So I have to say that "The Vegetational Fatherhood" is one of the weirdest tales I have ever read. As I was reading it one of my friends came in and I tried to explain it to her and she just gave me a quizzical look and said "I'll leave you to reading then..." Yes - this story is strange.
I thought it was interesting to read in conjunction with "Eckbert the Blond" though. In the same way that we, as the readers, do not exactly know what the truth is in Eckbert and Berta's story, we do not quite know the truth in this story either. Was the mother absolutely crazy? Was the flower rape all in her imagination? A child was born, so I would say probably not, but it is still confusing. Did the flower actually turn into a man or did it remain a flower? It's hard to tell because the woman ends up pregnant, but then there are rose petals covering her lap when she wakes up. Was the rose just a symbol for everything that is appealing about men? Why wasn't the girl able to talk? Was it because she was part flower? To be honest, I don't really have a clue.
However, I would like to use this post to think about the symbology of the rose. We all know that a gift of a single red rose is seen as a declaration of love. During the Roman times, the red rose was seen as a symbol of the goddess Venus, the goddess of love. However, especially in light of the flower rape, it is interesting to note that an anagram of the word 'rose' is 'eros' or lust. I think the rose in this story represents the human feelings of lust and sexuality, not actual love. After all, the woman simply took a nap under a rose bush. It was the rose - the lust of men - that made her have a child.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
April 7 Post
“The Vegetational Fatherhood” was by far one of the most bizarre stories I have ever read. However, I have come up with a few explanations/interpretations:
1. The young woman represents the Virgin Mary in which not man but “nature” impregnates the young woman, therefore making her rose bush-transforming daughter a representation of Jesus.
2. If the daughter is a representation of Jesus, then Dr. Floris Rosenberger is a representation of the Romans, those who are believed to have killed Jesus since it was Dr. Rosenberger who killed his wife (whether intentional or not).
3. The mother is locked away in an asylum, representing the general belief of the pubic about Mary in reference to her miraculous conception.
As you can see, there can be an extreme religious undertone to this story, or like Ekbert the Blond, I could have just made this all up.
My interpretation of "The Vegetational Fatherhood"
Lucky for me, my first response to "The Vegetational Fatherhood" was to interpret the story through dance, easily completing everything the prompt asked for. Here is a quick summary of what it looked like.
Growing flower, wind, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, unicorn, rain storm. Corpse pose. Egg hatching, wind blowing, seaweed; otters holding hands.
After I got that out of my system, I was able to compose a more literary response. Lets walk through this fairy tale line by line. The first paragraph seems to make a very different point than the introduction in "A wondrous oriental tale of a naked saint." Here, it is not the human mind that colors perception, but an outright fact that flowers emit a sympathetic current-to not sense this truth either makes you a person without feelings or possibly Irish. While Wackenroder seems to only be trying to make room for the possibility of his story, Mynona takes a much more aggressive angle and argues that his point of view that flowers are creatures is the only acceptable one. Even after I was immediately insulted for still questioning "whether plants have a direct suggestive effect on animals and humans," Mynona was still able to elicit a chuckle from me with the anthropomorphic flower stalking our young woman friend like a big cat.
I am going to skip analyzing/interpreting the flower rape so I don't say anything I'll regret later. However, I will say I was able to guess as soon as I read these lines that she was going to bear a child from the encounter.
I was also struck by the young girl's interactions with her two doctors. The first doctor she consults is finally able to pin down her symptoms and ask if she is having a love affair. This is a little tongue-in-cheek; for the most part physical symptoms of a love affair seem to confine themselves to angst-y Miley Cyrus-loving tweens. And for correctly diagnosing the illness, the doctor's help is no longer appreciated. I'm a little surprised that Mynona was willing to take such a direct shot at socialized health care, but it made me giggle like a angst-y Miley Cyrus-loving tween. Doctor number two is also able to correctly identify the our young girl's condition, and "When the young woman became enraged, he attributed it to hysteria." This is cute wordplay. Hysteria, of course, "was originally thought to be due to a disturbance of the uterus" (compliments of the OED and my knowledge on how to use the interwebs. Its not a dump truck, its a series of tubes.) But, we can't tell if his "hysterical" diagnosis refers to her actual condition of pregnancy via flower or the fact that she freaks out. Either way, the word choice is deliberate and hilarious.
Lets fast forward a couple paragraphs to where the flower-child reaches puberty. She starts a nightly metamorphosis, which is actually pretty run of the mill as far as fairy tale metamorphoses go. This part fits in well with more traditional fairy tales. Thank goodness the end is more exciting! Call me twisted, but I find the end where the fiance not only kills his wife but then gets convicted of murder and spends the rest of his days in an asylum delightfully unexpected. Not your typical fairy tale ending. I also think it is interesting that the beginning of the story is very specific in telling you how to correctly interpret life, but the end speculates if the truth will ever be known. Mynona is certainly willing to play with our perceptions of fairy tales. However, I am accepting enough to not have problems accepting the magical elements of the tale and twisted enough to not only swallow, but enjoy, the deranged parts of the tale. I give this fairy tale a gold star.
I'll leave you with a final literary response:
There was once a young girl made of rose (a)
whom at mattens put on quite a show (a)
she'd turn to a plant (b)
but the damage was scant (b)
till the night she went out the window (a)
Song of the Blog: "Grace Kelly," by Mika.
Growing flower, wind, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, unicorn, rain storm. Corpse pose. Egg hatching, wind blowing, seaweed; otters holding hands.
After I got that out of my system, I was able to compose a more literary response. Lets walk through this fairy tale line by line. The first paragraph seems to make a very different point than the introduction in "A wondrous oriental tale of a naked saint." Here, it is not the human mind that colors perception, but an outright fact that flowers emit a sympathetic current-to not sense this truth either makes you a person without feelings or possibly Irish. While Wackenroder seems to only be trying to make room for the possibility of his story, Mynona takes a much more aggressive angle and argues that his point of view that flowers are creatures is the only acceptable one. Even after I was immediately insulted for still questioning "whether plants have a direct suggestive effect on animals and humans," Mynona was still able to elicit a chuckle from me with the anthropomorphic flower stalking our young woman friend like a big cat.
I am going to skip analyzing/interpreting the flower rape so I don't say anything I'll regret later. However, I will say I was able to guess as soon as I read these lines that she was going to bear a child from the encounter.
I was also struck by the young girl's interactions with her two doctors. The first doctor she consults is finally able to pin down her symptoms and ask if she is having a love affair. This is a little tongue-in-cheek; for the most part physical symptoms of a love affair seem to confine themselves to angst-y Miley Cyrus-loving tweens. And for correctly diagnosing the illness, the doctor's help is no longer appreciated. I'm a little surprised that Mynona was willing to take such a direct shot at socialized health care, but it made me giggle like a angst-y Miley Cyrus-loving tween. Doctor number two is also able to correctly identify the our young girl's condition, and "When the young woman became enraged, he attributed it to hysteria." This is cute wordplay. Hysteria, of course, "was originally thought to be due to a disturbance of the uterus" (compliments of the OED and my knowledge on how to use the interwebs. Its not a dump truck, its a series of tubes.) But, we can't tell if his "hysterical" diagnosis refers to her actual condition of pregnancy via flower or the fact that she freaks out. Either way, the word choice is deliberate and hilarious.
Lets fast forward a couple paragraphs to where the flower-child reaches puberty. She starts a nightly metamorphosis, which is actually pretty run of the mill as far as fairy tale metamorphoses go. This part fits in well with more traditional fairy tales. Thank goodness the end is more exciting! Call me twisted, but I find the end where the fiance not only kills his wife but then gets convicted of murder and spends the rest of his days in an asylum delightfully unexpected. Not your typical fairy tale ending. I also think it is interesting that the beginning of the story is very specific in telling you how to correctly interpret life, but the end speculates if the truth will ever be known. Mynona is certainly willing to play with our perceptions of fairy tales. However, I am accepting enough to not have problems accepting the magical elements of the tale and twisted enough to not only swallow, but enjoy, the deranged parts of the tale. I give this fairy tale a gold star.
I'll leave you with a final literary response:
There was once a young girl made of rose (a)
whom at mattens put on quite a show (a)
she'd turn to a plant (b)
but the damage was scant (b)
till the night she went out the window (a)
Song of the Blog: "Grace Kelly," by Mika.
Vegetational Fatherhood
I thought this story was very bizarre but also very interesting. I liked the introduction and Myona’s passage about how nature and humans are connected. I believe this ties into the whole Romantic literary fairy tale we’ve been talking about. In this story, nature isn’t this scientific element but rather some sort of higher, spiritual being that has the ability to act like humans and have emotions as the rose “yearns” for the young woman in the story. But then I was very surprised at the actions of the rose. In putting the woman under a sort of spell it appears as if the rose is drugging her and raping her. This would suggest a more evil side to nature and that it essentially has some greater hold over humans and can have their way with them as the rose does with the woman.
As I continued reading the story, I thought it was very creepy and could almost imagine it being made into a horror movie. The woman is shocked to find herself pregnant and gives birth to a beautiful, silent child. The child does not say a word but is smart and artistic and paints. I thought it was really creepy when she paints the picture of the rose and writes “father,” I could picture this scene straight out of a horror film, not to mention the girl is silent, and weird, quiet kids are often key elements in scary movies.
The rest of the story was interesting in how she gets married and eventually killed. I thought it was very funny how the husband she chooses is named Dr. Rosenberger and is an anatomist. But then the ending is very sad with the girl getting flung off the balcony and how both the mother and Dr. Rosenberger were sent to an asylum. This very dark ending seemed to be saying that the mixture of nature and humans in a sexual way is not a good thing. The girls attempt to connect with her father, the rose, ultimately leads to her death.
As I continued reading the story, I thought it was very creepy and could almost imagine it being made into a horror movie. The woman is shocked to find herself pregnant and gives birth to a beautiful, silent child. The child does not say a word but is smart and artistic and paints. I thought it was really creepy when she paints the picture of the rose and writes “father,” I could picture this scene straight out of a horror film, not to mention the girl is silent, and weird, quiet kids are often key elements in scary movies.
The rest of the story was interesting in how she gets married and eventually killed. I thought it was very funny how the husband she chooses is named Dr. Rosenberger and is an anatomist. But then the ending is very sad with the girl getting flung off the balcony and how both the mother and Dr. Rosenberger were sent to an asylum. This very dark ending seemed to be saying that the mixture of nature and humans in a sexual way is not a good thing. The girls attempt to connect with her father, the rose, ultimately leads to her death.
Assignment: 7 April 2009
Please write an interpretation of/response to “The Vegetational Fatherhood.” Don't forget to post comments by Wednesday.
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