"Tower of Pisa: The Untold Story"
This cartoon by Bill Whitehead illustrates the "untold story" of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This cartoon is showing the weight of the prince climbing up Rapunzel’s hair causing the tower to lean over. The prince’s weight would not cause the whole tower to lean, however, it would hurt Rapunzel’s head and could cause her to fall out of the tower because he weighs more than her. Having people climb into Rapunzel’s tower using her hair is not realistic at all. The weight of the people would cause her a lot of pain, it would probably pull her hair out, and she could be pulled out of her tower. This cartoon is somewhat similar to the fairy tale. Rapunzel looks like she is usually pictured with her long blond hair. And that hair is obviously being used to help people into the tower like in the fairy tale. What this cartoon references that is not in the fairy tale is the weight of the prince. Rapunzel does ask Mother Gothel how it is that she is heavier than the prince, however, the fact that Mother Gothel and the prince both weigh more than her does not come up. As I mentioned before, Rapunzel would be injured from people climbing her hair to get into the tower and the weight of either Mother Gothel or the prince would cause Rapunzel to fall out of the tower. This is a fairy tale though, so it can be expected that something magical like this would happen. But as an adult reading, a fairy tale meant for children you cannot help but analyze things like this.
No comments:
Post a Comment