A Close Reading of This Tale
In the “Tale of the Tiger Grandmother,” many different elements work together to create a strong fairy tale. Through the usage of the narrator, style, and an epimythium, this tale fits into a tradition of oral fairy tales. Moreover, this story raises interesting ideas about gender, cleverness, and deceit.
In this fairy tale, the narrator tells the reader this story as they have heard it from someone before them. However, the narrator themselves does not appear in the story itself except for the epimythium. This helps to create a sense of an oral tradition, as it evokes a vision of a story that is passed down from narrator to narrator. Just as the modern-day reader is hearing this tale from this narrator, so too, they heard it from someone else, and so forth. Having the narrator as a nameless voice who tells this story achieves this sense.
Stylistically, this story includes many typical elements of a fairy tale. There is the tiger: a villain who tries to prey on young children (one of who is arguably the heroine in this story) and is ultimately defeated, meeting her demise. This formula is one seen repeated across different fairy tales. This story also takes place in the mountains and forests, in a space outside the normal realm of human living. It is removed from reality and exists in the realm of fantasy and fairy tales. This is furthered by other details such as the “seven spiral shells” and the “dark dwelling” which add to this fantastical element.
There are also interesting ideas about gender and cleverness seen in this tale. Firstly, it is noteworthy that these older, female tigers are the ones who “take on the shape of humans so as to prey on humans.” Typically, men are assumed to be the ones with power, so having it be these older female tigers who use their intelligence to gain more prey creates a unique gendered twist. Furthermore, it is the little girl in the story, not her brother, who is the protagonist. She is the one sent out by her father, she is the one who grows suspicious, and she is the one who ultimately escapes. She does this through her cleverness and quick thinking. The story shows that the little girl is inquisitive, as she is able to notice something is afoot and is the one who questions the old woman. When she realizes her brother has been eaten, she thinks quickly and escapes before she too, is killed. Though she does have some help, it is very minor, and can possibly be attributed to her age as opposed to gender. This story highlights a female protagonist who escapes due to her wit, showcasing a different view on gender than most of the stories we have read this semester.
Another idea raised in this story is the concept of tigers as being part of a larger tradition. This can be seen from the start when the narrator mentions “one who addressed the topic of tigers”, implying that this subject is one in which there is much to unpack. Tigers are seen as suspicious creatures who cannot be trusted, ones who prey on humans. The girl calls the old woman a “true tiger” upon finding out that she has eaten her brother: a tiger, in their true nature, is one who commits these cruel acts such as eating young human children.
However, something interesting is that the old woman needs to call two other tigers to help her even though she herself is a tiger. It is as if once she puts on her disguise, she is no longer this “true tiger.” This can be seen in how the narrator calls her “the old woman” while the other tigers are called “tigers.” While the old woman is still a “tiger” in the sense that she is a predator, she is no longer one in form. In changing the shape of her nature, she has lost something crucial about herself that she can never recover.
This is furthered by the epimythium, which states that using “deception and deceit, is eventually self-defeating.” By pretending to be someone and something she is not, the tiger creates the conditions for her own demise at the end of the tale. The story is, therefore, one with a cautionary moral: one should stay true to who they are and avoid lies and trickery.