The essence of objects in Lyman Frank Baum’s tales

Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University

The article deals with the research on the essence of objects in children's literature (Lyman Frank Baum's "American Tales" case study). The daily routine is skillfully combined with fairy-tale mood, it becomes possible due to the characters and the objects in these tales. The article describes the possible functions of objects in fiction, in particular, in a literary tale. The main attention is paid to the definition of functions performed by objects in the given fairy tales and the role of magic and magical objects in these works because the presence of magic objects in the text is one of the markers of fairy tales as a genre. Objects are defined as one of the important components of fairy tales. In addition to magical objects, fairy tales contain ordinary household items that perform the functions of various markers: create a background, describe the scene, characterise the characters of the epoch or place of action. An important role is played by the revival of objects, as well as the transformation of objects from ordinary to magical (a chest, book, pump, glass dog, and mannequin). Putting spells on objects is an important part of Baum's fairy tales. Revival is Baum's favorite fairy-tale technique. In his works time, toys, mannequins, and stuffed birds come to life. This is done with the help of spells performed by wizards or gnomes. Objects in these tales serve as markers of his epoch. The author writes how and what the children played, focuses on the elements of interior design, the activities of the characters, as well as the fashion of that time. In most cases, such objects belong to the era of the author, without duplicating the folk tale tradition of magical objects. We conclude that the essence of objects in analysed works is represented as follows: everyday objects that characterize the epoch, place of residence of the characters, daily habits; magical objects, the origin of which is not always known, and their magical power is often discovered by chance; objects that turn from ordinary to magical under the influence of magic. Thanks to the objects, a reader gets the opportunity to get additional characteristics of the characters, the idea of the world where the characters exist, and the characters' (in)ability to use certain things influence the plot of fairy tales.

Keywords: object, thing, fairy tale, literary tale, magic object, wonder, revival.

Introduction. The world of objects implies all the things surrounding any person since birth: toys, furniture, clothes, etc. These things are an essential component of human reality, both primal and secondary, that is, fictional. In a text, objects can serve as a background or detail, etc. The object acts as an element of the fictional world, performing the following functions: cultural, character, plot, and composition. As an attribute of space, it occurs in mythological, religious, and philosophical systems. Today people are surrounded by many things, practicing the cult of consumption, losing the ability to appreciate important things, because there are many of things and it is so easy to get lost in them. However, in the fiction, things that a person uses receive a completely different meaning. They serve as additional characteristics of the characters, their world, aspirations and feelings. The thing (an object) works in a special way in literary fairy tales, because we have groups of both ordinary and magical objects. The desire to trace the coexistence of the ordinary world and the magical one on the example of the materialized sphere determines the actuality of our study.

Thus, the nature of things is researched by modern sciences such as philosophy -- thing as something that surrounds and creates man, semiotics of things (J. Baudrillard, R. Barthes, P. T. de Chardin, M. Heidegger, O. Losev), culturology -- thing as a sociocultural phenomenon (M. Epstein, Yu. Lotman, B Olsen), linguistics -- linguistic organization of the world of things (M. Brandes, V. Kukharenko) and literature -- understanding of materialism in literary texts, the relationship of objects with other images in the work (O. Biletsky, N. Gorodnyuk, I. Swider, M. Gasparov, V. Toporov, Ye. Farino, V).

The peculiarity of things is their consumption. According to V. Shyvelbush, food consumption is a clear and natural process. Food is eaten and digested in the body. But how imagine the consumption of inedible things? Table, chair, skirt, shoes -- they are not eaten like a sandwich. However, we use and consume them in some other way. (Shyvelbush, V., 2018, 12).

B. Olsen in his work “Protecting Things” wrote that things should be interpreted as material culture, as a certain existence in the context of other existences, such as man, flora, and fauna (Olsen, B., 2013, 19). And he considered the most important aspect in the ontology of things to be an understanding of what it is, how it affects a person's life, how it is asserted in time and space, and why things are ignored in modern sciences (Olsen, B., 2013, 32).

M. Heidegger in the essays “What a Thing?” and “The Origin of the Work of Art” raises the issue of what can be called a thing. He brings out such features of a thing: a thing as a set of its properties and qualities, a thing as the unity of diversity in feelings, a thing as a formed substance. He also notes that “things surround and create a person before they become objects”. (Heidegger, М., 1996).

According to R. Barthes, the symbolic character of a thing is the depth of a thing, and the taxonomic characteristic (a thing is not just in itself, it is included in the classification series) is its width. In “The Semantics of Things”, he emphasizes two groups of connotations the meaning of a thing: the existence of the connotation of a thing, when it begins to appear and exist as something inhuman, but confidence in its existence, even contrary to man. Technological connotations of a thing, when a thing is defined as what is done, it is material that has been given completeness, standardization, design, and orderliness (Barthes, R., 1990).

V. Toporov noted that the thing outgrows its “realization” and begins to live, to act in the spiritual space. The scientist says that the basic status of the thing is low because the thing is always secondary, not self-sufficient. Created by a person from something primary or more primary than themselves, it is necessary for meeting the needs, for human use. The need for things is its main characteristic. It is between the person and the result that the person wants to achieve with this thing (Toporov, V., 1993, 70).

J. Baudrillard also emphasized the necessity, necessity of things, seeing its main purpose in consumption (Baudrillard, J., 1996). For the first time in the “System of Objects”, Baudrillard interprets the term “simulacrum”, that is, a conventional sign that replaces reality. For household things, it introduces the concept of “zero level” simulation. According to Baudrillard, things do not have an independent meaning but have a universal function of celebrity. That is, the meaning becomes a thing in the process of semiosis, and meaning is a value that arises in the act of social interaction. The process of differentiation of practical, symbolic, utilitarian, and value properties of objects in any culture has led to two classes of objects: purely industrial and ritual. Also in the culture since ancient times, there has been another function of objects, namely it has been treated as a toy. Traditionally, an object is understood as something that is used for something. Another aspect of the object is its transitivity, that is, its influence on the outside world.

Analysis and Discussion. In fiction, in particular, in fairy tales, objects are given aspecial status. They can be animportant detail, becoming crucial in character characterization or plot development. One of the characteristics of fairy tales is the presence of magic objects or miracles that turn ordinary things into magic.

The objective of research is “American Tales” by Lyman Frank Baum. The subject of research -- the area of objects (things) in the fairy tales of the American author, the essence of objects in the works of this writer. The purpose is to describe and analyze this materialized world, to classify objects in fairy tales, to determine their functional load. The purpose of the article is to solve the following tasks: to analyze the tales of Lyman Frank Baum, to identify the area of objects, to explore the specifics of the manifestation of objects in works, to find out their role and meaning in individual tales. In the course of the research we used the following methods: cultural-historical to differentiate objects in the works, psychological to determine the impact of objects on the characters and their dependence on them, formal for a detailed description and list of objects which are present in fairy tales, receptive-aesthetic to understand the combination of charming and ordinary objects in fairy tales.

According to John Algeo, Frank Baum was one of the most notable yet unknown theosophists of the turn of the century, and was our first and perhaps greatest theosophical writer for children (Algeo, J., 1985). Concerning the presence of animals in the tales of the American writer, Mark I. West says that “most of Baum's animal fairy tales are fanciful stories set in nondescript places, such as a tropical jungle. Some are influenced by Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Books, which came out in 1894 and 1895. Since Baum had never visited a tropical jungle, he borrowed from Kipling's descriptions of jungles in India. The two stories that take place on the Dakota prairie, however, have vivid settings, complete with realistic details that he remembered from his years at Aberdeen” (West, M., 1989). Michael Patrick Hearn notes the high level of modernization of the fairy tale as a genre due to the appearance of Baum's works (Hearn, M. P., 1979). Michael Riley tells about the new cultural meanings created by the American storyteller and his influence on the further development of literary fairy tales (Riley, M. N., 1997). Tison Pugh reflects on gender roles and stereotypes in the tales of the American writer (Pugh, T., 2008). Ken Derry writes about genocide, hermeneutics, and religion in Baum's tales (Derry, K., 2014). However, in most cases, scholars analyze “The Wizard of Oz”, ignoring some of Baum's tales, and this is unfortunate, because other tales are no less bright, alive, amazing with unobtrusive morals.

The novelty of the study is that, the area of objects of Lyman Frank Baum's short fairy tales is studied for the first time ever.

Lyman Frank Baum's fairy tales with its everyday life are skillfully intertwined with a fairytale tradition that is characterized by the presence of miracles. Objects are also present in the titles of tales: “The Box of Robbers”, “The Glass Dog”, “The Dummy that Lived”. These objects are decisive in fairy tales. Also the author creates dynamic description of things (Kovaliova, T., 2019). By all indications, these works of Baum are literary tales, which are characterized by the features of this genre: the presence of a miracle, an unusual plot, fictional fairy tale characters, magical objects, instructive, and so on.

In “The Box of Robbers”, it all starts with a chest that Martha inadvertently opens. She stays at home alone, plays with dolls, then with a doll's house, and finally finds an old chest, which also becomes a toy for her:

“It was quite big -- bigger even than mamma's traveling trunk -- and was studded all over with tarnished brass headed nails. It was heavy, too, for when Martha tried to lift one end of it she found she could not stir it a bit. But there was a place in the side of the cover for a key. She stooped to examine the lock and saw that it would take a rather big key to open it” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 5).

Martha still finds the keys and opens the chest from which the robbers jump out. We have a kind of transformation of the myth of Pandora's chest that she opens, and also out of curiosity. Marty manages to put the robbers back. The author offers the reader an interesting moral:

“The story should teach us not to interfere in matters that do not concern us. For had Martha refrained from opening Uncle Walter's mysterious chest she would not have been obliged to carry downstairs all the plunder the robbers had brought into the attic” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 14).

The fairy tale “The Owner of the Bear” is connected with the discovery-danger. Little Jane Gladys receives a book in which the characters come to life. And she would almost be in the bear's mouth, if not for her ingenuity.

In the fairy tale “The Glass Dog” it all starts with the revival of a glass dog:

“Then the wizard cast a wizzy spell and mumbled several very learned words in the wizards language over the glass dog. Whereupon the little animal first wagged its tail from side to side, then winked his left eye knowingly, and at last began barking...” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 19).

And then there is the magic powder, cheating, a failed marriage. And only a glass dog sits in the hallway at the door of the wizard.

In the fairy tale “The Dummy that Lived” a mannequin comes to life, standing in the store, and begins his journey through the world of people:

“The wax lady was in no hurry. She inherited patience from her previous existence. Just to be alive and wear beautiful clothes was sufficient enjoyment for her at present. So she sat down upon a stool and waited quietly until daylight” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 117).

Revival is Baum's favorite fairy-tale trick (remember his famous fairy-tale novels about the land of Oz): he brings to lifetime, toys, mannequins, stuffed birds. And of course, this is done with the help of spells performed by wizards or gnomes.

Things in Baum's fairy tales are markers of the era about which Baum writes. The action of his most tales takes place in the modern-day. He writes about what the children played then, and focuses on the elements of interior design, the activities of the characters, as well as the fashion of that time. Ya. Babchenko says that behind any modern reality there is a thing with the signs of eternity. (Babchenko, Ya, 2020).

For example, in “The Enchanted Types”, a dwarf revives a stuffed bird from a woman's hat:

“During his wanders, he entered a millinery shop, and was surprised to see within a large glass case a great number of women's hats stuffed bird. Indeed, some of the most elaborate hats had two or three birds upon them” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 55).

The dwarf revives the birds, but seeing the store owner worried about his possible bankruptcy, he tries to save the situation: “objects” mice. However, for some reason, they are not in such demand as birds.

The fashion for hats with feathers and stuffed birds, even nests, was widespread during the Baum era. However, the author himself treats any fashion with humor: they say that it exists as long as it is talked about. Therefore, the dwarf, to correct the situation, changes the fashion, that is, conjures up the letters in the newspapers, and everyone reads that the birds in hats are no longer in vogue. And the former stuffed birds live peacefully in the woods.

There is much in common between a glass dog, a mannequin, and stuffed birds. First, the revival of creatures that are recursive mechanisms of living things: living dogs, humans, living birds -- a characteristic feature of Baum's tales, including his fairy tales. Secondly, they come to life under the influence of magic and without urgency: the wizard does not have to have a watchdog, a mannequin and birds come to life for fun.

Let's take a closer look at the lively mannequin. The dwarf, flying in the city, saw a female wax figure behind the glass of the department store window:

“The wax lady was beautifully dressed, and extended in her stiff left hand was a card bearing the words: “RARE BARGAIN! This Stylish Costume (Importedfrom Paris) Former Price, $ 20, REDUCED TO ONLY $ 19.98”. This impressive announcement had drawn before the window a crowd of women shoppers, who stood looking at the wax lady with critical eyes” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 114).

The person looks at the mannequin, in particular at the clothes he is wearing, if he is impressed by this image, he begins to try it on himself, thanks to visual communication, the person becomes a fractal pattern of the mannequin -- to dress like a mannequin. A wax mannequin comes to life in a fairy tale. And, thanks to previous visual communication with women behind glass, he is now trying to look like a lady:

“When she came to the glass cases filled with trimmed hats she remembered having seen upon the heads of the women in the street similar creations. So she selected one that suited her fancy and placed it carefully upon her yellow locks. I won't attempt to explain what instinct it was that made her glance into a nearby mirror to see if the hat was straight, but this she certainly did. It didn't correspond with her dress very well, but the poor thing was too young to have much taste in matching colors.

When she reached the glove counter she remembered that gloves were also worn by the women she had seen. She took a pair from the case and tried to fit them upon her stiff, wax-coated fingers; but the gloves were too small and ripped in the seams. Then she tried another pair, and several others, as well; but hours passed before she finally succeeded in getting her hands covered with a pair of pea-green kids.

Next, she selected a parasol from a large and varied assortment in the rear of the store. Not that she had any idea what it was used for; but other ladies carried such things, so she also would have one.

When she again examined herself critically in the mirror she decided her outfit was now complete, and to her inexperienced eyes, there was no perceptible difference between her and the women who had stood outside the window” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 116-117).

A wax woman imitates real women. Hence we have a recursive chain of reproduction of fractal patterns. In our case: man -- mannequin -- man; people dress like mannequins -- mannequins dress the way people are asked to dress -- mannequins dress like people. A wax woman tries to behave like a real woman, but she can't cope with basic things: reading a newspaper, buying coffee, taking a tram. Eventually, she falls under the wheels of a tram, and later to the police station. There is a debate in the city about whether she is real or not:

The people who had collected shouted: “You're right!” “That's what she is!” “She's a dummy!”

“Are you?” inquired the policeman, sternly.

The wax lady did not reply. She began to fear she was getting into trouble, and the staring crowd seemed to embarrass her.

Suddenly a bootblack attempted to solve the problem by saying: “You guys are all wrong! Can a dummy talk? Can a dummy walk? Can a dummy live?”

“Hush!” murmured the policeman. “Look here!” and he pointed to the hold in the lady's head. The newsboy looked, turned pale and whistled to keep himself from shivering” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 122).

The wax woman's life path ends, as it began, with the intervention of a dwarf, which again turns her into a lifeless mannequin.

The encounter with a miracle in most fairy tales is unexpected, often accidental: either on the initiative of the hero with whom it happens, or there is someone outside associated with the amazing. He brings a magic item or casts a spell on an ordinary thing as it can be traced in the following tales: Jane Gladys (“The Girl Who Owned a Bear”) embroiders a pillow for Dad's birthday, Martha (“The Box of Robbers”) reads a book, crosses, plays with dolls, and is going to tidy up a doll's house, a poor glassblower opens the door to the magician and takes orders from him for a glass dog, the little king (the fairy tale “The Queen of Quok”) with the help of magical poems summons, without knowing it, the Slave of the King's bed; a dwarf (“The Enchanted Types”) comes to the city out of great boredom. Lady Claribel (“The Magic Bon Bons”) comes to the wizard herself with a request to make her magic candies. Jim catches time while having fun (“The Capture of Father Time”), a woman (“The Wonderful Pump”) also runs into a beetle who thanks her with a miracle, the dwarf Tanko-Manki revives a mannequin in a city, because the dwarf gets bored.

The signs of the beginning of a miracle and a real fairy tale are not the spells themselves, but their consequences: a glass dog comes to life, robbers jump out of a magic chest, stuffed birds come to life, magic candies come to life, coins appear due to magic pump or King's Bed Slave, the heroes of the open book come to life.

By transforming ordinary objects into magic, Baum creates the effects of playing with a reader who does not know until the end of the tale whether the transformations will take place with other objects or not.

One of the features of things is their disposal, fate after use. In our fairy tales -- this is the fate of magical things after they are used as fairy tale props. Here the writer does not have a single system or laws:

-- the wonderful Pump stops functioning (“The Wonderful Pump”):

“Then the woman whispered to her husband to run and pump some more gold while she kept the crowd quiet, and he obeyed quickly. But after a few moments, he returned with a white face to tell her the pump was dry, and not a gold piece could now be coaxed from the spout” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 111-112).

— the box (“The Box of Robbers”) closes and waits for someone else who will be bored and out of curiosity will open it again:

“Then Martha sat upon the lid and pressed it down with all her weight. To her great delight the lock caught, and, springing down, she exerted all her strength and turned the key” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 15).

— the glass dog returns to his owner and still serves him (“The Glass Dog”):

“4s for the glass dog, the wizard set him barking again using his wizards and put him outside his door. I suppose he is there yet, and am rather sorry, for I should like to consult the wizard about the moral to this story ' (Baum, L. F., 2013, 27).

— a woman who wanted to marry a little boy- king for the crown (“The Queen of Quok”), together with the royal adviser-swindler she is still counting coins from the magic cap:

“So, there being no chairs, the counselor sat down upon the floor in one corner and began counting out silver twenty-five-cent pieces from the purse, one by one. And the old woman sat upon the floor opposite him and took each piece of money from his hand (...)

The king left them sitting there and went to school, and often thereafter he came to the counselor and interrupted him long enough to get from the purse what money he needed to reign in a proper and dignified manner. This somewhat delayed the counting, but as it was a long job, anyway, that did not matter much (...)

But this is how the counselor was punished for being so careless with the woman's money. And this is how Mary Ann Brodjinski de la Porkus was also punished for wishing to marry a ten-year-old king so that she might wear the coronet of the queen of Quok” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 40-41).

— the characters from the magic book (“The Girl Who Owned a Bear”) are hidden back in the book:

“But she was interrupted by them all making a rush for the book. There was a swish and a whirr and a rustling of leaves, and an instant later the book lay upon the floor looking just like any other book, while Jane Gladys' strange companions had all disappeared” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 52).

— stuffed birds flee the city and become invulnerable to hunters' bullets (“The Enchanted Types”):

“Popopo after this found much enjoyment in visiting every millinery shop he could find and giving new life to the stuffed birds which were carelessly tossed aside as useless. And they flew to the fields and forests with songs of thanks to the good knook who had rescued them.

Sometimes a hunter fires his gun at a bird and then wonders why he did not hit it. But, having read this story, you will understand that the bird must have been a stuffed one from some millinery shop, which cannot, of course, be killed by a gun” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 62).

-- the mannequin turns back into a mannequin under the influence of the spell of the dwarf from the lady but is no longer usable (“The Dummy that Lived”):

“But when they entered No.16 they found only a lifeless dummy lying prone upon the floor. Its wax was cracked and blistered, its head was badly damaged, and the bargain costume was dusty, soiled, and much bedraggled. For the mischief- loving Tanko-Mackie had flown by and breathed once more upon the poor wax lady, and in that instant, her brief life ended” (Baum, L. F., 2013, 125).

In most cases, the life of the heroes is the same as it was before a miracle happens transforming ordinary objects into unusual ones. The author pulls out magic objects from the whirlpool of everyday life for a few minutes, hours or days and brings them back again.

Conclusion. Magic items are not present in all fairy tales of the American writer. For example, they are absent in the following works: “The Laughing Hippopotamus”, “The Magic Bon Bons”, “The Capture of Father Time”, “King of Polar Bears”, “Mandarin and Butterfly”. In the fairy tales “The Magic Bon Bons” and “Mandarin and Butterfly” the fairy-tale effect is achieved with the help of magic food: candies, magic potions. In others due to the anthropomorphization of time and animals.

As for ordinary objects, they complement the overall entourage. As a rule, these are household items, clothes, toys.

Thus, the world of objects in Baum's fairy tales is represented as follows: ordinary things that create a background, complement the scene, give additional characteristics to the characters, become indicators of the era about which the American storyteller writes, objects that turn from ordinary to magic through magic, and objects, the magical power of which is revealed by chance. Among the items that become magical or are already: a chest, a book, a pump, stuffed birds, a glass dog, and a mannequin. They are an important part of fairy tales because they move the plot and create a unique atmosphere.

Прикарпатський національний університет імені Василя Стефаника (Івано-Франківськ, Україна)

СВІТ РЕЧЕЙ У КАЗКАХ ЛАЙМЕНА ФРЕНКА БАУМА

Стаття присвячена дослідженню світу речей у дитячій літературі на прикладі книги «Американські казки» Л.Ф. Баума, в якій буденне майстерно, почасти з гумором, поєднується з чарівним завдяки відповідним звичним казковим персонажам та предметній сфері. У статті охарактеризовано можливі функції речей у художньому творі, зокрема у літературній казці. Основну увагу приділено визначенню функцій, які виконують предмети в аналізованих нами казках, а також ролі чарівного та магічних предметів у цих творах, адже наявність чарівних предметів у тексті є одним із маркерів казки як жанру. Речі визначаються як одна з важливих складових казок американського автора. Окрім чарівних предметів, у казках присутні звичайні побутові речі, що виконують функції різноманітних маркерів: створюють фон, доповнюють місце дії, характеризують персонажів, добу чи місце дії. Важливу роль відіграє оживлення предметів, а також трансформація їх зі звичайних у чарівні. Серед таких у казках маємо скриню, книжку-помпу, скляного пса, манекена. Очуднення предметів є важливою складовою казок Баума, а оживлення -- улюблений казковий прийом автора, адже у його творах оживають час, іграшки, манекени, опудала птахів. І звісно ж, це відбувається за допомогою чарів, які здійснюють чарівники або гноми. Речі у казках американського письменника виступають також маркерами сучасної йому доби. Він прописує, як і чим гралися тогочасні діти, зосереджує увагу на елементах декору інтер'єру, заняттях персонажів, а також на тогочасній моді. Саме такі предмети у більшості випадків належать до епохи автора, не дублюючи народну казкову традицію чарівних предметів. Отже, світ речей в аналізованих нами творах репрезентований таким чином: речі звичайно-побутові, що характеризують добу, місце проживання персонажа, його уречевленні звички; чарівні предмети, походження яких не завжди відоме, а їхня магічна сила часто відкривається випадково; речі, що зі звичайних перетворюються на чарівні під впливом чарів. Завдяки предметній сфері реципієнт отримує можливість додаткових характеристик персонажів, формує уявлення про світ, в якому існують персонажі, від (не)уміння яких користуватися тими чи іншими речами залежить розвиток подій казкової історії.

Ключові слова: річ, предмет, казка, літературна казка, чарівний предмет, очуднення, оживлення.

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