今天我写的作文：书里书外，形形色色的父亲们
2014-12-02 12:26阅读：
先唠叨：这是儿童文学课的期末考试作文。题目自定，想写啥自己发挥。我觉得经典童话里的各种爸爸们挺有意思，就写了这个作文。
Different Types of Fathers in Fairy Tales
It is common sense that no children can grow well without
parenting. Generally speaking, parenting is supposed to come from
both mothers and fathers. When people think about the parenting
role of fathers and mothers, it is unavoidable to ask the following
questions: between fathers and mothers, who are more important for
children? Are mothers or fathers more critical for parenting? Based
on a long term study in this field, it might be surprising to many
people that it is father that is the primary person for parenting
(Wipfler,
“Fathers Are Primary Parents!”). In other
words, fathers play key role in parenting their
children.
There are many different types of fathers in fairy tales.
It is very regretful to note that many fathers do not care or
parent their children at all in these stories
(Mantel,
“Wicked Parents in Fairytales.”). From
Cinderella to Snow White, their fathers are almost absent in their
lives (Tatar 119&246). For example, when abused and mistreated
by their cruel and jealous stepmothers, both Cinderella and Snow
White suffer miserable lives in silence in the absence of their
fathers. Where is her father when Snow White is taken to the forest
by a hunter who is instructed to kill her? Where is her father when
Cinderella is abused by her stepmother and stepsisters? As readers,
we really do not know the answers. However, we do know that
we do not like this type of careless father who
leaves his own daughter to her cruel
stepmother.
Compared with Cinderella and Snow White, Sleeping Beauty,
Briar Rose, is relatively lucky because her father, the King, very
much cares about her safety (Tatar 238).
After being cursed by the thirteen woman, Sleeping Beauty’s life
will be threatened if her finger is pricked on a spindle when she
turns fifteen. To protect her safety, her father sends out an order
that every spindle in the entire kingdom is to be burned to ashes.
Although Sleeping Beauty eventually gets her finger pricked due to
her own curiosity, the willingness of her father to protect her is
worth our praising. Therefore we have no reason to criticize this
type of protective father.
To passively protect the safety of their children, just like
the father of Sleeping Beauty, is not the core of parenting.
Ideally, fathers should provide life advice and wisdom to their
children for strong personal growth. Unfortunately, few fathers in
the fairy tales provide such wise information to their children.
After looking through The Annotated Brothers Grimm,
it seems that the father in “The Frog King” is an exception because
he indeed provides some life wisdom to his daughter, who breaks her
promise to the frog (Tatar 3). “Once you
make a promise to someone, you have to keep it” (Tatar 9), is the
moral lesson given to the princess by her wise father, and it is
still full of life wisdom even for modern parenting today. This
type of wise father could serve as a good role model
for present parents.
Regretfully, the exceptional father in “Frog King” as
mentioned above is very rare in the fairy tales. Among all the
fathers in the fairy tales, the most repulsive father should be the
king who wants to marry his own daughter named Allerleirauh in
“Furrypelts” of The Brothers
Grimm (Tatar 297). After his wife is dead, the king in this
story spends years and years to find a woman as beautiful as his
dead wife for his second wife. When he fails to find a lady with a
beautiful golden hair, he suddenly realizes that his own daughter
is a perfect candidate for his second marriage because she has as
beautiful hair as her dead mother. As modern readers, it is very
difficult for us to understand how disgusting this father is.
Compared with the careless fathers of “Snow White” and
“Cinderella,” this lecherous father is even worse
because his thoughts and action break social and moral rules for a
healthy marriage.
Regardless of different types of fathers as discussed above,
it seems that there is a stereotype for the majority of fathers in
fairy tales. These fathers are very obedient to their second wicked
wives and they do not care about their own children from the first
marriage at all. In my opinion, the worst stereotyped father
in fairy tales should be the father of Hansel and Gretel
(Tatar 72), who cruelly abandons his own
children with his second wife. Although this father feels upset or
guilty after he abandons his own children, he does not stop the
wicked plan proposed by his second wife. Therefore, he is an
irresponsible, cowardly father.
Fairy tales belong to one category
of children literature (Lukens 104), which should provide pleasure
and understanding about life (Lukens 2). In fact, we indeed get
pleasure when we read these fairy tales. However, what do we learn
from these different types of fathers in fairy tales? How do we
understand life better after we connect the fathers in fairy tales
to the modern fathers? If we do a matching game, we could easily
find that fathers in fairy tales almost truly reflect fathers in
our current modern society. Based on the above analysis, there are
five types of fathers in fairy tales: careless, protective,
wise, lecherous, and cowardly fathers. If we look
around in our life, we can easily locate each type of fairy tales
fathers in our daily life.
The careless fathers are not uncommon in these days. For
example, a Georgia father left his 22-month-old son in
a hot car last September and he was indicted for many charges for
the death of his baby son (Wolfe, “Ga. Father Indicted
for Murder in Son’s Hot-Car Death.”). Of course, the
careless fathers are not always responsible for the death of their
children. Instead, the majority of careless fathers ignore their
children in a passive way. In many families around the
world, lots of busy fathers often work very hard for their career
success. Although they could make money to raise their families,
they spend less and less time with their children and become
careless fathers under the pressure of their jobs.
Particularly when the work stress or pressure is a worrisome
issue for today’s fathers, it is very likely that fathers under
work pressure becomecareless fathers of their children. One
well known example is Jackie Chan and his son
(Ross, “Jackie Chan ‘Ashamed’ of Son
Jaycee Chan After Drug Bust.” ). We all know that
the world-famous movie star Jackie Chen is very
successful in his own career by being a key actor in many movies.
Although he is successful at his own career, he is almost totally
detached from his son’s education. One day, when he went to school
to pick up his son, he did not even know which grade his son was
in. This is not a joke, but is well known news in Chinese media.
Due to the absence of Jackie Chan in his son’s education, the
shocking news about his son Jaycee Chan seems predictable. When
Jaycee Chan went to jail for doing illegal drugs this year, it is
understandable that Jackie Chan feels disappointed and ashamed.
Although Jackie Chan is a careless father, it is apparent that he
is not as bad as the fathers of “Snow White” and “Cinderella”
because he loves his son. His mistakes are due to his absence in
his son’s life, thus, this makes him a careless or irresponsible
father. Even Jackie Chan
is blaming himself after his son was arrested in China
for drug possession last August. He reportedly posted online
that Jaycee’s arrest is his own fault because he
“failed to educate” his son (Ross, “Jackie
Chan ‘Ashamed’ of Son Jaycee Chan After Drug
Bust.”).
Compared with Jackie Chan, President Obama is a wise and
caring father similar to the father in ‘Frog King’ (Tatar 3). For
example, he often spends lots of time with his two daughters and
teaches them life lessons by different approaches. The most recent
example of President Obama and his children just happened
yesterday. During the Thanksgiving holiday of this year, Present
Obama took his two teenage daughters Sasha and Malia
to an independent bookstore in Washington to buy books as a way to
promote small business (Marcias, “Obama And
His Daughters Bought Books From a Local Store For Small Business
Saturday.”). As the leader of America, President Obama
must have a demanding schedule. Therefore, he is worth our praise
because he cares about the education of his daughters, even though
he is busy. Furthermore, he bought many good books for his
daughters, which should be good resources for their moral and
spiritual growth.
In fairy tales, lecherous father might be rare but he is
indeed present (Tatar 297). The same type of fathers seems to be
not uncommon in the real life, as well. Many horrific news are not
fairy tales but are occasionally reported worldwide. For example, a
father raped his daughter and even had baby with her
(Macaskill, “Woman Was Raped by Her Father
Hundreds of Times and Had His Baby.”); a father made
impregnated his daughter and then forced her to have an abortion
(Ertelt, “Dad Impregnates Daughter After
Raping Her and Forces Her to Have Abortion.”), and a
father killed his own children (Associated Press. “Dad
Charged with Murdering 5 Kids Thought They Would Kill Him
& ‘Feed Him to the Dogs.’”). In my opinion, these
fathers are much worse than the lecherous father in fairy tales.
For example, the lecherous father in “Furrypelts” of The
Brothers Grimm wants to marry his own daughter because he
thinks no lady is as beautiful as his dead wife and only his
daughter can replace her. In other words, this lecherous father has
no intention to abuse or kill his daughter. In contrast, the
fathers who raped and killed their daughters in current events had
either hatred in mind or abnormal social behavior in daily
life.
Based on th
