If you ask me, Irene's great grandmother puts the "god" in "fairy godmother." While her role in the basic plot of the novel, like any fairy godmother's, is to help the princess through physical danger, and she does so, following the trend, by giving the princess a magical object, she also serves an important thematic purpose.
To put it shortly, I find the grandmother to be rather a spiritual figure, not least because she has magic and appears only to those with faith. Her bedroom, as Zeinab has mentioned, is located in the highest point of the house, and appears to contain the heavens: "the blue walls and their silver stars" confuse Irene into believing that they are "in reality the sky." Furthermore, when Irene asks where her mother is, her King-papa says the Queen-Mamma has gone "where all those rings are made," insinuating that the ring given by the grandmother came from heaven. However the strongest connection between the grandmother and spirituality, as I see it, lies in her association with doves. Pigeons (which the grandmother lives off of) and doves are of the same bird family, and the bird seen to come out of the grandmother's globe is certainly a dove, for "it looked to [Curdie's mother] just like a white pigeon." I don't know much about Christianity, but I do believe the dove is a common symbol of the Holy Spirit; if so, then the grandmother is consequently associated with the Holy Spirit as well.
This all falls in line with the grandmother's lesson to Irene, which is that of having faith in that which can not be seen. That is why I say the grandmother puts the "god" in "fairy godmother" - for within the archetypal figure of the fairy godmother, Macdonald has imbued religious/spiritual ideas.
*****
I also noticed the moon imagery attributed to the grandmother which Zeinab outlined so thoroughly in her post "The Great Grandmother and the Moon." I thought at first that Macdonald was merely using the moon to represent the motherly role of the grandmother in the Princess Irene's life: she watches over Irene as the moon watches over the world, and gives light in dark times. However, at Zeinab's mention that the grandmother "waxes and wanes as does the moon," I went into the book and looked at each of the grandmother's appearances to see if there was anything more along those lines. What I found fascinating was that the grandmother appears in three separate forms throughout the novel.
The first two times, she is "dressed in black velvet with thick white heavy lace about it." Next, she appears in "the loveliest pale blue velvet" and her hair is no longer its initial "silver" but a "rich, golden colour." In her final form, she appears in a white dress and looks "more lovely than ever."
Think of all the things that come in three: birth, life, death; past, present, future; beginning, middle, end; and so on. Looking at the number in this way, we see that three represents completion (of the life cycle, of time, of a story, etc); perhaps the grandmother's three forms reflect the Princess Irene's growth as she completes the maturation process.
The number three also has religious connotations (ie. The Holy Trinity) and furthermore, mythological associations. When I think of the number three, I think of The Three Fates of Greek mythology, who spin, measure and cut the thread of all human lives. They are often depicted as wise, old women (very much like the wise, old women of fairy tales such as "East of the Sun and West of the Moon," of whom the grandmother is almost certainly a derivation), and I find it difficult to ignore the image of spinning shared between the Three Fates and the tri-formed grandmother.
In short, the character of the grandmother is certainly dense. She is a godmother figure in the novel, and I think there is plenty to link her with religion and mythology as well. This makes her an immensely mysterious and mystical character.
SOURCE
Macdonald, George. The Princess and the Goblin. London: Puffin Books. 1996. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment