Vladimir Propp and Fairy Tales -- Part 2

This week’s swap: M. L. Farb’s East of Apollo’s Palace, described like this:

Kalika is mute, but she has a sharp mind and vocal hands. Most of her suitors see her as a silent prize of noble birth. When one suitor treats her as a person and ends up cursed because of her, Kalika is horrified and feels responsible to rescue him. She journeys from her warm homeland to the far north, East of Apollo's Palace, where only her wits will save them both.

Apparently it’s also a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Sounds like fun—check it out!

Last week I talked about the opening sequence in Vladimir Propp’s 1928 Morphology, which (for those playing at home) means everything from α (Initial Situation) through A (Villainy) or A1 (Lack). Propp doesn’t find this stuff terribly interesting, and frankly, neither do I. What is interesting is what happens next. After this opening sequence we get: 

Complication (ABC↑) — Hero gets established and sets off on quest to “liquidate” Lack

Transmission (DEFG) — Hero encounters Donor and acquires magical Agent

Struggle:

Battle (HIJ) — Hero does battle with Villain

Trials (oLMN) — Hero faces impossible task(s) set by one or more Villains

Liquidation (K↓PrRs) — Hero liquidates Lack and goes home

Completion (QExTUW) — Hero recognized, Villain punished, Hero transfigured and wins

I’ve deliberately put this in a slightly different order than Propp does, in order to highlight the way that Battle and Trials are functionally interchangeable: in Propp’s language, they are both “moves.” A simple tale has one of these, a more complex tale both; either way, the move or moves must end with Liquidation. (This does mean, yes, that in a complex two-move tale, you’ve got two different Liquidations and more than one Villain, but that’s for a later column. It’s simpler than it looks.)

What interests me for this column is the Donor, who first appears during the Transmission sequence. So let’s quickly run through the pieces.

In the Complication, after the Villainy that establishes the Lack, we get the Hero brought into things (B. Mediation), gearing-up for the quest (C. Beginning Counteraction), and then setting off (↑ Departure). So if the little girl has been kidnapped by the witch, B might be the old woodcutter encountering or calling on the Heroic prince, C the prince agreeing to attempt the rescue and girding his loins, and ↑ him heading off. Alternatively, B might be the little girl realizing she’s got to do something or the witch will eat her, C her figuring out how to pick the lock of her cage with an old finger-bone, and ↑ her exploring the lair while the witch is out.

Transmission is where it gets rather weird. Based on my reading, anyway, this is something very important in a lot of different traditions of folk-tales, and in some respects kind of the distinctive unit of the genre. The really remarkable thing about the Transmission is that it is wildly open-ended, transmuting the rather basic setup into something excitingly strange, and yet Propp manages to distill all this complexity to enormous simplicity.

Transmission goes like this: 

[Igor, throw the second switch!]

D. First Function of the Donor — The Hero encounters someone (rarely, something) who presents a challenge, trial, or test; this can be explicit or implicit. 

Version 1: As the Prince strode through the dark forest, he came upon a huge, smelly ogre. When the ogre saw him, it raised its club and let out a terrifying roar.

Version 2: The little girl crept around the witch’s cottage, just as quiet as a mouse. [Insert description of cottage appropriate to narrative style here.] After a time, she heard a plaintive weeping and wailing, and crept forward to learn what it was. In the darkest, dustiest corner of the cottage, she found a tiny silver cage, and inside it a little blue woman, no more than four inches high. “Please, little girl, let me out of this cage!” she said.

E. Hero’s Reaction

Version 1: Unafraid, the Prince drew his sword and dashed in. Whick-whack! Whick-whack! He swung his sword and cut off the ogre’s arms. Whick-whack! Whick-whack! The Prince ran around behind and cut off the ogre’s arms. And with just one more whick-whack!, the Prince cut off the ogre’s head.

Version 2: The little girl said, “How can I let you out? There is no key.” But the little woman said, “You have only to breathe upon the shiny lock, and with your finger make the sign of the cross in the mist. Then the lock will break and I will be free.” “If it is so easy, why do you not do it yourself?” “Because only a virgin of pure heart can do it.” So the little girl leaned forward and breathed on the lock, and in the mist she drew the sign of the cross. Click-clack! The lock popped open, and the little blue woman leaped out.

F. Receipt of a Magical Agent — Here it gets tricky again. The magical Agent is essentially a power, and the Donor is the one who provides it, willingly or otherwise. In some cases the Donor is the Agent, and a lot of what you’ll read (especially online) about Propp’s functions gets this confused. So for example, in Star Wars (the real one, the so-called “A New Hope”), the Donor is Ben Kenobi, the Agent is the Force. In Luke’s quest, the Donor (Ben) will continue along as guide and mentor, and continually renew or deepen his transmission of the Agent (the Force).

Version 1: The Prince cleaned his sword on the ogre’s shirt and was just about to depart when he heard a horse whinnying in a dark cave just behind where the ogre had been standing. Inside the cave he found a magnificent stallion, all of purest white, tied to an iron ring set into the cave wall. With one mighty blow of his sword he struck off the chain, and, finding that the horse stood still and looked at him trustingly, he mounted up and rode into the woods.

Version 2: “Oh thank you!” said the little woman. “I have been in that cage for a hundred years, and if I had stayed just one more day I would surely have perished.” “I am very glad that you are happy,” said the little girl. “Now you have not asked for anything, but just released me, and so I know that you are a good and kind little girl,” the blue woman said, “so I am going to give you a present.” She pulled a tiny ring off her finger, and when she breathed on it, it became large enough to fit on the little girl’s finger. “This is a magic ring, and if you turn it around on your finger three times and say the name of the Blessed Virgin, you will become invisible. When you wish to be visible once more, you have only to turn the ring around on your finger again.”

G. Guidance — The Hero is led, transferred, chased, etc., to the proper location for the battle or trials or whatever, i.e., to the location for the encounter with the Villain. In some cases, the magical Agent plays an explicit or implicit role in this, sometimes the Donor does, sometimes both.

Version 1: The Prince rode for several days and nights, but could make no progress. Whenever in the distance he could see the dark tower where the witch lived, he rode toward it, but every time he came out from under the canopy of trees and could see it again, he found that he had been turned round and gotten no closer at all. At last in his frustration he said, “How I wish someone could show me a way through this horrible forest!” The white stallion said, “You have only to ask, master.” In great surprise, the Prince said, “You can talk?” “I can, master,” said the horse. “Why did you not speak before?” “You did not speak to me, master, and it is impolite for a servant to speak without being spoken to.” “And do you know a way through this forest?” “I do, master.” “Well, then, let’s go!” cried the prince. “As you wish, master,” said the white stallion, and at once set off at a gallop. Again and again the prince thought that they would crash into a tree or fall into a ravine, but the stallion kept straight on as if these obstacles were not even there. After no more than an hour they came to a halt before the gates of the witch’s tower.

Version 2: The next day, when the witch was gone, the little girl once again unlocked her cage with the finger-bone. She turned the magic ring around on her finger three times and called to the Blessed Virgin. Piff-poof! She became completely invisible, so that she could not see her own hand before her face, and when she looked down, she could not see her legs or feet. Quiet as a mouse, the little girl crept to the iron door of the witch’s sanctum. When she touched the knob, the door spoke and said, “O mother, mother, the door is opening!” The witch, who could hear the door wherever she was, called out, “Who is opening my door?” “O mother, mother, I see nobody.” “Then it is only the wind, forget it.” The door fell silent, and the little girl went inside. [Obviously you’d want to include the talking door in the description of the witch’s cottage, back at D. Ideally, too, the talking door should speak three times; perhaps that should happen in the confrontation section, H or M.]

I know this column has gotten long, but I did want to say a few words about this Transmission section. From a distance, there doesn’t seem to be much continuity between the two versions composed here (three, if you include Star Wars). A talking horse, a ring of invisibility, and the Force don’t seem similar, and above all a defeated ogre, a miniature blue woman, and Ben Kenobi don’t seem similar. But what Propp has recognized is that underlying apparent diversity there is one total event here: the Hero encounters a figure (Donor) through whom is acquired a magical property (Agent).

The “tests” here are also of very different kinds. The Prince’s test is to be unafraid and defeat the ogre. The little girl’s test is to be kind to the strange blue woman, and furthermore to be pious (thus all the bits about the Blessed Virgin, something that comes up a lot in the Grimm tales); from the blue woman’s words, we learn also that virginity and purity of heart are part of it too; in some tales, the “test” is simply being polite to a stranger, in which case very often the same situation is repeated (generally three times total) with the false Heroes being rude, haughty, disdainful, or whatever. Luke Skywalker’s test, much extended, is to undertake the quest and to believe in the Force (and himself). In the Prince’s case the test is incidental, immediately forgotten; in Luke’s it is the centerpiece of the character development that drives the whole series.

I think for next time, I’m going to take a break from Propp—though I’ll be coming back to him—and do a week or two of reviews of new fantasy/sci-fi fiction. On StoryOrigin (where I do my title swaps) I’ve kind of promised to do these reasonably often, and it’s been a while. If you’ve got a book you want reviewed—bear in mind that I can be somewhat tough!—do let me know; you can send me the whole thing or I’ll review from the free Kindle sample, as you prefer.

Thanks for reading!