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:
“A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“As long as male behavior is taken to be the norm, there can be no serious questioning of male traits and behavior. A norm is by definition a standard for judging; it is not itself subject to judgment.”
—Myriam Miedzian, U.S. author. Boys Will Be Boys, ch. 1 (1991)
“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)