Sample Student Essay

Emerson Jones
Professor
Course
Date

Molly vs. Jack: Passive Violence in the Tale of “Molly Whuppie”

Many children have grown up hearing the tale of “Jack and the Beanstalk” often enough to rehearse the story themselves. Jack has dominated as hero of a whole folklore tale-type of giant-killing tales, outshining other young protagonists including his female counterpart, “Molly Whuppie.”[1] Molly, who also encounters and steals three items from a giant, may not be as popular as Jack, but her story is still being told and reimagined. As evidenced by a 2007 children’s book entitled, The Adventures of Molly Whuppie and Other Appalachian Folktales, in which its author, Anne Shelby, notes that “the tales’ gender stereotyping seemed anachronistic” and female heroines with passive roles was not a storytelling tradition she wished to continue (84).[2] Though Molly’s tale holds many similarities to both “Jack and the Beanstalk” and “Jack the Giant-Killer,” and it may be just as old, Shelby’s reasons for retelling the tale for a 21st century audience points to gender biases deeply embedded with oral traditions we have inherited. When compared to the protagonists and violence in these well-known versions of the Jack vs. Giant folktales, the tale of Molly Whuppie champions wit over strength as the female trait that leads to victory over supernatural adversaries.[3]

2. Helpful integration of a key source that offers contemporary context for the traditional evolution of this tale-type.

3. Sharp focus for gender studies here in the thesis—a well-targeted roadmap for the paper’s direction.

“Molly Whuppie” falls under multiple types within the folk tale group of “Supernatural Adversaries” including 327 (The Children and the Ogre) and 328 (The Treasure of the Giant) (MFTD). In his folklore collection, English Fairy Tales, Joseph Jacobs includes a note that he collected the tale of “Mally Whuppie” from The Folklore Journal (OER), which claims that the tale was collected from a school teacher’s mother in Scotland and published in 1884 (“Three Folk-Tales”). Like most folklore, Molly is part of a long history of oral tradition with no knowledge of who told the tale first or when.[1] Within the genre of folk narrative, this tale falls into the folk fairy tale definition due to its young, clever protagonist, Molly, who defeats a magical being, and lives happily ever after.[2]
Like several other folktales involving children in the woods, Molly and two of her sisters are abandoned because their parents have more children than they can care for. The lost and hungry sisters come across a house and the woman within offers them shelter and food. This woman, it turns out, is a giant’s wife.[3] The giant himself enters the scene in a similar fashion to “Jack and the Beanstalk,” bellowing, “‘Fee, fie, fo, fum, / I smell the blood of some earthly one’” (Jacobs 95). The wife does not allow the giant to harm them at first, but the giant plans to kill them in the night and places straw ropes around the sisters’ necks and gold chains around the necks of the giant’s own three daughters. Clever Molly swaps these out before the giant enters their dark bedroom to batter to death the three lassies with rope necklaces. In short, Molly and her sisters escape to a nearby kingdom and the king convinces Molly to steal three items from the giant, promising his three sons in marriage to Molly and her sisters. Continuing to follow the Rule of Three common in oral tradition (3 sisters, 3 daughters, 3 items), the three items Molly steals are a sword, a purse, and a ring. Each time she escapes across the “bridge of one hair” on which the giant cannot follow. On the third and final trip, Molly is caught in the grasp of the giant, but outwits both him and his wife, ending in the wife being tied in a sack meant for Molly and a fatal beating by the giant. The story ends with Molly and her sisters married to the princes and Molly simply “never saw the giant again” (Jacobs 97).

2. Could specify a bit why this is a folk fairy tale as opposed to a folk legend–the clearly fictional orientation as opposed to a local conceivable possible event or belief-centered narrative.

3. This is another opportunity to consult the comparable tales of finding help within the ogre’s own family–some times this is the Devil’s wife, for instance.

As you may recall from “Jack in the Beanstalk,” Jack also steals three items from the giant after being treated kindly by his wife: a bag of gold, a hen that lays golden eggs, and a golden harp. Unlike Molly’s tale, this Jack is deemed a foolish boy for selling his cow for magic beans and relies more on thievery than wit. He also slays the giant in the end by chopping down the beanstalk. We can also compare Molly to the popular “Jack the Giant-Killer” tale. In this folktale, Jack is an Arthurian hero with both wit and strength. In this story, Jack earns his reputation as Giant-Killer by going on quests. His first giant he tricks to fall into a hole, kills him with a pickaxe, then steals his treasure. The town magistrates award him with a sword and belt. Jack continues on his journeys killing giants through tricks like making a giant slice his own belly open, cutting off a giant’s head while under the cover of an invisible coat, and leading a two-headed giant to a small drawbridge which breaks and he tumbles into a moat. There is plenty of beheading in this tale of Jack – he even beheads Lucifer! This knight-like Jack does not just stumble upon a single giant, but actively seeks out and commits violence against any giant he can find.

When we compare the violence of “Jack and the Beanstalk” to “Molly Whuppie,” there does appear to be more gruesome murder in the latter.[1] Molly’s, however, is passive violence meant to save herself and her sisters. She may trick the giant into murdering his own wife and daughters, but she kills no one herself. Even though the wife was kind and fed her and her sisters, it comes down to the wife’s life or Molly’s when she is finally captured. It is the same in the scene where Molly swaps the gold chains and straw ropes; a scene very much like another folktale by the name of “Hop-o’-My-Thumb.” Because many fairy tales and folk tales are now considered children’s literature in our modern day, these brutal scenes of filicide and mariticide are removed or altered.[2] Shelby’s version for example, after a switching of nightcaps, has the giant’s daughters being locked into a cellar instead of beaten to death. With or without the bloody violence, these scenes reveal that Molly, like most girls and women in folklore, must rely on their cunning to stay alive, even when it results in violence towards other women.

2. Would be helpful to know specific sources that include the changes–cite.

In some folk and even myth traditions, as in Old Norse literature, giants are equated with or shown in conflict with the gods. As we see with the giant-killing tales of the Scottish, English, and some neighboring areas on the continent of Europe, “giants appear as powerful but rather stupid unnamed beings who wreak havoc in the land... [and are] overthrown by valiant knights or deceived by intelligent young heroes” (Lindahl, McNamara, & Lindow 179). All three of these tales, “Molly Whuppie,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and “Jack the Giant-Killer,” fall under the ATU 328 tale type (MFTD). Within the motif types that “Molly” falls into, it is notable that she is one of the only female protagonists and that her tale, even with all its violence, does not end with a dead giant. The “bridge of one hair” may even be read as comparable to the slim beanstalk or the small drawbridge on which the giants of Jack’s tales met their demise. Surely Molly could also have used her wit to coax the giant onto a bridge that could not hold his weight. As we have seen in our comparison, however, the female protagonist of folk fairy tales may overcome her antagonists, but she does not participate in active physical violence like her male counterparts. This fall in line with a quantitative analysis of folktale heroines published in 2005: the study of tales from 48 different “culture areas” around the world showed that female protagonists are “less likely to actively pursue her goals and she is less likely to achieve them in ways requiring conspicuous courage or physical heroism” (Gottschall). This study also revealed that these folktale heroines devote much of their stories to altruism, especially for the welfare of their closest kin. Molly meets all of these universals.

2. Known in England at least since the Middle Ages, Jack Tales had become enormously popular in England,
Scotland, and Ireland by the time the American colonies were first settled. In the early eighteenth century, when the
major waves of immigration into the Appalachian Mountains began, published versions of “Jack the Giantkiller” (The
History of Jack and the Giants, 1711) and “Jack and the Beanstalk” (The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted
Bean, 1734) were widespread in England. Great literary artists, including Henry Fielding and Samuel Johnson, read
and wrote about Jack. But the English, Scottish, and Irish settlers of the Appalachians did not read these stories; rather,
they spoke them from memory to avid listeners. And by the 1760s, in the region now known as West Virginia,
apparently everyone was telling them.
__
3. That's from this article.

In the end, Molly and Jack both obtain their happily-ever-afters in the form of marriage and riches (which are emphasized more in Jack’s tales). We can never know how Molly came into being in her tale when it was first told hundreds of years before it was ever written down. Through comparison, it is obvious that her tale shares many motifs common in folklore and we can assess just how female heroism was perceived. Molly possesses the feminine equivalent of physical courage through her use of wit and passive violence in her giant-killing fairy tale. And though she fits the stereotypical mold for folk heroines, she is persistent as her tale continues to stand out as one of the only female “giant-killers.”

Works Cited

Revision
Emerson Jones
Professor
Course
Date

Molly vs. Jack: Passive Violence in the Tale of “Molly Whuppie”

Many children have grown up hearing the tale of “Jack and the Beanstalk” often enough to rehearse the story themselves. Jack has dominated as hero of a whole folklore tale-type of giant-killing tales, outshining other young protagonists including his female counterpart, “Molly Whuppie.” Molly, who also encounters and steals three items from a giant, may not be as popular as Jack, but her story is still being told and reimagined. As evidenced by a 2007 children’s book entitled, The Adventures of Molly Whuppie and Other Appalachian Folktales, in which its author, Anne Shelby, notes that “the tales’ gender stereotyping seemed anachronistic” and female heroines with passive roles was not a storytelling tradition she wished to continue (84). Though Molly’s tale holds many similarities to both “Jack and the Beanstalk” and “Jack the Giant-Killer,” and it may be just as old, Shelby’s reasons for retelling the tale for a 21st century audience points to gender biases deeply embedded within oral traditions we have inherited through written collections. When compared to the protagonists and violence in these well-known versions of the Jack vs. Giant folktales, the tale of Molly Whuppie champions wit over strength as the female trait that leads to victory over supernatural adversaries.

According to the Aarne-Thompson-Uther (ATU) motif-based tale types, “Molly Whuppie” falls under multiple types within the folk tale group of “Supernatural Adversaries” including 327 (The Children and the Ogre) and 328 (The Treasure of the Giant) (MFTD). In his folklore collection, English Fairy Tales, Joseph Jacobs includes a note that he collected the tale of “Mally Whuppie” from The Folklore Journal (OER), which claims the tale was collected from a schoolteacher’s mother in Scotland and published in 1884 (“Three Folk-Tales”). Like most folklore, Molly is part of a long history of oral tradition with no knowledge of who told the tale first or when. And, unlike written literature that is more static, the oral tale Jacobs wrote down was just one of many versions, as oral folk fairy tales have the potential to reshape and remold throughout time and location.

Within the genre of folk narrative, this tale falls into the folk fairy tale definition due to its young, clever protagonist, Molly, who defeats a magical being, and lives happily ever after. Like several other folktales involving children in the woods, Molly and two of her sisters are abandoned because their parents have more children than they can care for. The lost and hungry sisters come across a house and the woman within offers them shelter and food. This woman, it turns out, is a giant’s wife. The giant himself enters the scene in a similar fashion to “Jack and the Beanstalk,” bellowing, “‘Fee, fie, fo, fum, / I smell the blood of some earthly one’” (Jacobs 95). The wife does not allow the giant to harm them at first, but the giant plans to kill them in the night and places straw ropes around the sisters’ necks and gold chains around the necks of the giant’s own three daughters. Clever Molly swaps these out before the giant enters their dark bedroom to batter to death the three lassies with rope necklaces. In short, Molly and her sisters escape to a nearby kingdom and the king convinces Molly to steal three items from the giant, promising his three sons in marriage to Molly and her sisters. Continuing to follow the Rule of Three common in oral tradition (3 sisters, 3 daughters, 3 items), the three items Molly steals are a sword, a purse, and a ring. Each time she escapes across the “bridge of one hair,” on which the giant cannot follow, yelling back at the monster that she plans to return. On the third and final trip, Molly is caught in the grasp of the giant, but outwits both him and his wife, ending in the wife being tied in a sack meant for Molly and a fatal beating by the giant. Molly escapes one last time and simply “never saw the giant again” (Jacobs 97). The story ends with Molly and her sisters married to the princes.

As you may recall from “Jack in the Beanstalk,” and this is in Jacobs version of the tale as well, Jack also steals three items from the giant after being treated kindly by his wife: a bag of gold, a hen that lays golden eggs, and a golden harp. Unlike Molly’s tale, this Jack is deemed a foolish boy for selling his cow for magic beans and relies more on thievery than wit. He actively slays the giant in the end by chopping down the beanstalk. We can also compare Molly to the popular “Jack the Giant-Killer” tale. In this folktale, Jack is an Arthurian hero with both wit and strength. In this story, Jack earns his reputation as Giant-Killer by going on quests. His first giant he tricks to fall into a hole, kills him with a pickaxe, then steals his treasure. The town magistrates award him with a sword and belt. Jack continues on his journeys killing giants through tricks like making a giant slice his own belly open, cutting off a giant’s head while under the cover of an invisible coat, and leading a two-headed giant to a small drawbridge which breaks and he tumbles into a moat. There is plenty of beheading in this tale of Jack – he even beheads Lucifer! This knight-like Jack does not just stumble upon a single giant, but actively seeks out and commits violence against any giant he can find.

When we compare the violence of “Jack and the Beanstalk” to “Molly Whuppie,” there does appear to be more gruesome murder in the latter. Molly’s, however, is passive violence meant to save herself and her sisters. She may trick the giant into murdering his own wife and daughters, but she kills no one herself. Even though the wife was kind and fed her and her sisters, it comes down to the wife’s life or Molly’s when she is finally captured. It is the same in the scene where Molly swaps the gold chains and straw ropes; a scene very much like another folktale by the name of “Hop-o’-My-Thumb.” Because many fairy tales and folk tales are now considered children’s literature in our modern day, these brutal scenes of filicide and mariticide are removed or altered. Shelby’s version for example, after a switching of nightcaps, has the giant’s daughters being locked into a cellar instead of beaten to death. With or without the bloody violence, these scenes reveal that Molly, like most girls and women in folklore, must rely on their cunning to stay alive. Even when it results in violence towards other women.

In some folk and even myth traditions, as in Old Norse literature, giants are equated with or shown in conflict with the gods. As we see with the giant-killing tales of the Scottish, English, and some neighboring areas on the continent of Europe, “giants appear as powerful but rather stupid unnamed beings who wreak havoc in the land... [and are] overthrown by valiant knights or deceived by intelligent young heroes” (Lindahl, McNamara, & Lindow 179). All three of these tales, “Molly Whuppie,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and “Jack the Giant-Killer,” fall under the ATU 328 tale type (MFTD). Within the motif types that “Molly” falls into, it is notable that she is one of the only female protagonists and that her tale, even with all its violence, does not end with a dead giant. The “bridge of one hair” may even be read as comparable to the slim beanstalk or the small drawbridge on which the giants of Jack’s tales met their demise. Surely Molly could also have used her wit to coax the giant onto a bridge that could not hold his weight. As we have seen in our comparison, however, the female protagonist of folk fairy tales may overcome her supernatural antagonists, but she does not participate in active physical violence like her male counterparts. This falls in line with a quantitative analysis of folktale heroines published in 2005: the study of tales from 48 different “culture areas” around the world showed that female protagonists are “less likely to actively pursue her goals and she is less likely to achieve them in ways requiring conspicuous courage or physical heroism” (Gottschall). This study also revealed that these folktale heroines devote much of their stories to altruism, especially for the welfare of their closest kin. Molly meets all these universals.

In the end, Molly and Jack both obtain their happily-ever-afters in the form of marriage and riches. We can never know how Molly came into being or when her tale was first told hundreds of years before it was ever formally collected in writing. Through comparison, it is obvious that her tale shares many motifs common in folklore and we can assess just how female heroism was perceived at the time that the story was collected and written down, in the 19th century. Molly possesses the feminine equivalent of physical courage through her use of wit and passive violence in her giant-killing fairy tale. And though she fits the stereotypical mold for folk heroines, she is persistent as her tale continues to stand out as one of the only female “giant-killers.” In fact, Molly persisted in the oral tradition even after it was published in written form and she made her way to the Appalachian region of the United States where she was renamed Munciemeg and Mutsmag in different versions (Shelby 85). Surprisingly, Mutsmag’s tale ends with a dead giant who was tricked into drowning himself in a river. Though she doesn’t share her name, Mutsmag is Molly reincarnated into a different time and place. Hundreds of years later, she still relies on wit more than strength, but Molly finally became a true giant-killer.

One thing that came to mind later after relfecting on Molly/Mutsmag was that Carl Lindahl includes Mutsmag in his collection American Folktales: From the Collections of the Library of Congress:Routledge, 2003.

Works Cited