Topic Brainstorm: A Representation of My Indecisiveness

I can't believe it is already time to start exploring our storybook comments. It is about to be the beginning of Week 3 already! Does anyone else feel like this semester is already going way too fast? I even have an exam on the first of February. Anyways, this is the part of the class that I am most looking forward to.

Jack the Giant Killer from Wikimedia

The first storybook topic that I am considering is a compilation of stories about giants. Laura actually gave me this idea in my Favorite Places post when I talked about the legend surrounding the formation of the Giant's Causeway. Of course, I would have to include the awesome Irish tale of Finn McCool and his nemesis Benandonner in the storybook! She mentioned that I could pull different giant stories from different cultures, which I think is a great idea. I am thinking I would like to pull in giant stories from Gaelic, Greek, Norse, Japanese, and American mythology/folklore. I was actually surprised to see that American Folklore is an option. For some reason, perhaps because the United States/Canada is relatively new compared to most Western nations, I figured we wouldn't have any significant folktales. But we do! 

Hansel and Grethel from Wikimedia

The second storybook topic I am considering is another compilation. I want to retell some of the Brother Grimm's stories. We all know that the Grimm Fairytales are a lot more, well, grim than the ones we are used to seeing in children's movies. I want to preserve that eeriness, but tell it from my own perspective. There are a lot of stories from the Grimm's Fairytales that I have never even heard of. I am thinking I want to go for stories that deal with thrown out/stolen girls, like Little Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, and Rapunzel. I hope to include more stories, but I need to do some further exploration into the many many stories in the Grimm's Fairy Tales. It is possible I might even go for a totally different theme if I do go with this idea.

Rumpelstiltskin by Wikimedia

Next, I am considering a compilation of goblin stories. Goblins interest me because they sound almost gross and evil, but in reality, they are often portrayed as being clever and cunning. One of the good things about this kind of compilation is that I can include Rumpelstiltskin in this one too! It turns out his name translates to a type of German goblin. This topic I am actually finding to be a bit harder to research, as it wasn't a readily available topic to pick from the list. I know that goblins exist in European and Asian folklore, so I am looking forward to learning more. For now, I know I intend to include the German tale of Rumpelstiltskin. I also want to incorporate some Korean folklore about goblins. Perhaps this is outting my interests a bit too much, but I recently watched a Korean drama called Goblin, so now I want to look more into the folklore that the drama is based on.

Beauty and the Beast by Dawn Hudson

My last idea, for the time being, is to deviate from a compilation of stories. I think it would be nice to create a story that each part is a continuation of the previous part, like chapters in a storybook. The tale I want to rewrite in this manner is the tale of the Beauty of the Beast. I already did something like this for our storytelling assignment, but I really want to take it further and expand it. I had such a good time taking that story and manipulation it into something I wanted, but I wasn't able to go as deep as I'd like. I have good ideas for this story. I don't think I will resume where my assignment left off, but go in a totally new direction with a feminist lens. I can see some real potential for changing it from that perspective.