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Role of Silence in Fairy Tales

y. It can be said, indeed, that the view of the gnomes is that there is no need to reveal to the good sister the content of their silence, which is a symbol of their wishes, and no obligation to reveal that content to the bad sister. Their silence is in a broad sense the wash of experience in the universe, but they are only agents of universal consequence, for each sister's psychological makeup brings upon her the consequences that the gnomes' wishes impose on her.

With regard to the nature of the universe, the silence of the three gnomes toward the two stepsisters conceals the truth but does not prevent truth from becoming apparent. That is, the gnomes do not share with either sister the fact that they have placed a spell on her. Rather, the experience of each sister confirms the content of the spell. That is where silence as a concealment of individual psychology comes in. On one side is the concealment of the mean-spirited purposes of the wicked and ugly sister, who spouts forth toads (Grimm 57) instead of gold when she speaks. On the other side, for her beautiful stepsister who becomes queen, a silence broken means a spouting-forth of gold, a complement to the queen's generous heart. The concealing role that silence plays in the life of the wicked stepsister is that it protects her from exposure while deceiving the object of her desire about both her true nature and the fate of her unfortunate sister. With the good stepsister, silence need not conceal anything, although the silence is imposed on her when she is thrust out the window by the bad sister. Meanwhile, a broken silence, in the form of a gold piece for every word that passes her lips, reveals her psychological truth as surely and unambiguously as it does with the wicked stepsister.

If silence conceals psychological truth of women, it has the role of working deception on men and becoming a touchstone for the enactment or failure of heroism. When the wicked stepsister t...

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Role of Silence in Fairy Tales. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 18:24, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1711971.html