But not that door
Jul 5th, 2010 by elle
No, you can’t go through that door!
I’ve been reading this story book, a collection of bed time stories, actually, and it got me thinking about something. More than one of the stories contained the same thematic device. The locked door. You’d have a seemingly happy couple, and there’d be one requirement to their continued contentment. That the wife, who’s allowed free roam of their lucious castle, isn’t allowed to go into one specific room. Of course, at some point, the wife is overcome with curiosity and has to go search the room.
In one of the stories the wife finds out that her husband is cursed by an evil witch and because she didn’t obey him he has to go and marry the witch’s ugly daughter. But the wife goes out and finds him, and he regains his memory at seeing her and the curse is lifted and all is well. In another of these stories, the wife opens up the door that she was forbidden to, and finds the severed heads of all her husband’s former wives – great bedtime reading for children, I know! – and then her husband turns up and says he’s going to kill her too, but the wife begs for time to say her prayers, one night, and in that time she tells her sister what’s going to happen, and then her brothers turn up and kill her husband and the family all goes home safe.
Old fables have meaning, they were often used as ways of imparting advice to children without directly telling them that piece of information. I can’t help but think that these locked door stories are telling girl-children that they mustn’t always be ignorant of what they’re husbands are doing, but I suppose I’m surprised that it’s couched in the guise that by doing this, the women are being disobedient… As if they’re really not meant to be in the know, that society says they’re supposed to be ignorant, but that that’s a societal rule they’re meant to break. Interesting, isn’t it?
Now for a knitting pattern! This adorable Minirock Skirt is something I really look forward to knitting, though mine might be a little longer than the pattern… another two repeats I think would look nicer.