Week 12 Essay: Way Back When

For this weeks essay I would like to focus on Fear. While reading More English Fairy Tales I noticed that many of the things discussed in the stories were there to scare people back then. So many things have happened in England throughout history, and I noticed that many of these stories were focused on ancestral fears. Perhaps my favorite, since it was what my storytelling was focused on, was The Pied Piper. I did a project, way back when, over the bubonic plague, or the Black Death. One thing I learned was that, because of the mass hysteria over witches, people believed the superstition surrounding black cats was linked to witches so they mass killed cats leading to the increase in the rat population who were carrying diseased fleas. This story is centralized around the large rat population in the town. I believe the rats in the story were used as a fear tactic, as well as a metaphor as a gateway to deeper evil. The fear of losing a child is the greatest fear any parent could ever have. The entire story is to place fear in parent’s eyes to the horrible things that can immediately affect them and their family in the world: disease that could wipe out their entire family or their child being lost or abducted. The story is there to scare adults about real world problems. I also think that this story is there to remind people to plan for the future and cherish every moment. The reason I say it is about ancestral fears is because at the time the story was written, the Black Death was way past. The bubonic plague occurred in the fourteenth century, about five hundred years before the pied piper. However, the rat remains a constant symbol of death and fear.

 

Cartoon Rat (Source)