The Erl-King

The Erl-King

Setting
1. The forest
  1. 'the forest swallows you up... you must stay there until it lets you out again.'
    1. Linking to the innovative experimental narrative style- as the wood swallows you up, the sharp edges of space and time become blurred.
    2. Direct address, inescapable fate of reader also
      1. Female identity is lost through their objectification?
  2. 'Vertical bars of a brass-coloured distillation of light coming down
    1. Foreshadowing of the forest as a cage
      1. entrapment
2. Set in the liminal time between autumn and winter reflecting the liminality of the narrator's mind between fear and desire
Characters
1. The Erl-King
  1. 'Erl King will do you grievous harm.'
  2. 'tender butcher'
    1. oxymoronic
      1. hero-villain
  3. Utterly part of nature
    1. eg he 'has grown a pelt of yellow lichen'
    2. Part of society's standing order
2. Narrator
  1. 'i will be... consumed by you.'
    1. The Male Gaze
      1. 'There are some eyes can eat you.'
Form and Structure
1. Constantly shifting narrative voice
  1. Disorienting yet enchanting
2. Not easily reduced to a chronological account of events
  1. Narrative cohesion through tale continuation from moment to moment
    1. Ambiguity and uncertainty
3. Shifts between first and third persons
Symbols
1. 'pretty cages'
  1. Somewhat oxymoronic as cages are intended to entrap
    1. Rowe: 'fairy tales perpetuate the patriarchal status quo by making female subordination seem a romantic, desirable, indeed an inescapable fate.'
      1. Like the objectivity of The Count which appears appealing to The Countess, yet 'bites'
      2. 'Although he looked after them very affectionately'
        Women fooled into believing they have equality etc, or being happy to endure this state as they are being 'looked after'
  2. Symbol of the patriarchal constructs in society
  3. Maniken: 'The Erl King is a complex rendering of a subjective collusion with objectivity and entrapment within the male gaze. The woman narrator both fears and desires entrapment within the birdcage.'
    1. The fear and desire of female towards marquis in BC
2. 'old fiddle' with broken strings
  1. Neglect and abuse, yet the possibility of harmony
    1. There can be change and enlightenment regarding patriarchy
      1. The intention of the gothic genre is to challenge and destabilise the way culture has shaped our ideologies
3. 'his great mane'
  1. Animal imagery
    1. Symbol of male dominance
      1. Yet here it is used to murder him- the double edged sword of patriarchy and how it entraps men also
        supplanting male domination with female domination

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	Erstellt von Robyn Horne vor mehr als 9 Jahre