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走暗黑风的童话故事

2019-09-03

时代英语·高一 2019年5期
关键词:小红帽大灰狼音乐节

导读:对于孩子们而言,童话故事是世间真善美的合集。而在成年人看来,童话也有其暗黑的一面。但无论如何,我们对童话故事的爱不会因年龄增长而减退……

Most of us get our earliest life lessons from fairy tales, like “True love can overcome anything”, and “Even a frog can turn into a prince”.

However, at a certain age, we start to learn new things about life, particularly that love doesnt always win, and that a frog is just a frog.

But somehow, our love for fairy tales never dies. Just look at animated films like The Lion King and Frozen, which have millions of fans young and old. And last years Lucerne Festival in Switzerland—a classical music festival—also featured the themes of “Childhood” and “Fairy tales” when it ran from Aug 17 to Sept 16.

“Fairy tales endure because they are the stories of our lives in their most stripped-down form,” wrote US author Laura Packer on the National Storytelling Network website. “They are stories of love and loss, desire and death, riches and ruin.”

Fairy tales are all about reality. But if children only see just one side of reality, adults usually see the other.

For example, in the 2014 film Maleficent, were told the tale of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the evil queen. Unlike the childrens version of the story, we see that the queen wasnt born evil. Instead, she suffers great losses growing up, leading to the creation of her “evil” side. And in US author James Finn Garners book Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, he tells the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood, but with a modern touch: When the wolf tells Red Riding Hood that it isnt safe for a little girl to walk through the woods alone, she calls the wolf sexist, which connects with todays gender equality movement.

It looks like fairy tales arent just stories our parents read us at bedtime. They may usually start with “Once upon a time…”, but as we grow older, we learn that every story doesnt always need a “Happily ever after” to be a good one.

我們大多数人都从童话故事中学到了人生第一课, 如“真爱能够战胜一切”,“就算是青蛙,也能变成王子”,等等。

然而,到了一定年纪,我们开始学到了人生中的新课,尤其是爱情并非无所不胜,而青蛙也永远只是一只青蛙。

但无论如何,我们对童话故事的爱却永远不会消逝。看看《狮子王》《冰雪奇缘》等动画电影拥有数百万不分老幼的粉丝就明白了。而在去年(2018)8月17日—9月16日,于瑞士举行的古典音乐节卢塞恩音乐节,也是以“童年”与“童话”为主题。

“童话故事历久弥新,因为它们是人生故事最纯粹的形式。”美国作家劳拉·帕克在美国全国讲故事联合会网站上如此写道,“这些故事讲述了爱与失去、渴望与死亡、富有与毁灭。”

童话故事都与现实息息相关。但孩子们只能看到一面,而成年人往往能看到另一面。

比如,在2014年的电影《沉睡魔咒》中,我们通过邪恶皇后的视角观看了《睡美人》的故事。与儿童版故事不同的是,我们看到,皇后并非生来就是恶人。她在成长过程中遭遇了重大打击,从而激发了她“邪恶”的一面。而在美国作家詹姆斯·芬恩·加纳所著的《政治正确的睡前故事》一书中,他以一种现代的方式讲述了《小红帽》的经典故事:当大灰狼告诉小红帽,小女孩独自前往森林并不安全时,小红帽认为大灰狼这是性别歧视,将这个故事与如今的性别平权运动联系起来。

看起来,童话故事并不只是父母给我们讲的睡前故事。它们的开头或许都是“很久以前……”,但当我们渐渐长大,我们会发现,一个好故事的结局并不一定非得是“从此幸福快乐地生活在一起”。

Word Study

endure /?n'dj??(r)/ v. 持续;持久

stripped-down /'str?pt'da?n/ adj. 只保留最基本特征的;精简的;简约的

perspective /p?'spekt?v/ n. 态度;观点;思考方法

His experience abroad provides a wider perspective on the problem.

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