I don't know if they still mention it in English Literature classes or Journalism or History, but there is a long established tradition of using fairy tales and parables to skewer the political panjandrums without really coming right out and naming names.
Now I'm not saying that Anna has done that, but I couldn't help but see a bit of parallelism with current events here. Read it yourself, either as an entertaining exercise in creative writing or as something deeper in terms of political commentary:
A Modern Fairy Tale
I lean toward the dark side on this. It is a beautiful job.
1 comment:
Sir, thank you for the kind comparison to Swift and Grimm. When I read that, well my jaw did not merely drop; it well nigh snapped and went gibbering in a corner. I am honoured for that more than anyone of the current generation, who do not know whom Swift is, could possibly understand. Which makes me feel a wee bit antiquated. But that is the thing that hurts me the worse is the virtual cultural illiteracy that has been foisted upon the American populace. As I said, being compared to Swift made me so happy and at the same time humble for I did not think I could ever come close to his works; when I express such wonderous feelings to friends at the comparison, they ask me who Swift is. It makes me weep that Gulliver's Travels has become unknown. I won't even mention the original Grimm tales for all this generation can think of is the movie and the watered down version Disney has peddled.
When a civilisation has amnesia of the foundations of their culture, then a truly amoral smart operator can warp that civilisation to their liking. And I fear that is where we are at in the United States.
We are about to be pushing virtual wheelbarrows of greenbacks to Wal-Mart because too many Americans, who received the politically correct version of US civics, were asleep when the Weimar Republic was glossed over.
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