#pov general
what to wear when…a bangladeshi fairy tale (requested by notyourexrotic).
examples:দুই চোর এবং তাদের ছেলেদের মধ্যে ইভেন্ট (the adventures of two thieves and of their sons),হাড় ক্ষেত্রের (the field of bones),নীল পদ্ম এবং লাল পদ্ম (blue lotus and red lotus)
fairy tales, known as rupkatha in bangla, are imaginative stories…cultural differences affect the narrative. for instance, in many bangla tales, the wickedstepmother of european fairy tales is replaced by the jealous co-wife…unlike the western fairy tales we’ve studied, indian [and bangladeshi] tales do not usually feature redemption…if you’re bad, you’re dead. there is no theme of forgiveness…many bangla fairy tales originate in the pavchatantra or the jataka. many have also been derived from arabianandpersian tales. however, in bangla fairy tales, the fairies of middle-eastern tales are replaced by gods and goddesses. common characters of bangla fairy tales include demonsandogres,asceticsandwitches,kingsandqueens,princesandprincesses, sons of ministers and constables. miracles and magic abound: the seven childless wives of a king give birth simultaneously after eating a magicrootgiven by an ascetic, animals foretell the future or produce goldcoins, princes disguise themselves as birdsoranimals to perform heroic deeds, etc. in kajal rekha, the closed door of a temple opens at the touch of kajal rekha’s hand; in buddhu bhutum, queens give birth to an owl and a monkey. despite the unbelievable and impossible events that take place in fairy tales, their underlying theme of virtue rewarded and evil punished gives them a universal appeal.
post 791 of an infinity-part series
#”bangladesh is a small country surrounded by india and the bay of bengal with lots of rivers and other bodies of water. because water is#such a prominent feature it tends to be incorporated into fairy tales there… one thing that comes up in this fairy tale [blue lotus and red lotus] that might not in a western tale is having a half-sibling. in the story lalkamal and neelkamal are half-brothers yet [they] are still very close and love each other. the story also directly states that one of the king’s wives is a demon; in western fairy tales the characterization of a mother as evil is never this strong or direct. the two birds that help lalkamal and neelkamal however are similar to the magical animals we’ve seen helping other protagonists such as the birds in cinderella and hansel and gretel.”#”there is magic in the tales but there are no magical helpers such as fairy godmothers. the magic simply happens because of some prior cause. for example in the tale blue lotus and red lotus the two stepbrothers are eaten by the evil queen and are transformed into a#golden and an iron egg. even though no fairy intervened the magical even still occurred. rupkothas also contain some different dramatic personae than western tales. a few examples of characters that rupkothas have are demons ghosts and sons of ministers.#another characteristic that separates bangladesh tradition from western tradition is how far back the literary form of the tales go.#the panchatantra (the five books) was written circa 550 a.d… the jataka was written in the 5th century b.c.#this is remarkable when one considers that most of the popular western tales took literary form in the 17th and 18th centuries a.d.”
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