The exploration of love in Fairy tale
------Based on The Adventures of Pinocchio
摘要：爱是童话的基调和本色,是童话永恒的母题。童话以其独有的方式展示了多种多样的爱,包括对人类的爱,对大自然的爱等等。其中对人类的爱又分为亲情之爱,手足之爱和爱情之爱。本文以《木偶奇遇记》为例,围绕皮诺曹与父亲,与蓝发仙女,与朋友,同学之间的爱,分析了各种爱在《木偶奇遇记》中的体现,以及由爱而引发的奇迹:使小木偶变成真正的小男孩。由此得出爱是人类生存发展的动力。童话承载着人类对下一代的殷切期望和深情关爱,因此, 童话是爱的礼物，爱的意识是童话的重要特征。
关键字：爱；童话；皮诺曹
Abstract: Love is the nature and central theme of the fairy tale. Love is the eternal motif of the fairy tale, which presents us with various kinds of love in its unique way. Love in fairy tale could be classified by love toward human being, love toward the Nature and so on. Love toward human being includes parental love, brotherly affection and romantic love between man and woman. This thesis tales Collodi’s famous fairy tale The Adventures of Pinocchio as an example, and analyzes the manifestation of love in this story by exploring the love between Pinocchio and his father, the love between Pinocchio and the Fairy, the love between Pinocchio and his friends. Love can educe miracles; it is the reason for why Pinocchio, the marionette could become a real boy. Love is the impetus of human being’s existence and development. The fairy tale shoulders the expectation and affection of human being toward their children. Therefore, the fairy tale is the gift of love, the sense of love is the central theme of the fairy tale.
Key words: Love; fairy tale; Pinocchio
1. Introduction
Fairy tale is usually called “the gift of love”, for the sense of love is the most important feature of fairy tale. Lewis Carrol has named fairy tale as “the gift of love” in his famous work Alice Adventures in Wonderland and through the Looking. (1) The name he has given to fairy tale is suitable. At first, the appearance of fairy tale is not for children and its initial emergence is not for the demand of children. But once people has realized that fairy tale is the most suitable present for children with the progress of time, then the fairy tale must bear the responsibility of man’s ardent expectation and affection to their successors.
Such sense of love also makes fairy tale different from myths, allegory and legends. Then why does fairy tale emphasize so much on the sense of love? It is because love is the most important thing to human being. Love is the impetus of human being’s existence and development. If there were no love, man couldn’t survive the virgin forest and conquer the uncivilized region, and the modern civilized human society could have become a dream; if there were no love, human being could lost the courage to face with and tackle with the problem existing in human being’s life. It is no doubt that, to human spirit, love is more important than reason. In 18th century, Denis Diderot, the brightest light of the French Enlightenment has ever said, “Only love, and only the great love, can lead the spirit to the great achievement.” (2) As love is so important to human being, all kinds of literary genres have sung praises of love. And as one important literary genre, fairy tale naturally emphasizes much on the demonstration of love. It is because that fairy tale wants to provide children with the spiritual nutrition, in order to make them grow healthily and obtain as much enjoyment as possible. Meanwhile, fairy tale is helpful to foster their healthy attitude toward life, enlarge their intelligence and then make them have a thorough realization of life. Therefore, the sense of love is the most important feature of fairy tale, which is “the gift of love”. In the following part, with the purpose of exploring the sense of love in fairy tale, some motifs of love will be presented and discussed.
2. Motifs of love in fairy tale
Fairy tale, in its unique way, has presented us various kinds of motif of love. It includes the love toward human being, the love toward nature and so on. It is the love toward human being that fairy tale has always attached more importance. Human being should give their best things to children who are the future of human being, and fairy tale is one of the best things. In this article, the love toward human being is divided into three kinds. They are the parental love, brotherly affection and romantic love between man and woman.
2.1 Parental love
Psychological research has proved that, the development of children begins with the development of emotion. Love is human’s instinct, and such natural instincts are manifested in many aspects in children’s world. The first manifestation is the parental love. As the “gift of love”, fairy tale will certainly pay special attention to parental love.
Maternal love is the most usual motif of fairy tale. In Cinderella, the
experience of living with her natural mother when Cinderella was a little girl and all her missing of her mother, cherishment and faithfulness to the memory of the basic confidence obtained from her mother serve as the spiritual pillar of Cinderella’s life. Maternal love is not utilitarian; no mother would ask her children for payment on her suffering. Maternal love represents all kinds of blessing. In Anderson’s fairy tale Ugly Duckling, even if the whole world is against the ugly duckling, the mother duck would not give up her love toward the ugly duckling. She tries her best to incubate the ugly duckling, protect and encourage it, and she firmly believes that it will gain the whole world’s affection one day.
Another kind of parental love—paternal love also plays an important role in fairy tale. In the story of The Little Sea Maid, the image of father has only appeared for two times. From the story, we know that the King’s wife has been dead for many years, and the King’s mother has taken care of the King’s life. It is beyond our imagination that as a leader of the sea world, the King would not like to marry again. The most important factor we can infer is the display of paternal love. The father would rather sacrifice his happiness to get his daughters’ happiness in return. If we say his sacrifice and devotion is out of the instinct of paternal love, then his respect to his daughter’s choice displays the reason of paternal love. He doesn’t use his prestige to order his little mermaid to come home, but without saying one word, he gives his hand to little mermaid out of his love and respect.
2.2 Brotherly affection
There is another kind of beautiful scenery in fairy tale is the brotherly affection. In the story The Wild Swans, the beautiful and brave girl Eliza has been spinning and weaving the armor by using the poisoned nettle day and night, wishing to save her brothers who were cursed by her vicious step-mother. Finally, love conquered everything and brought new life to Eliza’s brothers and also to Eliza herself. Anderson praised this girl highly, he thought her as the “goddess”. Eliza, who is always ready to sacrifice herself and even her life to save her brothers, has obtained happiness finally. It is proved that, love can save others as well as enable oneself to obtain it. Brotherly affection is also the exquisite of love.
2.3 Romantic love between man and woman
Romantic love is the eternal motif of human art and literature, which human being has never stopped praising. The Little Sea Maid is a lyric poetry of romantic love. The kindhearted and passionate Princess of the little mermaid has paid great
cost, wishing to acquire the Prince’s love. However, her wish has failed to fulfill. When the little mermaid jumped into the sea, the sparkle of love has grown into raging flames. Our feeling has twisted with the little mermaid’s; we are experiencing the devotion, suffering and struggle of her love. Little mermaid’s sacrifice gives a great shock to us the common people and also moves the God greatly, who has given her with the “eternal spirit”.
From the examples above, it is not difficult to find that no matter what kind of love, it must contain an eternal true essence: love is sacrifice and tenderness, love is affection and respect. Love enables one’s inherent vitality to be fully testified and get happiness in return and make one’s life integrated. Fairy tale has used its sentimental tone and poetic language to present us with all kinds of angel of love, who all sing praise songs of love’s true essences. In the following part, the division of love will be applied to a concrete example The Adventures of Pinocchio, in order to further explore the sense of love in fairy tale.
3. The charming of love—The Adventures of Pinocchio
More than one century ago, the Italian writer Carlo Collodi presented us a lovely marionette—Pinocchio, who can speak and think as a real boy. For more than one hundred years, Pinocchio, the marionette with his adventures has put a great influence on the children from the whole world. The Adventures of Pinocchio has become the monument of the fairy tale, which is appreciated by the generations of children as well as adults. But on the other aspects, this immortal work is not so perfect any way. There exist some apparent flaws in depiction. For example, when Geppetto made Pinocchio, he didn’t give Pinocchio a pair of ears, but Pinocchio could hear what other people said. However, such flaw doesn’t affect the position of The Adventures of Pinocchio. It still has great influence on the readers’ heart. Then what’s the mystery of Pinocchio? It is because the charming of love, or in other words, the fragrance of love has enabled this fairy tale to be the classic. And the images of Pinocchio and the beautiful Fairy with blue hair have given us a deep impression.
3.1 The general account of The Adventures of Pinocchio
Geppetto makes a marionette by using a piece of wood which could smile and cry, and he takes the marionette as his son. Wishing to let his son go to school, Geppetto has sold his coat to buy his son an ABC card. While Pinocchio, the marionette is so naughty that he exchanges his card for the admission of a theater in which Pinocchio is nearly put into fire. Due to the manager’s compassion,
Pinocchio is freed and given with five pieces of gold. However, he is cheated by the fox and the cat when he is in his way home and nearly hanged to death by them. Pinocchio is saved by the Fairy with blue hair. After that, Pinocchio has had a period of hard time by experiencing a series of adventures. He wants to be a good boy, while he couldn’t be attracted by the temptation of his bad friends. Due to his naughtiness, he is turned to be a donkey. With the help of the Fairy, Pinocchio is saved and becomes a real boy. With the love of his father and the Fairy, Pinocchio becomes an honest and kindhearted boy.
3.2 The fragrance of love---the eternal charming of Pinocchio
Human beings are always proud of themselves, for they have possessed the ability to love and feel love. They are also proud of their abundant tender feelings. The children, who are at the initial stage of human life, are nearer to the original state of life in emotion, for they have less contact with the outside world. And because they are not disturbed by the ugliness of the society, their emotions are more strong and transparent, and they can be moved easily. Therefore, the tender love permeated in The Adventures of Pinocchio has naturally warmed the children’s heart. Anderson has ever said, “Love and sympathy—they are the most important feelings of human’s heart.”(3)Collodi’s fairy tale is just follow this important clue of love and sympathy, and unfolding its plot by basing on the love between Pinocchio and his father, and the Fairy with blue hair, and his friends and classmates.
3.2.1 The love between father and son
The love between Geppetto, the father and Pinocchio, the son is the main clue
of this fairy tale. For the sake of his son, Geppetto can stand up the hunger and the coldness. Even he could sacrifice his life to find his lost son. What sincere paternal love he has! Although Pinocchio is naughty, he can not give up his love toward his father. Their mutual love could be supported by many examples from the book. At the beginning of making the marionette, Geppetto wants to give him a name. Then he chooses the name of Pinocchio, because he thought “That name will bring with it good fortune”. This example shows us the father’s expectation and affection toward his son, just like all the other parents. And in the process of making Pinocchio, “the mouth was hardly finished when it commenced to sing and laugh” and the marionette paid no attention to his father’s scolding and even began to make grimaces. Geppetto just pretended not to see what the marionette did. It is just like the parents and children in the real world, the children are
always naughty and the parents usually hold the tolerant attitude. More examples showing Geppetto’s paternal love: for the sake of his son, he showed Pinocchio how to walk in order to give Pinocchio a new life; even he was put into prison due to Pinocchio’s naughty, he decided to forgive him when he saw Pinocchio’s feet were burnt and he looked so poor; instead of punishing Pinocchio, he made a new pair of feet for him. Geppetto stood up the hunger and gave his breakfast—three pears to Pinocchio, and he patiently corrected Pinocchio’s flaws in a tender way; he even sold his coat to get Pinocchio an ABC card, in order to let Pinocchio enter school, but he himself was just “in his shirt sleeves when it was snowing outside.” He even told his son it was because the coat made him too warm that he sold his coat. The unselfish paternal love is displayed explicitly. And at this moment, Pinocchio began to understand his father’s love, he was not able to restrain his feelings, “he jumped up on Geppetto, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed his face all over.” But as a little kid, Pinocchio’s naughtiness always made him get into trouble, even nearly lost his life. It is their meet with each other in the dogfish’s stomach that the mutual love between the father and son reached its peak. Geppetto was so eager to find his lost son that he ignored the prevention of other people and insisted on going on boat to find Pinocchio. Unfortunately, he was sucked by the dogfish. It was fortunate that Pinocchio was also sucked by the dogfish when he was in the way of finding his father. Therefore, they escaped from the dogfish’s stomach hand in hand. At that moment, Pinocchio had played an important role, for he encouraged his father and led his father to escape from the danger. It shows us that love has made Pinocchio grow up. There is a Chinese saying goes: the heart of an inch—long plant can requite the radiance of full spring. The plots touch us to the depths of our soul, and the sincere paternal love has been deeply engraved into our mind.
3.2.2 The love between Pinocchio and the Fairy
The love between Pinocchio and the beautiful Fairy with blue hair has also
refreshed our heart. Their first meet was when Pinocchio was after by two assassins, he turned to the Fairy for help. The Fairy rescued him and treated Pinocchio “with the patience of an indulgent mamma”. We all know that Pinocchio’s nose would grow long when he told lies, so when he lied to the Fairy, his nose grew out of control and became longer and longer. Then what happened? The Fairy let the marionette cry and weep for a good half hour, because she wished to teach him a lesson and show him how naughty he had been. However,
she was moved to pity when the poor Pinocchio cried, she finally turned his nose to the normal size. The Fairy’s behavior is just like a strict and temperate mother. She wanted to educate Pinocchio by using a mild way. Although under the care of the Fairy, Pinocchio could not stop from making mistake. He didn’t take the Fairy advice and followed his bad friends’ suggestion to leave the Fairy, thus he experienced more adventures which led him to be put into prison, and to be a watchdog. Due to his naughty, the Fairy was so sad that she died! But for the sincerity of Pinocchio’s grief which proved he had a good heart, the Fairy came to life again and rescued him from starve for the second time. Then Pinocchio has made another progress, he comprehended the Fairy’s love. From then on, he obeyed the Fairy and went to school. Pinocchio behaved very well in the school, he studied hard and won the good will of all the boys in the school. Although he made other mistakes, the Fairy decided to forgive him and promised to make Pinocchio be a real boy, in condition that he would be good all the time. But unfortunately in the life of the marionette, there is always a “but” that spoils everything. Pinocchio could not refuse his friend—Lamp Wick’s temptation to go to “The country of playthings”, in which Pinocchio became a donkey due to his playing around all day long without doing other things. He was bought by the circus men and experienced a period of even harder time. The Fairy didn’t run to rescue him at once, but let him be punished by his own fault. Pinocchio firmly remembered his error this time and decided to behave well after the Fairy had rescued him at last. With the help of the Fairy, Pinocchio began to think about others and repay the love of his father and the Fairy. He worked hard to support his father. And when he heard the Fairy was very sick and so poor that she ate only a mouthful of bread each day, Pinocchio gave all his money to the Fairy without hesitation. Besides that, he worked even harder, wishing to give more help to the Fairy. To the kindness of Pinocchio, the Fairy turned him to be a real boy. The Fairy’s love toward Pinocchio is somewhat reasonable. She hasn’t doted on him, but taught him with skill and patience. Even though Pinocchio always made mistakes, but as a kid, his longing for the Fairy’s love is natural born because he considered the Fairy to be his mother. When he worked hard to support the sick Fairy, he became mature by spreading his wings to protect his growing old parents. The Fairy’s love to the process of Pinocchio’s growing is no doubt the most important catalytic promoter.
3.2.3 The love between Pinocchio and his friends
Besides for the natural parental love, Collodi hasn’t neglected Pinocchio’s
friendship with others—the indispensable key of the musical instrument of human emotion. At the very beginning of the story, the naughty Pinocchio has escaped his home and met with a group of marionettes. They were so excited that spoiled the performance of the theater. As a result, the manager was so angry that he decided to make Pinocchio a “beautiful flame” for a roast. Then his friends asked the manager’s sympathy for Pinocchio, it was a touching sight and showed his friends’ love toward Pinocchio. Then the manager agreed to replace Pinocchio with another marionette. At that time, Pinocchio was brave enough to ask for the manager’s pity and finally Pinocchio and his friends were all freed. Their mutual love has always inspired the sparkle of love from the children’s heart. Another example is at the war on the seaside. Other boys threw Pinocchio’s book on Eugene’s head and made him half dead. Although he was more dead than alive through grief and fright, Pinocchio ran to sack his handkerchief in the sea and began to bathe the temples of his poor schoolmate. He tried to rescue his schoolmate. Even when he felt wronged extremely and was captured unjustly, he still cared about Eugene’s wound. Such pure love can always make us moved. “The beauty without the company of love is lifeless and can not be called poetry.” The Adventures of Pinocchio contains a kind of minute and abundant love. It possesses such kind of attraction and permeability that no one could neglect. The charming of love is as clean as crystal and spreading the everlasting fragrance and giving its great influence on human heart silently. 4 Conclusion
Love is the basic tone and nature of fairy tale. Love can create miracles. Without love, Pinocchio can not become a real boy, and without the sense of love, Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio couldn’t have been popular for so many years. The love of the fairy tale exists in the bottom of human consciousness, and reveals itself in the accumulation of human being’s emotion. The real fairy tale should provide children with the psychological consolation according to Tolkien, and the psychological consolation is out of human love toward their children. From the essence, fairy tale shoulders the expectation and affection of human being toward their children; they should provide children with spiritual nutrition, enable children to acquire enjoyment as well as education which can enlarge their intelligence. With the analysis of fairy tale, people have realized the importance and value of fairy tale toward the children. Although there are various kinds of
motifs of love, the educational function of fairy tale which enlightens the children to produce the sincere love and wishes toward everything are the same. From the ancient Greek myth, folk tale to the fairy tale, the evolutional orbit of the motif of love has become more and more apparently and appeared a kind of new state. However, in spite of the various kinds, the manifestation of the sense of love is the everlasting nature. All in all, love is the basic tone and nature of love, fairy tale is the gift of love.
Bibliography:
1. 转引自舒伟, 《中西童话研究》, 吉林大学出版社, 2006. P56
2. 同上
3. 安徒生语, 转引自浦漫汀著《安徒生简论》, 四川少年儿童出版社, 1984.
4. 科洛迪著, 李晓童译, 《木偶奇遇记》, 中国书籍出版社, 2004.
The exploration of love in Fairy tale
------Based on The Adventures of Pinocchio
摘要：爱是童话的基调和本色,是童话永恒的母题。童话以其独有的方式展示了多种多样的爱,包括对人类的爱,对大自然的爱等等。其中对人类的爱又分为亲情之爱,手足之爱和爱情之爱。本文以《木偶奇遇记》为例,围绕皮诺曹与父亲,与蓝发仙女,与朋友,同学之间的爱,分析了各种爱在《木偶奇遇记》中的体现,以及由爱而引发的奇迹:使小木偶变成真正的小男孩。由此得出爱是人类生存发展的动力。童话承载着人类对下一代的殷切期望和深情关爱,因此, 童话是爱的礼物，爱的意识是童话的重要特征。
关键字：爱；童话；皮诺曹
Abstract: Love is the nature and central theme of the fairy tale. Love is the eternal motif of the fairy tale, which presents us with various kinds of love in its unique way. Love in fairy tale could be classified by love toward human being, love toward the Nature and so on. Love toward human being includes parental love, brotherly affection and romantic love between man and woman. This thesis tales Collodi’s famous fairy tale The Adventures of Pinocchio as an example, and analyzes the manifestation of love in this story by exploring the love between Pinocchio and his father, the love between Pinocchio and the Fairy, the love between Pinocchio and his friends. Love can educe miracles; it is the reason for why Pinocchio, the marionette could become a real boy. Love is the impetus of human being’s existence and development. The fairy tale shoulders the expectation and affection of human being toward their children. Therefore, the fairy tale is the gift of love, the sense of love is the central theme of the fairy tale.
Key words: Love; fairy tale; Pinocchio
1. Introduction
Fairy tale is usually called “the gift of love”, for the sense of love is the most important feature of fairy tale. Lewis Carrol has named fairy tale as “the gift of love” in his famous work Alice Adventures in Wonderland and through the Looking. (1) The name he has given to fairy tale is suitable. At first, the appearance of fairy tale is not for children and its initial emergence is not for the demand of children. But once people has realized that fairy tale is the most suitable present for children with the progress of time, then the fairy tale must bear the responsibility of man’s ardent expectation and affection to their successors.
Such sense of love also makes fairy tale different from myths, allegory and legends. Then why does fairy tale emphasize so much on the sense of love? It is because love is the most important thing to human being. Love is the impetus of human being’s existence and development. If there were no love, man couldn’t survive the virgin forest and conquer the uncivilized region, and the modern civilized human society could have become a dream; if there were no love, human being could lost the courage to face with and tackle with the problem existing in human being’s life. It is no doubt that, to human spirit, love is more important than reason. In 18th century, Denis Diderot, the brightest light of the French Enlightenment has ever said, “Only love, and only the great love, can lead the spirit to the great achievement.” (2) As love is so important to human being, all kinds of literary genres have sung praises of love. And as one important literary genre, fairy tale naturally emphasizes much on the demonstration of love. It is because that fairy tale wants to provide children with the spiritual nutrition, in order to make them grow healthily and obtain as much enjoyment as possible. Meanwhile, fairy tale is helpful to foster their healthy attitude toward life, enlarge their intelligence and then make them have a thorough realization of life. Therefore, the sense of love is the most important feature of fairy tale, which is “the gift of love”. In the following part, with the purpose of exploring the sense of love in fairy tale, some motifs of love will be presented and discussed.
2. Motifs of love in fairy tale
Fairy tale, in its unique way, has presented us various kinds of motif of love. It includes the love toward human being, the love toward nature and so on. It is the love toward human being that fairy tale has always attached more importance. Human being should give their best things to children who are the future of human being, and fairy tale is one of the best things. In this article, the love toward human being is divided into three kinds. They are the parental love, brotherly affection and romantic love between man and woman.
2.1 Parental love
Psychological research has proved that, the development of children begins with the development of emotion. Love is human’s instinct, and such natural instincts are manifested in many aspects in children’s world. The first manifestation is the parental love. As the “gift of love”, fairy tale will certainly pay special attention to parental love.
Maternal love is the most usual motif of fairy tale. In Cinderella, the
experience of living with her natural mother when Cinderella was a little girl and all her missing of her mother, cherishment and faithfulness to the memory of the basic confidence obtained from her mother serve as the spiritual pillar of Cinderella’s life. Maternal love is not utilitarian; no mother would ask her children for payment on her suffering. Maternal love represents all kinds of blessing. In Anderson’s fairy tale Ugly Duckling, even if the whole world is against the ugly duckling, the mother duck would not give up her love toward the ugly duckling. She tries her best to incubate the ugly duckling, protect and encourage it, and she firmly believes that it will gain the whole world’s affection one day.
Another kind of parental love—paternal love also plays an important role in fairy tale. In the story of The Little Sea Maid, the image of father has only appeared for two times. From the story, we know that the King’s wife has been dead for many years, and the King’s mother has taken care of the King’s life. It is beyond our imagination that as a leader of the sea world, the King would not like to marry again. The most important factor we can infer is the display of paternal love. The father would rather sacrifice his happiness to get his daughters’ happiness in return. If we say his sacrifice and devotion is out of the instinct of paternal love, then his respect to his daughter’s choice displays the reason of paternal love. He doesn’t use his prestige to order his little mermaid to come home, but without saying one word, he gives his hand to little mermaid out of his love and respect.
2.2 Brotherly affection
There is another kind of beautiful scenery in fairy tale is the brotherly affection. In the story The Wild Swans, the beautiful and brave girl Eliza has been spinning and weaving the armor by using the poisoned nettle day and night, wishing to save her brothers who were cursed by her vicious step-mother. Finally, love conquered everything and brought new life to Eliza’s brothers and also to Eliza herself. Anderson praised this girl highly, he thought her as the “goddess”. Eliza, who is always ready to sacrifice herself and even her life to save her brothers, has obtained happiness finally. It is proved that, love can save others as well as enable oneself to obtain it. Brotherly affection is also the exquisite of love.
2.3 Romantic love between man and woman
Romantic love is the eternal motif of human art and literature, which human being has never stopped praising. The Little Sea Maid is a lyric poetry of romantic love. The kindhearted and passionate Princess of the little mermaid has paid great
cost, wishing to acquire the Prince’s love. However, her wish has failed to fulfill. When the little mermaid jumped into the sea, the sparkle of love has grown into raging flames. Our feeling has twisted with the little mermaid’s; we are experiencing the devotion, suffering and struggle of her love. Little mermaid’s sacrifice gives a great shock to us the common people and also moves the God greatly, who has given her with the “eternal spirit”.
From the examples above, it is not difficult to find that no matter what kind of love, it must contain an eternal true essence: love is sacrifice and tenderness, love is affection and respect. Love enables one’s inherent vitality to be fully testified and get happiness in return and make one’s life integrated. Fairy tale has used its sentimental tone and poetic language to present us with all kinds of angel of love, who all sing praise songs of love’s true essences. In the following part, the division of love will be applied to a concrete example The Adventures of Pinocchio, in order to further explore the sense of love in fairy tale.
3. The charming of love—The Adventures of Pinocchio
More than one century ago, the Italian writer Carlo Collodi presented us a lovely marionette—Pinocchio, who can speak and think as a real boy. For more than one hundred years, Pinocchio, the marionette with his adventures has put a great influence on the children from the whole world. The Adventures of Pinocchio has become the monument of the fairy tale, which is appreciated by the generations of children as well as adults. But on the other aspects, this immortal work is not so perfect any way. There exist some apparent flaws in depiction. For example, when Geppetto made Pinocchio, he didn’t give Pinocchio a pair of ears, but Pinocchio could hear what other people said. However, such flaw doesn’t affect the position of The Adventures of Pinocchio. It still has great influence on the readers’ heart. Then what’s the mystery of Pinocchio? It is because the charming of love, or in other words, the fragrance of love has enabled this fairy tale to be the classic. And the images of Pinocchio and the beautiful Fairy with blue hair have given us a deep impression.
3.1 The general account of The Adventures of Pinocchio
Geppetto makes a marionette by using a piece of wood which could smile and cry, and he takes the marionette as his son. Wishing to let his son go to school, Geppetto has sold his coat to buy his son an ABC card. While Pinocchio, the marionette is so naughty that he exchanges his card for the admission of a theater in which Pinocchio is nearly put into fire. Due to the manager’s compassion,
Pinocchio is freed and given with five pieces of gold. However, he is cheated by the fox and the cat when he is in his way home and nearly hanged to death by them. Pinocchio is saved by the Fairy with blue hair. After that, Pinocchio has had a period of hard time by experiencing a series of adventures. He wants to be a good boy, while he couldn’t be attracted by the temptation of his bad friends. Due to his naughtiness, he is turned to be a donkey. With the help of the Fairy, Pinocchio is saved and becomes a real boy. With the love of his father and the Fairy, Pinocchio becomes an honest and kindhearted boy.
3.2 The fragrance of love---the eternal charming of Pinocchio
Human beings are always proud of themselves, for they have possessed the ability to love and feel love. They are also proud of their abundant tender feelings. The children, who are at the initial stage of human life, are nearer to the original state of life in emotion, for they have less contact with the outside world. And because they are not disturbed by the ugliness of the society, their emotions are more strong and transparent, and they can be moved easily. Therefore, the tender love permeated in The Adventures of Pinocchio has naturally warmed the children’s heart. Anderson has ever said, “Love and sympathy—they are the most important feelings of human’s heart.”(3)Collodi’s fairy tale is just follow this important clue of love and sympathy, and unfolding its plot by basing on the love between Pinocchio and his father, and the Fairy with blue hair, and his friends and classmates.
3.2.1 The love between father and son
The love between Geppetto, the father and Pinocchio, the son is the main clue
of this fairy tale. For the sake of his son, Geppetto can stand up the hunger and the coldness. Even he could sacrifice his life to find his lost son. What sincere paternal love he has! Although Pinocchio is naughty, he can not give up his love toward his father. Their mutual love could be supported by many examples from the book. At the beginning of making the marionette, Geppetto wants to give him a name. Then he chooses the name of Pinocchio, because he thought “That name will bring with it good fortune”. This example shows us the father’s expectation and affection toward his son, just like all the other parents. And in the process of making Pinocchio, “the mouth was hardly finished when it commenced to sing and laugh” and the marionette paid no attention to his father’s scolding and even began to make grimaces. Geppetto just pretended not to see what the marionette did. It is just like the parents and children in the real world, the children are
always naughty and the parents usually hold the tolerant attitude. More examples showing Geppetto’s paternal love: for the sake of his son, he showed Pinocchio how to walk in order to give Pinocchio a new life; even he was put into prison due to Pinocchio’s naughty, he decided to forgive him when he saw Pinocchio’s feet were burnt and he looked so poor; instead of punishing Pinocchio, he made a new pair of feet for him. Geppetto stood up the hunger and gave his breakfast—three pears to Pinocchio, and he patiently corrected Pinocchio’s flaws in a tender way; he even sold his coat to get Pinocchio an ABC card, in order to let Pinocchio enter school, but he himself was just “in his shirt sleeves when it was snowing outside.” He even told his son it was because the coat made him too warm that he sold his coat. The unselfish paternal love is displayed explicitly. And at this moment, Pinocchio began to understand his father’s love, he was not able to restrain his feelings, “he jumped up on Geppetto, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed his face all over.” But as a little kid, Pinocchio’s naughtiness always made him get into trouble, even nearly lost his life. It is their meet with each other in the dogfish’s stomach that the mutual love between the father and son reached its peak. Geppetto was so eager to find his lost son that he ignored the prevention of other people and insisted on going on boat to find Pinocchio. Unfortunately, he was sucked by the dogfish. It was fortunate that Pinocchio was also sucked by the dogfish when he was in the way of finding his father. Therefore, they escaped from the dogfish’s stomach hand in hand. At that moment, Pinocchio had played an important role, for he encouraged his father and led his father to escape from the danger. It shows us that love has made Pinocchio grow up. There is a Chinese saying goes: the heart of an inch—long plant can requite the radiance of full spring. The plots touch us to the depths of our soul, and the sincere paternal love has been deeply engraved into our mind.
3.2.2 The love between Pinocchio and the Fairy
The love between Pinocchio and the beautiful Fairy with blue hair has also
refreshed our heart. Their first meet was when Pinocchio was after by two assassins, he turned to the Fairy for help. The Fairy rescued him and treated Pinocchio “with the patience of an indulgent mamma”. We all know that Pinocchio’s nose would grow long when he told lies, so when he lied to the Fairy, his nose grew out of control and became longer and longer. Then what happened? The Fairy let the marionette cry and weep for a good half hour, because she wished to teach him a lesson and show him how naughty he had been. However,
she was moved to pity when the poor Pinocchio cried, she finally turned his nose to the normal size. The Fairy’s behavior is just like a strict and temperate mother. She wanted to educate Pinocchio by using a mild way. Although under the care of the Fairy, Pinocchio could not stop from making mistake. He didn’t take the Fairy advice and followed his bad friends’ suggestion to leave the Fairy, thus he experienced more adventures which led him to be put into prison, and to be a watchdog. Due to his naughty, the Fairy was so sad that she died! But for the sincerity of Pinocchio’s grief which proved he had a good heart, the Fairy came to life again and rescued him from starve for the second time. Then Pinocchio has made another progress, he comprehended the Fairy’s love. From then on, he obeyed the Fairy and went to school. Pinocchio behaved very well in the school, he studied hard and won the good will of all the boys in the school. Although he made other mistakes, the Fairy decided to forgive him and promised to make Pinocchio be a real boy, in condition that he would be good all the time. But unfortunately in the life of the marionette, there is always a “but” that spoils everything. Pinocchio could not refuse his friend—Lamp Wick’s temptation to go to “The country of playthings”, in which Pinocchio became a donkey due to his playing around all day long without doing other things. He was bought by the circus men and experienced a period of even harder time. The Fairy didn’t run to rescue him at once, but let him be punished by his own fault. Pinocchio firmly remembered his error this time and decided to behave well after the Fairy had rescued him at last. With the help of the Fairy, Pinocchio began to think about others and repay the love of his father and the Fairy. He worked hard to support his father. And when he heard the Fairy was very sick and so poor that she ate only a mouthful of bread each day, Pinocchio gave all his money to the Fairy without hesitation. Besides that, he worked even harder, wishing to give more help to the Fairy. To the kindness of Pinocchio, the Fairy turned him to be a real boy. The Fairy’s love toward Pinocchio is somewhat reasonable. She hasn’t doted on him, but taught him with skill and patience. Even though Pinocchio always made mistakes, but as a kid, his longing for the Fairy’s love is natural born because he considered the Fairy to be his mother. When he worked hard to support the sick Fairy, he became mature by spreading his wings to protect his growing old parents. The Fairy’s love to the process of Pinocchio’s growing is no doubt the most important catalytic promoter.
3.2.3 The love between Pinocchio and his friends
Besides for the natural parental love, Collodi hasn’t neglected Pinocchio’s
friendship with others—the indispensable key of the musical instrument of human emotion. At the very beginning of the story, the naughty Pinocchio has escaped his home and met with a group of marionettes. They were so excited that spoiled the performance of the theater. As a result, the manager was so angry that he decided to make Pinocchio a “beautiful flame” for a roast. Then his friends asked the manager’s sympathy for Pinocchio, it was a touching sight and showed his friends’ love toward Pinocchio. Then the manager agreed to replace Pinocchio with another marionette. At that time, Pinocchio was brave enough to ask for the manager’s pity and finally Pinocchio and his friends were all freed. Their mutual love has always inspired the sparkle of love from the children’s heart. Another example is at the war on the seaside. Other boys threw Pinocchio’s book on Eugene’s head and made him half dead. Although he was more dead than alive through grief and fright, Pinocchio ran to sack his handkerchief in the sea and began to bathe the temples of his poor schoolmate. He tried to rescue his schoolmate. Even when he felt wronged extremely and was captured unjustly, he still cared about Eugene’s wound. Such pure love can always make us moved. “The beauty without the company of love is lifeless and can not be called poetry.” The Adventures of Pinocchio contains a kind of minute and abundant love. It possesses such kind of attraction and permeability that no one could neglect. The charming of love is as clean as crystal and spreading the everlasting fragrance and giving its great influence on human heart silently. 4 Conclusion
Love is the basic tone and nature of fairy tale. Love can create miracles. Without love, Pinocchio can not become a real boy, and without the sense of love, Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio couldn’t have been popular for so many years. The love of the fairy tale exists in the bottom of human consciousness, and reveals itself in the accumulation of human being’s emotion. The real fairy tale should provide children with the psychological consolation according to Tolkien, and the psychological consolation is out of human love toward their children. From the essence, fairy tale shoulders the expectation and affection of human being toward their children; they should provide children with spiritual nutrition, enable children to acquire enjoyment as well as education which can enlarge their intelligence. With the analysis of fairy tale, people have realized the importance and value of fairy tale toward the children. Although there are various kinds of
motifs of love, the educational function of fairy tale which enlightens the children to produce the sincere love and wishes toward everything are the same. From the ancient Greek myth, folk tale to the fairy tale, the evolutional orbit of the motif of love has become more and more apparently and appeared a kind of new state. However, in spite of the various kinds, the manifestation of the sense of love is the everlasting nature. All in all, love is the basic tone and nature of love, fairy tale is the gift of love.
Bibliography:
1. 转引自舒伟, 《中西童话研究》, 吉林大学出版社, 2006. P56
2. 同上
3. 安徒生语, 转引自浦漫汀著《安徒生简论》, 四川少年儿童出版社, 1984.
4. 科洛迪著, 李晓童译, 《木偶奇遇记》, 中国书籍出版社, 2004.