Fairy Tales, Cautionary Tales, Tragic Tales, and True Love Tales

“How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?” Albert Einstein commented on first love while William Shakespeare quoted “But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit”. Some people perceive love as just something to do with heart and feelings, nothing more than that but without love, Taj Mahal can never be built, and because of love as well, Cleopatra and Mark Anthony lost their empire. To define what love exactly means might not be perfect enough no matter how faultless the words can be. While Greeks categorized love in four different definitions, unconditional love, dispassionate virtuous love, family love, and physical attraction love, Robert Sternberg, a psychologist defined love as triangular components, passion, intimacy and commitment. Love is to be found in a variety of contexts. Contexts of love itself is wide as there are the conjugal love, parental love, friendship, compassion, love of self, love of country, and love of God. Giving thousands different explanations can never be more significant than to put it in stories or myth or in this case it is called tales. True, fictitious or even legendary, tales preserve love for centuries and alterations sometimes made to suit some other purposes. The purposes can be to show affection, to promote peace, to remind the youngs and innocents, to be an eye-opener or even to give hopes in life for some people. “A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct; The language plain, and incidents well linked; Tell not as new what ev'ry body knows, And new or old, still hasten to a close” as written by William Cowper in his book ‘Poems’. In these tales, love was defined clearly, sometimes it can be obsession of possession, in some other stories it can be lessons to learn while in some cases love can be nothing but fate, depending on how we distinguish it. In this paper, the analysis will be on the topic of all time love tales which will be categorized into four categories; Fairy Tales, Cautionary Tales, Tragic Tales, and True Love Tales. The context of these love tales is conjugal love or love of a man and a woman whom dreamt to be together motivated by genuine feelings of caring, affection, and responsibility for the other's well-being.

The characteristics highlighted in this review are the female typical character, male typical character, the parents’ role in affecting the story lines, the ending of the tales and the issue that was raised in the tales. These features will be looked at using one short novel, two movies and one play; The Prisoner of Zenda, Pretty Woman, Ibu Mertuaku and Romeo and Juliet.

Firstly, the analysis will be on Fairy Tales. The term Fairy Tale itself was originated from French writer Madame d’Aulnoy (c.1650-1705) when she used the phrase ‘contes de fée’ in her work which means fairy tale. Like any other tale, Fairy Tales have similar features where there is a beautiful princess or in this case a beautiful woman, a prince charming or a handsome bachelor, and a villain to part the pair. In the movie Pretty woman, Vivian Ward, a prostitute from Hollywood Boulevard luckily met a handsome rich man whom was amused by her character and believed that she deserved more than just to be a prostitute. Other than this movie, stories like Cinderella and Bawang Putih Bawang Merah were also taken into consideration so that comparison can be made.

From the three stories, the female character is typically independent, strong-willed or sometimes talented, which in the Bawang Putih Bawang Merah’s case, that is the only way to differentiate between Bawang Putih and Bawang Merah. Let us look at Vivian for instance; she lived in a big city with Kid, a friend who stole money from her to buy drugs. She did not depend on anyone to live and when Edward offered her a place to live with money to spend, she refused. Even when Edward assured her that at least it will take her out of the place (the prostitution), she said it is just a matter of geography (a place to live) and with the kind of life he offered, she will still be a prostitute. Cinderella and Bawang Putih also plays a role of a strong girl, strong willed to her evil stepmother, where she was put to do all the house chores but she can still survived it. The typical male character for these Fairy Tales is usually wealthy or comes from royal blood. Basically the only role of the male character is just to rescue the princess or the female character. For the parent’s role in the other hand, the predictable part is either they were already replaced by other villain character such as evil stepmother or sometimes dead or not mentioned in the story at all. Easier to put this, if the parents are still alive, then the prince or the man would not have any chance to rescue the poor fated princess or woman. As aforementioned, the ending must end with a happy ending or else it would not fit into fairy tale category. In this movie, the issue raised by the tale is Vivian’s position in the society. She was looked down by everyone in the hotel that she went in and even Edward was embarrassed to actually let other people know who he was walking with. During a conversation between Edward and Vivian on how she became a prostitute, the blame was on the society, on people around her and herself for falling for it.

Before knowing a person, why and how she ended up being what she was should be considered first. If Edward met Vivian at other place with no chance to know her, he might never think that she is ‘a very bright, very special woman’. Yet, before the end of this movie, even after he knew her and realized how special she was, Edward still did not understand what a woman like her deserved to have; someone to take her out of the place and take care of her honorably, not by giving a house and allowance. The only thing that a woman like Vivian would want is just respect. But of course in the end, both of them finally got to be to be together and live happily ever after.

Secondly, the analysis will be on Cautionary Tales. A cautionary tale is a traditional tale told in myths, to warn its hearer of a danger. There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. First, a taboo or prohibition is stated: some act, location, or thing is said to be dangerous. Then, the narrative itself is told: someone disregarded the warning and performed the forbidden act. Finally, the violator comes to an unpleasant fate, which is frequently related in large and horrible detail. The definition before was taken from Wikipedia source and apparently it only suits to caution young children but not for adult lovers. Nevertheless, the prohibition part can be applied in love Cautionary Tales. The love occurred is prohibited and whoever violate the prohibition will ended up in horrible condition. Cautionary Tales is usually to be told as a reminder so that the next generation who listen to it will not repeat the same mistake. In this case, the reminder is that do not disobey your parents or else you will get ugly consequences. In the play Romeo and Juliet, they disobeyed their parents and in the end they both died. So, cautionary tales usually have different background people loving each other but the fate is against them when their parents disagreed. Fighting for love actually makes the condition worse because some conditions are just out of control and in this case, to expect their parents to bend their decision is definitely impossible.

Based on the comparison of Romeo and Juliet with Laila Majnun, the female character is typically always too young to fall in love and they generally come from overprotected family. Juliet is just fifteen when she met Romeo at the ball and easily said she did not used to public occasion which made her easily swayed off her feet the first time she was approached. In addition, these type of girl came from a respected family where they were barely exposed to hardships in life as compared to the female characters in Fairy tales whom usually independent and know who is the man that they should fall in love with. Plus, having parents that have been controlling your life from the beginning makes it worse for you to fall in love with the first man that seems to show interest in you. In the play, both parents of Romeo and Juliet were not in a good condition between one another; they are having feud which made uniting the two young people was not viable. The male character on the other hand is typically not the chosen one to match the daughter. He is usually characterized as helplessly romantic which is why the female character will throw out their logic and make decision irrationally. Despite the hard circumstances, both Romeo and Juliet have no concern of being caught and they happily vowed to each other using astrology and sacred element to compare with their love for each other. To make things even more tragical in the end, there is usually the fact that the girl was already betrothed to someone and the marriage was already arranged with someone his or her parents thought would be more suitable or reasonable. Juliet’s father had already agreed with Count Paris to married Juliet off to him and he had even set the date of marriage without asking her opinion of it. As they were warned earlier in the beginning, the ending usually caused both of them to die and in Laila Majnun’s case, the male character ended up losing his mind. Romeo killed himself when he thought that Juliet had died and later Juliet killed herself when she realized Romeo died because of her. The issue raised here in this play is that as a daughter, Juliet is obligated to follow her parents no matter how she feels wrong about it. There is a part when she confessed her love for Romeo at the balcony before Romeo showed up, just right for Romeo to hear it. At that part, Juliet had already hinted that she was ready to go to any level, even to lose her name or her father’s, she was willing just for the love of Romeo. She just met him for not even a day, and after exchanging few kisses, she had already willing to deny her father. So in the end, as why this Cautionary Tales was told, the tales ended catastrophically.

Thirdly, the analysis will be on Tragic Tale. This Tragic Tale is almost as similar to Cautionary Tale but slightly different. The similar part is the involvement of parents in the storyline. In Tragic Tale, the female and male character usually comes from different background of social status or different background in term of religion. His or her parents on the other hand are too concerned with the social status or religion differences. The tragic part came in when the two fell in love with each other but knowing that they have no chance and to respect their parents, they followed what their parents wanted for them. Unfortunately, there are times when fate came in to prove that their parents’ choice was wrong, so they ended up failed to have the happy life expected by their parents for them.

Based on the comparison of Burden of Sin and Ibu Mertuaku, the female character usually ended up married off to someone else while the male character have to endure the lost by ruining themselves. In Ibu Mertuaku, Sabariah had followed everything her mother asked her to after her mother found out that she is in love with someone out of her league. She married Kassim Selamat because her mother arranged it in favor of angry towards her decision, but she felt unhappy with the marriage. Her second marriage with Dr. Ismadi proved her mother was right and she felt happy in the beginning when she thought her marriage with Kassim Selamat was a mistake. Nyonya Mansoor, Sabariah’s mother had cruelly manipulated the condition and to satisfy her desire, she reached the high level of deceitfulness and caused a lot of hardship to the innocent characters such as her own grandchild who did not have any chance to meet his own father and the lost of eye-sight of Kassim Selamat when he thought Sabariah died of childbirth, where the information came from Sabariah’s own mother. To reflect how a mother went to the extent of faking her own daughter’s death is somehow too radical but that was what Nyonya Mansoor did to separate the two people. There is no issue of disobeying parents in this tale because all Sabariah did was just to follow what her mother had laid off in front of her. The tragic part was when the deceit was revealed and the damage could not be undone. Of course Nyonya Mansoor and Devan in the story Burden of Sin regretted their act but at the point of no return, regression can never change things that happened as it was already too late. The issue being raised in this movie is that how money and social status affect human’s conscience. It is actually easy to know what is right and what is wrong but when there are other things affecting the issue, sense of ethics no longer applies. When Nyonya Mansoor asked what is the occupation of Kassim Selamat, indirectly it reflected what is the first thing that crossed her mind when she knew of the relationship between the two. It is somehow irony to see the pitiless and brutal person she became just to make sure that her daughter got married to a respectable man. As a conclusion, just like the legendary love of Tristan and Iseult where there will be no way for the two of them to be together alive, Sabariah and Kassim Selamat shared almost the same fate, they were not meant to be together, dead or alive.

Lastly, the analysis will be on the True Love Tales. True Love Tale is different from any other love tales because there is no outsider involved in the story. It is just between the two characters and their rationality to deal with their love. Both male and female characters shared almost the same quality; maturity. They think rationally on what they are going to jeopardize if they go for their love. No mention of parents’ involvement means that both parties are not considering the presence of their parents at the moments or their parents have no role in their decision. The ending of this True Love Tales is they will go on with their life and never forget each other. Their ability to reason and consider all the consequences that may happen if they choose their love instead of their duty and honor showed that love does not necessarily means to be together with each other. There are other ways to appreciate love and to sacrifice it over duty to country can be one of the ways of doing it.

The novel is The Prisoner of Zenda, written by Anthony Hope, 1894. A lot of time this novel was adapted into movies because of the political issue and in this paper, the element that will be looked at is the love affair of the characters, Princess Flavia and Rudolf Rassendyll. In this short novel, Princess Flavia was already betrothed to King Rudolf and even she did not love him, there was nothing she can do about it. That was her only option because of her political duty towards her country. How big was Flavia’s sacrifice on her love? King Rudolf was described as the crown prince, a hard-drinking playboy, unpopular with the common people, but supported by the aristocracy, the Catholic Church, the army, and the upper classes in general. Flavia not only put herself into a place she knew she would never going to be happy but also she had to let go a man she knew would be able to make her a happy woman. Rudolf would have felt no lesser pain than Flavia had to endure as he had to hand her down to the king, the rightful man to marry his love of his life. The ending might seems like the pair went on with their life willingly but the truth was that the parting can be just as painful as dying, to go on like they never knew each other for the sake of the future of people in the country. The issue raised in this novel is how a decision making can affect the whole picture and maturity can save a lot of people’s lives. Instead of causing a chaos like Romeo and Juliet did, Rudolf and Flavia decided for the better consequences.

As a conclusion, be it Fairy Tales, Cautionary Tales, Tragic Tales or True Love Tales, each of the tales brought up different issues to be thought about. There are lessons to learn from the stories told. Love is not just about seeking for any way to be together, and for the best of all, a right mind should think of the cost before anything could not be undone.