The Revised Fairy-Tale
Anne was aware that something astonishing could happen that evening before her wedding. Her sister Mary was suspicious about Anne’s future husband, who was a great landlord. Every girl in their little town was dreaming about making engagement with him, but Anne felt that he was hiding something crucial about his past.
“What do you think of him?” Anne asked Mary.
She paused a little, like keeping a distance in their conversation would help them to find the right solution to this question.
“What do you think of him?” Anne repeated.
“It seems to me that he is telling lies to you,” Mary concluded.
“Why do you think so?” Anne wondered.
“The grass is green, and the Mayflower would be blue, forget-me-not, and so you are and he does not love you,” Mary was aware of her words.
Anne turned her head away from Mary, her sister, who loved her but could not find better argument and stayed apart from the problem of “loving-not loving”. Anne thought that Mary was envious of Anne’s marriage with Greg, so her suspicions were nothing but jealousy or something of the similar kind.
However, Anne drew into the deep thinking over and over again, assessing the problem from the multiple perspectives. Indeed, did she know Greg perfectly, or was he just the fruit of her illusions when she was trying to idealize all men she met on her life path? Anne was completely unaware of the answer the day before her engagement. Greg was a very handsome man; he was a landlord, rich and well-mannered. But were they in love with each other? That was the question that needed the answer as soon as possible. Thinking of this matter, Anne was sitting at the front window of her tower, sewing a Christmas gift for her mother. She was dreaming to make nice towels embroidered with red, black, blue, and green colors so that the gift would resemble festive wreaths with signing birds coming across and composing songs in cheerful tunes. Should it be some lyrics and songs? Anne did not know.
The idea came to her mind suddenly.
“I should make some holiday gift to Greg!” she thought in exaltation. “And it should be me who will make him happy when bringing joy from a good gift!” However, Anne did not know exactly what it could be as the type of a gift was hard to choose.
“Slice of paper with drawing by hand? Easy, but too traditional, and I cannot draw very well,” Anne was saying to herself. “Knitted souvenir? Too banal! Yes, it should be a book pointer,” she will make cross stitches on canvas and then will add some crocheted laces to it… Anne was inspiringly moving her fingers, trying to make laces in crochets, while the time was passing by. Suddenly, she felt pain in her finger, as the knitting hook pricked it. She stopped her craft and bound her finger with the rest of the lace, expecting to come back to work soon.
Someone knocked on the door of her tower. Anne could do nothing but to open the door, although she was not waiting for any guests at that time of the day.
“Have a nice day, my beauty!” Greg said without any harassment or embarrassment. He embraced her calmly, letting her positive mood out, despite they were trying to keep distance suggested by the manners acceptable in their circles.
“Hi, Greg! I am so glad to see you here. I was thinking of you, you know, right before you came!” Anne was happy with Greg’s visit so much that it was hard for her to speak calmly at that moment.
“Me too, I was thinking of you and your fate…”
“My fate? What do you mean, Greg? Have you changed your mind about our engagement now as the wedding day comes close? Maybe you are in doubt or frightened?” Anne worried.
“Not at all!” Greg replied hastily. “You know, Anne, I love you more than any woman I have ever loved. You are so cute and nice, I cannot imagine the better bride for me than you, but you have to know something about me…”
“Know what?” Anne angered.
“Keep calm, don’t suppress your feelings. I am begging for emotional support.”
“What?”
Greg kept silent. He seemed very strange to a girl who wanted to dedicate her life to building relationships. Kept intrigued instead of letting know made her waiting in silence. She could hardly guess what Greg had in his heart
Letting her kept waiting, Greg kept silent for some time, looking at her with astonishment. Then she saw a little knife he held in his hand coming closer to her neck. Anne lay down on the sofa. She kept silent for a while but then tried to put a smile on her face. Greg was standing still with his eyes closed.
It was shocking for Anne to see him wondered with the knife at her hand. The violence was never in the list of her wedding plans, but she kept very hard in her heart to come up with the situation. She was trying to keep calm as far as it was possible. Now she understood Mary’s concerns and their conversation that happened earlier that day. She could hardly understand why Greg who had such a big heart and was opened with her each day before her wedding, now had nothing but kill her with a ritual knife.
“We were engaged three years before,” Greg explained, “you did not know, we wanted to get married secretly and escape from the world of our traditions. We wanted to start up a new life. However, my nature prevented us from this dream. Mary could not stand the fact of leaving”
Anne shook her head.
“Each girl has something to deal with my emotions….But I will kill you not to marry to you, for I cherish my freedom above all, and I don’t want to bear bounds of marriage, as my parents force me to” .
Anne was shocked when hearing this, but all he could manage is to grab up the scissors to protect herself. It was hard to get hurt the person she loved, but this step got her the moment to escape from the tower. The emotional overload was overwhelming, and the least she could do is to grab all the feelings out of her soul and tell her parents about the overall situation.
COMMUNITY SERVICE PRESENTATION PLAN
This community service presentation plan is designed for the informal street and online audience. The target audience is those young people who experience psychological difficulties in communicating with each other, including intersexes communication. The plan relates to students who experience or are more likely to experience violence in the family. The revised fairy tale might improve the self-awareness of such people, who are in need of stating their position in life, specifically if they have to struggle for the life and learn to protect themselves from the violent behavior that may happen in relationships with friends and relatives, with couple mates and even with kids.
There is no secret that the situation that happened to Anne and Greg from the fairy tale, when the boy was about to kill the bride, could mostly happen in societies of the Middle Ages, but in real it can arise from the lack of the self awareness. Young people nowadays have to suffer from the lack of explanation in crucial life events and situations, so all they have to do is to apply violence from the lack of emotional support. Violence comes across with fear for being misunderstood. In case of the revised fairy-tale, Greg is about to kill Anne, as if it is her fault that it is their marriage that is an upcoming event.
As applicable to community, the service presentation plan may include the following steps that can be modified in order to present benefits to the community.
- Introducing psychology counseling services.
- Establishing pre-marriage counseling services that may include the typical ways of discussion the roles of a husband and a wife that should position themselves as caring and loving partners who have to rise up kids.
- Caring about married couples by means of welcoming them, encouraging them to speak to their friends and parents boldly about their problems so that to exclude situation with misunderstanding or the low degree of control.
- Providing students with the revised fairy tales and amendment materials to care about their psychological state of health and release the distress among them and reduce criminal behavior.
- Revising amounts of information about violence in mass media that involves young people, reducing family violence against each other.
This community services plan can be used by institutional affiliations, family care institutions, police stations, social workers, and educators. Criminality comes across the danger of being wounded and killed, so such roles should be avoided or reduced low down to the minimum.
