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:
“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)
“If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“... the first reason for psychology’s failure to understand what people are and how they act, is that clinicians and psychiatrists, who are generally the theoreticians on these matters, have essentially made up myths without any evidence to support them; the second reason for psychology’s failure is that personality theory has looked for inner traits when it should have been looking for social context.”
—Naomi Weisstein (b. 1939)