Selkies are Celtic fairy-tale creatures that are half-seal and half human. Stories about these mythical creatures originate from the Orkney Islands of Scotland. A selkie becomes human once it takes off seal skin. Most stories that revolve around selkies are usually about a selkie falling in love with a human man who takes away their seal skin in which the selkie ends up marrying. Even though there are male selkies, most selkies in stories portray a woman. The film The secret of Roan Inish is a good example of displaying socio-cultural and political anxiety or conflict portraying a human hybrid. The film was directed by John Sayles starring Jeni Courtney as Fiona Coneelly and Susan Lynch as Nula the selkie wife. The film reveals the treatment …show more content…
Liam Coneelly the ancestor who married Nula the selkie is described to Fiona Coneelly by her father’s cousin Tadhg, that Liam was a lonely young man who participated in family gatherings but who always isolated himself from others (The secret of Roan Inish). Liam sounds like an introverted character from that type of description. Tadhg mentioned further that Liam never liked participating in any harm of seals in which he had witnessed others on the island do as he felt it was too common practice that was cruel (The secret of Roan Inish). Liam does not hold any of the anthropocentric, like how Fudge describes anthropocentrism as “the belief that the human is the centre for all things…” (14). A lot of the inhabitants of Roan Inish are descendants of both Liam and Nula Coneelly. Nula was found by Liam when he discovered her in seal form on the rock taking off her seal skin. After Nula had taken off her seal-skin Liam Coneelly had swam close to Nula in which Nula had saw he had taken hold of her seal-skin. The two of them had wonderful relationship and they both had many children, but the union did not last long as he discovered her in her seal form (The secret of Roan Inish). The union between humans and seals forbid the harm of any seal, because human and seal now live together in harmony (Turim & Turim-Nygren …show more content…
A selkie is sign of an absent mother who has other connections to her own kind (Turim & Turim-Nygren 134). Nula’s identity as a seal is more important to her, because she feels a sense of belongingness and when her daughter Fiona (Fiona Coneelly’s name sake) informed her about the seal skin, she left the children and was glad to return to her animalistic being. This animalistic being is what represents Nula’s expression of liberty and wildness (Turim & Turim-Nygren 143). Aaltonen describes it as “The stories revolving around transformation are when there are times when non-human has a persona of human and a human has a persona of a non-humans, which does connect different creatures to one another, which plays an important part in the ecosophical way of thinking”
Kinnell, Galway. “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Portable 10th ed. Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2011. 490-491. Print.
Examination of the female experience within indigenous culture advanced the previous perceptions of the native culture experience in different ways. This book's nineteen parts to a great extent comprise of stories from Pretty-Shield's
The French offered protection from neighboring enemies while the Indigenous people offered resources such as fur trade, and education of European settlers on how to use the land. In creating this mutual alliance, the differences between the two cultures of people led to a natural formation of gender and power relationships. To better understand the meaning of these gender and power relationships, we can look at Joan Scott’s definition. Scotts states that “Gender is a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes and gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power (SCOTT, 1067).” By incorporating these two ideas from Scott, we can better understand the different perceptions of social relationships between the French and the Indigenous people and how the misunderstood conflicts created a hierarchy and struggle for
There was a period of time, before the appearance of Europeans on the continent, that the Nephilim did not have this “rule” or “compulsion” to keep their existence hidden from humans. The Bigfoot were known to the Native Americans by many names. Legends and lore sprang up from the Native American’s interaction with the Bigfoot. The Native Americans always considered them to be a “society” or “tribe.” The relationship the Bigfoot tribes had with the Native Americans was precarious at best.
The Impression of Life on her Works’ Leslie Marmon Silko for more than two decades has been enriching Native American literature through her poetry, novels, short stories, and essays. Her fertile imagination and vivid writing continues to impress both critics and readers alike. Influences in Silko's life are abundant in her work. She includes childhood memories, experiences with racism, Pueblo beliefs, family history, and traditional storytelling. Prominent in many of her works is the perspective of her mixed ethnicity. She explores ethnic identity and cultural values through her literature. Often the reader is taught about the lessons, values, and heritage of early cultures. Leslie Marmon grew up attaching herself, in memory and imagination, to the village and then to the land around it; and because this is Laguna land, many of the stories she grew up with were stories from the Keresan oral tradition, the stories of her father's people and their shared history. In her art as in her life, Silko has continued to maintain her identity with the story of the people of Kawaika, the People of the Beautiful Lake. The story of Laguna, like the biography of Silko and the fictional lives of her novels' protagonists, has always been a story of contact, departure, and recovery. “My father had wandered over all the hills and mesas around Laguna when he was a child; I started roaming those same mesas and hills when I was nine years old. At eleven I rode away on my horse, and explored places my father and uncle could not have reached on foot. I carried with me the feeling I'd acquired from listening to the old stories, that the land all around me was teeming with creatures that were related to human beings and to me.” ("Interior and Exterior Lan...
These beings can be part human or completely mythical and tend to mess with the lives of the humans. They usually have the magical capability of disguising themselves, as Athena does throughout the story.
Riddy, Felicity. "Jewels in Pearl" in A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, pp. 142-55. Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson, editors. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997.
Orr, John, and Elżbieta Ostrowska. The Cinema of Roman Polanski: Dark Spaces of the World. London: Wallflower, 2006. Print.
The image of seductresses is a recurring motif in The Odyssey. These women are a temptation to Odysseus. They attempt to keep Odysseus from accomplishing his goal: his homecoming. Circe is a bewitching goddess. She entices Odysseus’ crew into her palace with her enchanting voice. However, after she feeds them, she promptly turns them into pigs. Circe also succeeds in enticing Odysseus; he stays with her one year as her lover. It is so long that his crew declares that it is “madness” (326). They say that it is “high time” that Odysseus thinks of his homeland (326). Later on, Odysseus and his crew encounter the sirens. Knowing the danger they pose, Odysseus has all his men’s ears stopped up with wax. However, Odysseus wishes to hear their song; so he asks his crew to tie him to the mast. The song of the sirens is so sweet and enticing. Their “ravishing voices” almost make Odysseus forget his desire to return home (349). His heart “throbbed” to listen longer; he signals for his men to let him go free. The grea...
Riddy, Felicity. "Jewels in Pearl" in A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, pp. 142-55. Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson, editors. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997.
The last decade of the twentieth century in America saw a rise in programs for human’s “self betterment.” A popular form of betterment is that of the inner animal. Interest in Native American animal mysticism, vision quests, and totem animals have increased dramatically in the past few years. No forms of media have been spared; Calvin Klein’s supermodels come on during sitcom commercials to tell viewers they need to be a beast, or to get in touch with their animal within. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, however, animalism was viewed not as a method of self-improvement but as the reprehensible side of humanity that lingered beneath the surface, waiting for an opportune time to come out and play. In Frank Norris’ novel McTeague, humans are no better than the beasts they claim to control. They cage and torment defenseless creatures, but cage and torment themselves far, far, worse. McTeague, Trina, Zerkow, and Marcus are animals in thin human’s clothing, walking the forests of McTeague, waiting for the opportunity to shed their skin and tear each other apart, while the real animals of the world continue leading lives far superior to their human counterparts.
In Feminism and Fairy Tales, Karen E. Rowe asserts that “popular folktales” have “shaped our romantic expectations” and “illuminate psychic ambiguities which often confound contemporary women.” She believes that “portrayals of adolescent waiting and dreaming, patterns of double enchantment, and romanticizations of marriage contribute to the potency of fairy tales” makes “many readers discount obvious fantasy elements and fall prey to more subtle paradigms through identification with the heroine.” As a result, Karen Rowe contends “subconsciously women may transfer from fairy tales into real life cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues suggest that culture’s very survival depends upon a woman’s acceptance of roles which relegate her to motherhood and domesticity.” It is undeniable that numerous folk tales implant male chauvinism into women’s minds and thus convey an idea that woman should obey and depend on men. However, Rowe neglects the aspect that many other folk tales, on the contrary, disclose the evil and vulnerable sides of man and marriage and thus encourage women to rely on their own intelligence and courage other than subordinating to man. The Fairy tales “Beauty and Beast” and “Fowler’s Fowl” challenge Rowe’s thesis to some extent and exemplify that some fairy tales motivate women to be intelligent and courageous and to challenge patriarchy.
As the English attempted to extend their power throughout Ireland in the sixteenth century, the internal migration of the Gaelic and Anglo-Irish populations as well as the introduction of institutions and ideas transformed the landscape on a large scale. As a response to this colonial experience, the negotiation for Irish identity would manifest itself in both the personal geography of the body as well as the national landscape. While European ...
2011 The Sworn Virgins of Albania In Explorations in Cultural Anthropology. Colleen E. Boyd and Luke Eric Lassiter, eds. Pp. 253-257. Plymouth, UK: AltaMira Press.
Flynn, Clifton P. "Acknowledging the "Zoological Connection": A Sociological Analysis of Animal Cruelty." Society and Animals 9.1 (2001): 71-87. Print.