Feral Children

A feral child is a human child who has lived in isolation for a long time from a very young age. Feral children have little or no experience of human contact, and as a result of this do not understand basic social skills and human language. Some feral children have been confined or abandoned by people (usually their own parents). Others have lived alone in the wild, or in some cases have been raised by animals, like Mowgli in the Jungle Book.

Famous feral children in literature include Tarzan, Peter Pan and Mowgli. These mythical children are commonly presented as having superior strength, intelligence and morals compared to "normal" humans, implying that because of their upbringing they represent humanity in a pure and uncorrupted state, similar to Rousseau's "noble savage" theory. This idea also has links with religion, as before Adam and Eve ate the apple they lived in the wild in a pure/uncorrupted state.

The Green Man and the Erlking

THE GREEN MAN.

• He is linked with the themes of life, death and rebirth
• He is usually presented as a protector of trees and plants
• He was originally a Pagan god, but over time he has overlapped with different stories such as Robin Hood
• He also has links with Christianity - that's why there's often sculptures of little faces with leaves around them in churches. I don't actually know what the link is though.
• He is green

That's all I managed to find out really, google wasn't very helpful.

I also checked out who the Erl-King was though, and he is a lot more interesting.

THE ERLKING.

The Erlking originated in Denmark, but the source of the more well-known version is a poem by Goethe.

The poem Erlkönigs Tochter (Elvrkonge’s Daughter), was a Danish work translated into German by Johann Gottfried Herder. The story portrays Sir Oluf riding to his marriage but being entranced by the music of the elves. An elf maiden, in Herder’s translation the Elverkonge’s daughter, appears and invites him to dance with her. He refuses and spurns her offers of gifts and gold. Angered, she strikes him and sends him on his way, deathly pale. The following morning, on the day of his wedding, his bride finds him lying dead under his scarlet cloak.

Goethe was inspired by Herder's ballad, and rewrote the story with some significant changes. In Goethe's version it is the Erlking himself who is the antagonist of the story, and he preys on children rather than adults of the opposite sex. The Erlking's motives are not made clear, but he sounds like a bit of a paedophile (in the poem he tells the little boy that he loves him and is "charmed by his beauty". Ew.

The Erlking is also portrayed as an omen of death, and will only appear to a person about to die. In Goethe's poem the little kid sees the Erlking and is like "aaah daddy the erlking's here" and his Dad says "no its fine it's just a tree". It goes on like this for the whole poem (it gets a bit repetitive/boring/annoying) And then the little kid dies. So his dad should have listened really.

Also, a person can tell what sort of death awaits them by the Erlking’s expression eg. a pained expression means a painful death, a happy expression means you'll get tickled to death. In Angela Carter's version, she doesn't really incorporate any of this, and her Erl-king is more like the Green Man than the traditional Erlking.

The endddddd.

Lil' Red Riding Hood

LRRH is probably one of the most famous fairy tales. The original story went something like this:

One day Little Red goes to see her grandmother

She walks through the woods by herself with a basket of fruit

She meets a wolf and tells him what she is doing and where she is going

The wolf runs off to granny's house and Lil' Red skips around the wood and picks flowers for a bit

The wolf eats granny

Lil' Red arrives at granny's house and the wolf disguises himself as granny to trick her

Lil' Red makes some comments about the size of wolf-granny's ears, nose, hands, eyes and teeth

Wolf eats Lil' Red

Basically the story was about stranger danger, and the message behind it was don't tell strangers or wolves where you live/where you are going because they will follow you and kill/eat you and your family if you do.

So in its original form, the story is quite effective for scaring children into not talking to strangers and warning them of possible dangers they might face.

However, the modern interpretation succeeds in confusing the message entirely and messing with children's brains.

Because Disney or whoever it was decided that Granny and Lil' Red dying was too upsetting, they changed the story so everyone lived happily ever after. the wolf still ate Granny and was about to eat Lil' Red, but then suddenly a nice woodcutter man appeared out of thin air and killed the wolf. The he cut the wolf down the middle and out stepped granny, alive and well. Lil' Red and Granny said thank you to the woodcutter and everyone went their separate ways.

This interpretation is stupid for two reasons.

1. It gives children the message that if they behave naively and tell strangers where they live it will still be okay because a magic woodcutter will save them

2. It tells them that if you get eaten by a wolf there is still a possible chance of survival.

Both messages are false, and I just feel sorry for all the little kids that trust strangers or aren't capable of understanding that once a wolf eats you, you're dead.

Also, if anyone wants to read a good book about creepy fairytales I seriously recommend "The Book of Lost Things" by John Connolly. It's a bit like The Bloody Chamber (but better), and it has a really disturbing version of Little Red Riding Hood in it.

chapter 8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!women and marriage

So chapter 8 is all from Mina's point of view, which means that even though some important things happen in it, its really boring. At the start of the chapter there are some references to the "New Woman", which is basically about feminism, and there are some slightly sarcastic remarks about women proposing to men and stuff. So we get the idea that Stoker isn't really a fan of woman being allowed to do anything other than stay in the kitchen. This attitude is also shown in his characterization of Mina, who is meant to be this perfect woman but is actually a pathetic, stereotypically stupid female who gets scared by cows.

Anyway then Lucy goes missing during the night, and Mina ventures out to get her. She spots her "half-reclining" outside the abbey with some mysterious black shape (Dracula) bending over her. There are quite a few things in this scene that could be symbolic of a wedding - Lucy's white nightdress and the Count's black clothes represent the traditional clothes worn at a wedding, and the ruined abbey could be seen as a slightly twisted version of a wedding chapel.

So anyway then Mina runs over (I was kind of surprised by this, i thought she would have been too scared. I guess she's not completely useless) and Dracula disappears, but not before she glimpses his "white face and red, gleaming eyes". when she reaches Lucy, Lucy is breathing in "long, heavy gasps" which suggests the aftermath of a physical act - maybe Dracula raped her. And there's blood on her dress too, which could have been the breaking of the hymen. This all adds to the macabre wedding theory.

So then Mina takes Lucy home, and is so worried that people will see her without shoes on that she covers her feet in mud. Because mud looks so much like shoes.

The next day she notices that Lucy has these little "red points like pin-pricks" on her throat, but instead of coming to the conclusion that Lucy has been bitten by a vampire, she thinks she pricked it on a safety-pin. Stupid.

In conclusion, judging from his characters, Stoker was basically sexist and probably agreed with that Madonna-Whore Freud thing, since all the women in Dracula are either idiots (Mina) or whores (vampire brides).

vampires

1. Count von Count

Count von Count is a mysterious but friendly vampire-like Muppet on Sesame Street. He first appeared on the show in Season 4, whilst counting blocks in a sketch with Bert and Ernie.

The Count has a compulsive love of counting known as arithmomania. He will count anything and everything, regardless of size, amount, or how much annoyance he causes others around him. In one song he admitted that he sometimes counts himself. When he finishes counting, The Count usually laughs and announces his total. This finale is usually accompanied by a crash of thunder and a flash of lightning, provided by the Count's personal raincloud.

The Count lives in a castle along with a number of bats which he often counts. Some of the pet bats are named, including Grisha, Misha, Sasha, and Tattiana. He also has a cat called Fatatita, and an octupus named Octavia. He plays a large pipe organ, and in some illustrations he is seen playing the violin. In recent years, the Count has appeared on each episode to announce the Number of the Day playing notes on his organ to count up to the featured number.

It is suggested that the Count may be a distant relative of Count Dracula, but he is described as a "Numerical Vampire" rather than a regular vampire. Some insist that the Count is not a vampire at all, but evidence suggests otherwise. Examples of typically vampiric behaviour displayed by the Count include him waving his hands to exercise hypnotic power over other Muppets, holding his cape over the lower part of his face while moving and failing to produce a reflection in front of a mirror. However, unlike most traditional vampires the Count enjoys relaxing in the sunshine, as seen in an episode of Sesame Street when he goes on a counting vacation.

2. Lilith

Lilith is Dracula's oldest child, and is his only child by his first wife, Zofia, who was forced on Dracula by his father. After Dracula's father died, he renounced Zofia and forced her and their infant daughter to leave Castle Dracula so that he could marry a woman he loved. Lilith was raised by gypsies to whom she had been entrusted after her mother's suicide. Lilith's foster-mother was the gypsy Gretchin. When Lilith was a young girl, Dracula, now a vampire, attacked and murdered Gretchin's son Arni, enraging her into seeking revenge. She cast a spell upon Lilith to make her into a vampire, but one with rather different powers: she did not fear holy symbols, and was not harmed at all by being out in the daylight. As part of the curse, she would haunt Dracula, ever opposing him, until Dracula was finally destroyed.

3. Edward Cullen

Edward is a vampire from Twilight, the extremely boring vampire series by Stephanie Meyer. He is not a typical vampire in that he does not drink human blood, choosing to drink animal blood instead as he thinks it is more moral. More characteristic vampire traits he possesses include superhuman strength and immortality. He is also unable to go outside in sunlight, but this is not because it will harm him it just makes his skin glitter which would attract unwanted attention. In the Twilight series Edward falls in love with a human called Bella, who later turns into a vampire to be with him.

Act 4 - random guy pulls of faustus' leg!!!!!! and then it grows back? what?

so just read act 4 (sort of) and am now seriously confused. There's a horse thats not really a horse but is actually a bottle of hay, Faustus gets his leg pulled off but is okay and suddenly has a leg again, and theres a final pointless scene about some grapes.

So this blog's going to be rubbish but whatever

How has Faustus Fallen Further ?

• less ambitious - we definitely see a massive decrease in Faustus' ambition (although this is really more apparent in Act 3). When we compare Faustus' original goal - to become a powerful magician and control the world - to what he's settled for now -"fame spread forth in every land"- it seems as if Faustus isn't really that bothered about power anymore and just wants to be famous. This is a bit weird, as Faustus sold his soul for these amazing magical abilities, and now doesn't care about them anymore. I think this could be Mephistopheles' influence, who in act 3 was discouraging Faustus' ambition.
• Relies on Mephs for everything - Faustus doesn;t do any magic throughout Act 4 but just lets Mephs do everything for him, like fetch the dead princes and find some grapes. This shows how he's either not bothered about doing magic anymore or has forgotten how to do it, leaving him reliant on Mephistopheles. Also when Faustus gets his leg pulled off he shouts to Meph for help "Help, Mephistopheles!". Although that is kind of understandable because he has just lost a leg.

Quiche Lorraine

In act 3.1 Faustus begins to fall in the eyes of the audience, becoming more of a comedy figure than the ambitious character we first met. He also seems less in control than he used to be - When Faustus and Mephs go to see the Pope, we receive hints that Mephistopheles is sneakily making Faustus do what he wants him to do. We notice this in the more commanding and persuasive nature of his speech: "Nay Faustus, stay", "We'll be bold", etc.

When Faustus turns invisible with his magic invisibility cloak borrowed from HP, he starts playing tricks on the Pope like stealing his cup and having some witty banter with him, before hitting him in the ear. At the end of this hilarious scene, when the Pope has left the friars come back and start chanting Maledicat dominus and cursing Faustus. Faustus and Mephs attack the friars with fireworks and win, but the scene still ends on a slightly foreboding note, with Faustus cursed 5 times over.

I think the purpose of this scene was to emphasize that although Faustus was promised loads of amazing things when he signed up to Hell, he not only hasn't achieved any of them but also doesn't seem to care, and is happy to just play childish tricks on people with Mephistopheles. this shows how Faustus has changed into a less intelligent and more immature character.

In the scene after, Mephistopheles turns Robin and Vinter into animals for lols. They're really happy about it so its quite a nice scene. We also learn from the scene that Faustus has somehow lost his magic book (because Robin has it) that he was so obsessed with at the start of the play. this again emphasizes Faustus' loss of ambition and intelligence, as he hasn't even mentioned that he's lost the book, proving that he doesn't care about it any more.