the Wakefield Doctrine

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers )

Lets have some fun with this here Doctrine here.

You all are familiar with the characteristics of clarks, scotts and rogers, at least enough to recognize them in your close personal friends and/or family units, correct?¹ (And), you have read here that the Doctrine is a unique and productive system of understanding the behavior of the people in our lives, right? The Wakefield Doctrine takes a unique approach to personality in that we say, “It is not the list of habits and self-descriptions that define and establish your personality ‘type’, no frickin way! Around here we say: “We all exist in one of three characteristic realities, and it is our appropriate and effective responses and reactions to the world, as we are perceiving and experiencing it, that determines if you are a clark or a scott or a roger. That lets you know which of the three personality types you are, then when you turn your attention (and the Doctrine) upon the people in your life you will learn so much about why they do the things that they do, that you will laugh and hurry to write us and tell everyone how useful this thing of ours can be; how you learn about the other person is as simple (but not easy) as the rest of the Wakefield Doctrine. What you want to do is observe the other person’s behavior and  infer the nature of the world they are experiencing“. That is what makes the Wakefield Doctrine unique and useful! This is true simply because if you allow that, say a clark exists in a world in which they are ‘natural outsiders’, then everything about the behavior of your clarklike friends makes so much more sense. You will not necessarily change how you feel about their lifestyle choices, but you will have a better understanding of the why to their behavior. The same applies to your scottian friends and your rogerian friends, of course.

For the purposes of today’s Post, we will think of Fairy Tales simply as Myths and Legends written for the masses. We do not lay claim, nor do we need to assert the requirement for an advanced understanding of the sociological, anthropological or any another -ogical in order to derive some understanding of the Wakefield Doctrine in the context of the tales that most children in most cultures at most times in the history of mankind are…exposed to. Lets just say, hey we all know about Little Red Riding Hood! Was she a scott or a roger or a clark? You know, like that!  ( Quick reminder! the Wakefield Doctrine is also culture neutral², which simply means that despite the range of expression afforded individuals in any given culture, you can distinguish a clark from a scott from a roger. )

( ‘Hood’,  you’re up, yo)

The story revolves around a girl called Little Red Riding Hood, after the red hooded cape/cloak (in Perrault‘s fairytale) or simple cap (in the Grimms’ fairytale) she wears. The girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her sick grandmother.

A wolf wants to eat the girl but is afraid to do so in public. He approaches Little Red Riding Hood and she naïvely tells him where she is going. He suggests the girl pick some flowers, which she does. In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother’s house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl. He swallows the grandmother whole, and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandma.

When the girl arrives, she notices that her grandmother looks very strange. Little Red Riding Hood then says, “What big hands you have!” In most retellings, this colloquy eventually culminates with Little Red Riding Hood saying, “My, what big teeth you have!” to which the wolf replies, “The better to eat you with” and swallows her whole, too.

A hunter, however, comes to the rescue and cuts the wolf open. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed. They fill the wolf’s body with heavy stones. The wolf awakens and tries to flee, but the stones cause him to collapse and die. (Sanitized versions of the story have the grandmother shut in the closet instead of eaten, and some have Little Red Riding Hood saved by the hunter as the wolf advances on her, rather than after she is eaten)

The tale makes the clearest contrast between the safe world of the village and the dangers of the forest, conventional antitheses that are essentially medieval, though no written versions are as old as that. The original was supposed to be a warning to young women about the sexual appetites of men (and the wolf-like qualities that they possess).  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood )

Damn! topic complexity exceeding of credible scholastic credential for treating subject manner!! “Warning! Warning!! Danger, Will Robinson!! Danger!!”***

(Quick reference to one of the other popular Fairy Tales, as found in Western culture, at any rate… Ms. White!! take it home!)

The English translation of the definitive edition of the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Berlin 1857), tale number 53, is the basis for the English translation by D. L. Ashliman.

Once upon a time as a queen sits sewing at her window, she pricks her finger on her needle and three drops of blood fall on the snow that had fallen on her ebony window frame. As she looks at the blood on the snow, she says to herself, “Oh, how I wish that I had a daughter that had skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony”. Soon after that, the queen gives birth to a baby girl who has skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony. They name her Princess Snow White. As soon as the child is born, the queen dies.

Soon after, the king takes a new wife, who is beautiful but also very vain. The new queen possesses a magical mirror, an animate object that answers any question, to whom she often asks: “Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who is the fairest of them all?” (in German “Spieglein, Spieglein, an der Wand / Wer ist die Schönste im ganzen Land?”; in Italian “Specchio, servo delle mie brame, chi è la più bella di tutto il reame?” ) to which the mirror always replies “You, my queen, are fairest of all.” But when Snow White reaches the age of seven, she becomes as beautiful as the day, and when the queen asks her mirror, it responds: “Queen, you are full fair, ’tis true, but Snow White is fairer than you.” Though in another version, the mirror simply replies: “Snow White is the fairest of them all.”

The queen becomes jealous, and orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the woods to be killed. She demands that the huntsman, as proof of killing Snow White, return with her lungs and her liver. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest, but after raising his knife to stab her, he finds himself unable to kill her as he has fallen deeply in love with her. Instead, he lets her go, telling her to flee and hide from the Queen. He then brings the queen the lungs and the liver of a boar, which is prepared by the cook and eaten by the queen.

In the forest, Snow White discovers a tiny cottage belonging to a group of seven dwarves, where she rests. There, the dwarves take pity on her, saying “If you will keep house for us, and cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit, and keep everything clean and orderly, then you can stay with us, and you shall have everything that you want.” They warn her to take care and let no one in when they are away delving in the mountains. Meanwhile, the Queen asks her mirror once again “Who’s the fairest of them all?”, and is horrified to learn that Snow White is not only alive and well and living with the dwarves, but is still the fairest of them all.

Three times the Queen disguises herself and visits the dwarves’ cottage while they are away during the day, trying to kill Snow White. First, disguised as a peddler, the Queen offers colorful stay-laces and laces Snow White up so tight that she faints, causing the Queen to leave her dead on the floor. However, Snow White is revived by the dwarves when they loosen the laces. Next, the Queen dresses as a different old woman and brushes Snow White’s hair with a poisoned comb. Snow White again collapses, but again is saved by the dwarves. Finally, the Queen makes a poisoned apple, and in the disguise of a farmer’s wife, offers it to Snow White. When she is hesitant to accept it, the Queen cuts the apple in half, eats the white part and gives the poisoned red part to Snow White. She eats the apple eagerly and immediately falls into a deep stupor. When the dwarves find her, they cannot revive her, and they place her in a glass coffin, assuming that she is dead.

Time passes, and a prince traveling through the land sees Snow White. He strides to her coffin. The prince is enchanted by her beauty and instantly falls in love with her. He begs the dwarves to let him have the coffin. The prince’s servants carry the coffin away. While doing so, they stumble on some roots and the movement causes the piece of poisoned apple to dislodge from Snow White’s throat, awakening her (in later adaptations of the tale, the prince kisses Snow White, which brings her back to life). The prince then declares his love for her and soon a wedding is planned.

The vain Queen, still believing that Snow White is dead, once again asks her mirror who is the fairest in the land, and yet again the mirror disappoints her by responding that “You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But the young queen is a thousand times fairer than you.”

Not knowing that this new queen was indeed her stepdaughter, she arrives at the wedding, and her heart fills with the deepest of dread when she realizes the truth. As punishment for her wicked ways, a pair of heated iron shoes are brought forth with tongs and placed before the Queen. She is then forced to step into the iron shoes and dance until she drops dead. (Other versions imply that she dies of a heart attack.)(?!  OMG! Lol) (  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White  )

Lets apply the Wakefield Doctrine, aka the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers to these two popular myths/fables/cautionary tales/Emily Post Guides

The scotts?

The clarks?

Any rogers?

I think, given the late hour, rather than try for a full-on analysis, we will just give a hint: the Hunter Figure (in the LRRH…?)  I’m getting a pretty strong rogerian vibe…
Also, don’t forget as you pore over these tales, that there in nothing wrong with finding more than one of each of the three personality types within the same Fairy Tale. There may be 2 scotts or 3 rogers…that sort of thing.
We consider it to be part of the strength of the Wakefield Doctrine,  that we can infer personality types from various perspectives.
For example, we may see the obvious predatory nature of the Wolf (again in LRRH), but what about Riding Hood, her ownself? Is that innocence genuine or is is contrived? If the former, then maybe a clarklike female, if the latter, then you have to consider scottian female or (even) rogerian girl. But the real value in this exercise in applying the ‘lens’ of the Wakefield Doctrine to get comfortable with the concept of attempting to infer the world that another ‘person’ inhabits, on the basis of their actions and reactions and manner of dealing with a situation.

So have fun! Write us your Comments. Don’t be concerned if it seems that the topic is too big and/or unwieldy for the scope of this Post. This is just practice ‘spotting the clarks and the scotts and the rogers‘ out there!

1) If you are willing to say that you cannot, then we applaud your honesty and say, “Good Reader! Now get your ass over to this Page and read up on the Wakefield Doctrine and then go to the Page on clarks, and then the Page on scotts and finally stop at the Page on rogers. It won’t take long, 5 minutes per will do it. Then hurry back to the Post’”

2) the ‘also’ alludes to the fact that the Doctrine is also gender neutral

3) Lost in Space, of course! Probably should stick to TV shows and recent movies…more …within my ken, as they say.  (They do? Who the hell says, within your ken? What the hell does that even mean?)