Traits
Prior to his adventures, he is often despised as weak and foolish by his brothers or father, or both — sometimes with reason, some youngest sons actually being foolish, and others being lazy and prone to sitting about the ashes doing nothing. Sometimes, as in Esben and the Witch, they scorn him as small and weak.
Even when not scorned as small and weak, the youngest son is seldom distinguished by great strength, agility, speed, or other physical powers. He may be particularly clever, as in Hop o' My Thumb, or fearless, as in The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, but more commonly his traits include refusal to abandon the quest, as in Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf or The Brown Bear of the Green Glen, and courtesy to strangers, especially those who appear weak, as in The Water of Life or The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship.
Read more about this topic: Youngest Son
Famous quotes containing the word traits:
“For the myth is the foundation of life; it is the timeless schema, the pious formula into which life flows when it reproduces its traits out of the unconscious.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“Practically everyone now bemoans Western man’s sense of alienation, lack of community, and inability to find ways of organizing society for human ends. We have reached the end of the road that is built on the set of traits held out for male identity—advance at any cost, pay any price, drive out all competitors, and kill them if necessary.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)
“Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to the eye.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)