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Slide 1: Ion Creangă was a Moldavian – born Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19 th century Romanian literature, he is best known for his Childhood Memories volume, his stories in the novella and short story form, and his many anecdotes. Creangă’s main contribution to fantasy and children’s literature includes narratives structured around eponymous protagonists ( “Harap Alb”, “Ivan Turbincă “, “Dănilă Prepeleac”), as well as fairy tales indebted to conventional forms (“The Story of the Pig”, “ The Goat and Her Three Kids”, “ The Mother with Three Daughters-in-Law”, “ The Old Man’s Daughter and the Old Woman’s Daughter”). Widely seen as masterpieces of the Romanian language and local humour, his writings occupy the middle ground between a collection of folkloric sources and an original contribution to a literary realism of rural inspiration. Part of Ion Creangă’s contribution to the short story, fantasy and children’s literature genres involved collecting and transforming narratives circulating throughout his native region, which interwine with his characteristic storytelling to the point where they become original contributions.
Slide 2: “The Mother with Three Daughters-in-Law” “ The Mother with Three Daughters-in-Law”, in which Creangă makes ample use of a traditional theme in Romanian humour, which portrays mothers-in-law as mean, stingy and opressive characters. The narrator sides with the three young women in depicting their violent retribution, showing them capturing their oppressor ( mother-in-law), torturing her until she is left speech impaired, and leaving her on the brink of death. The mother-in-law’s end turns into a farce: the eldest and most intelligent of the daughters manipulates her victim’s dying sound into a testament portioning her wealth.
Slide 3: The Mother with Three Daughters-in-Law by ION CREANGĂ Once upon a time there was an old woman who had three sons tall as trees, but weak-minded.
Slide 4: It came time to married for the oldest son. The old woman searched for bride in five-six villages and hardly found one to hear heart content: not too young, tall scrawny, but hard-working and humble .
Slide 5: Immediately after the wedding, the old woman planned her daughter’s life. She gives her work day and night, and food… not at all.
Slide 6: After a time the old woman planned to marry the middle son, too. She finds him a very hard-working wife, despite she was older and less cross-eyed.
Slide 7: While the sisters worked urging each other, mother-in-law was sleeping deeply.
Slide 8: Here comes the time for marriage for the youngest son, but this one looks for his wife by himself, but not even to the old woman’s pleasant.
Slide 9: While mother-in-law is sleeping, the older daughters-in-law are working with great diligence, and the youngest one is revolting: she prepares a good meal and she invites the other daughters to the table.
Slide 10: After they ate and drank well, they started singing.
Slide 11: They ate, drank, they sang until they fell asleep.
Slide 12: When the old woman woke up, she finds disorder in her house and yelled the daughters.
Slide 13: The girls jump as if burned and they receive their lesson for the waste made. Since then, the daughters didn’t have good days with the old skinflint woman.
Slide 14: Daughters-in-law become annoyed by the mother’s bad mouth. The small daughter advises her sisters-in-law how to get rid of the old woman.
Slide 15: So, the older daughters –in-law tear the woman’s hair and hit her.
Slide 16: Thus, the middle and the older daughters-in-law strike the old woman down in the middle of the room, they put out her tongue outside, penetrate it with the needle, then pour salt and pepper on it.
Slide 17: The old woman falls in bed sick without may speak. Daughters-in-law advise how to bury her.
Slide 18: But their husbands arrive. They swoop upon the old woman’s bed.
Slide 19: The old woman points to her daughters-in-law showing what their wives had done her. The boys didn’t understand what their mother said.
Slide 20: Cry all at their mother’s bedside, without understanding her signs.
Slide 21: The youngest daughter-in-law, sly and full of conviction, tried to turn wrong the old woman’s words. She divided the old woman’s fortune between brothers, while the old woman dies.
Slide 22: They burried her with a big awful. All the villagers appreciate daughters-in-law and they “congratulate” her for such daughters-in-law.