The presentation last week on “Old Woman Magoun” had a slide suggesting that the plot and characters from the story could, in many ways, be compared to a classic fairytale. I found this idea really interesting, so I wanted to elaborate on it a bit. The main similarity that I noticed between “Old Woman Magoun” and fairytales is the use of nature; in many stories, an innocent girl is harmed by the forces of nature. The first to come to mind is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White bites into a poisonous apple and is put to sleep, similarly to how Lily is killed by eating the poisonous berries. Snow White also has the dwarfs as her side-kicks, and I suppose in this short story Lily's side-kick would be her doll.
Of course every fairytale needs some sort of “evil villain”, and you could definitely argue that Nelson Barry fits this character, however I thought Old Woman Magoun fit it better as more of an “evil stepmother”. She tries to maintain a sense of control over Lily, and loses it when Lily goes out into the world (similar to Cinderella, perhaps?).
One issue I did have with the main argument was the prince. Is there is a prince in “Old Woman Magoun”? It seemed as though the two leading male characters didn’t have good intentions, and I thought of Nelson Barry as more of a “big bad wolf” than a prince.
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