Writing About Literature
In the stories “The Frog Prince” by Gustaf Tenggren and “Hazel Tells LaVerne” by Katharyn Machan are both very similar stories with relation to a frog. The one thing that seems to jump out to the reader is that one story takes place in a totally different time period than the other. Two comparisons that will be made in my story will be the main focus on the frog character and how time is such a big setting or difference from one story to the other.
The poem version of this frog prince “hazel Tells LaVerne” is told in past tense meaning the story had taken place the night before and the narrator is telling the story by what had happened while she was at work. As I read this story I quickly realized this had to have taken place in our present day and time because of the description told in the story about her cleaning of a toilet. Obviously the narrator sounded as if she wasn’t very much educated at all from the sounds of her talking.
However, the author was very clever because she sounds as if she is trying to continue the actual story of “The Frog Prince” to a now modern day story of what would most likely occur today. In the actual fairy tale “The Frog Prince” details get very specific for this story is the actual and original story of “The Frog Prince”. The golden ball is key mentionable item in this story because its also mentioned in the poem”Hazel Tells Laverne”. Princess made a promise with a frog she came across in a well which was if the frog had gotten her ball she would bring the frog back to her castle, feed him, and sleep with him.
She eventually broke her promises thinking because she had her ball after the frog retrieved it she didn’t have to follow up on the promise she made. The frog went to the castle told the king for he knew a word is someone’s word so she must follow through forcing her to do so. Princess got sick of it threw the frog into a wall but not least and a spell occurred and she turned into a frog and he a prince. The golden ball was mentioned in both stories which was why I assumed that maybe the poem was a continuation of the original fairy tale.
Both stories had a frog prince which is why I will also conclude that maybe Katharyn Machan wrote the poem she did to make a shorter, more of modern day story of “The Frog Prince”, and maybe she wants to make a statement by how oblivious our society is today as to what it was hundreds of years ago. Both were very interesting stories in that they both had a different meaning and served a different purpose for not only the author but for the reader. It depends on how you perceive the message in the stories and this is how the story was presented to me which answers why I wrote what I did for my comparison between the two stories.
