals.

Week 9 Bluebeard

Out of the four versions of “Bluebeard” we read I enjoyed Charles Perrault’s tale the most.  His version was the first one I read, so the others did not captivate me as much because I had a general idea of what was going to happen.
I think this version makes more of an impression on the reader due to its more believable beginning.  Instead of capturing women with magic, as in a Brothers’ Grimm version, Bluebeard marries them in traditional fashion.  “One of his neighbors, a respectable lady, had two daughters who were perfect beauties.”  When they refuse, he throws them a party to show that even though he has a blue beard, he is still a good guy.  Eventually he proves to the youngest daughter that he is in fact a decent man and she agrees to marry him.
I also think Perrault’s version is the best because of its emphasis on the moral lesson.  Perrault uses strong language when the daughter betrays Bluebeard’s orders. “So tormented was she by here curiosity that, without stopping to think about how rude it was to leave her friends, she raced down a little staircase so fast that more than once she thought she was going to break her neck. When she reached the door to the room, she stopped to think for a moment about how her husband had forbidden her to enter and reflected on the harm that might come her way for being disobedient. But the temptation was so great that she was unable to resist it. She took the little key and, trembling, opened the door.” I italicized the words myself to show how much he focuses on the moral of resist temptations and curiosity if it is forbidden, for disobeying can lead to a bad end.
I also thought it was interesting that this was the moral.  Bluebeard murders all of his wives for their disobedience, but the focus of the story is on the disobedience rather than the murders.  Perrault downplays the monster that is Bluebeard and amplifies the disobedience of the women, making them seem just as wrong as Bluebeard.  This might be done in order to keep focus on the tales intended lesson, but it is possible that gender biases could have had an impact as well.