1)Read the fairy tale The Juniper tree. As you reread please take note also of the annotations.
Provide a reading response reflecting on the remarkable features of this tale (violence, transformation, role of songs…). What do you think motivated the mother to act they way she did? How do you interpret this tale? What meaning(s) are conveyed/ are there moral lessons?
2)In her introduction to the Grimm’s fairytale “Juniper tree” Maria Tatar’s suggests that
“the Juniper Tree” seems to enact the process of growing away from the mother, who in our culture represents dependence and domesticity, and turning to the father, who, by virtue of his traditional absence from early child-rearing, comes to signify autonomy.”
And she continues as follows:
“Enough has changed and is changing since Philip Otto Runge recorded this tale for us to begin producing variants on this cultural story which demonizes mothers in a powerful way and represents fathers as passive and detached.”
Comment on these viewpoints. Do you agree or disagree? Explain your answers with observations from the text as well as from your life experience.