Classic fairy tales demonstrate a passive role in
female characters. The female character patiently bears wrongs. It is the man
who makes the main decisions, especially marriage, and who rescues her from
distress. Maria Tatar in her “Show and Tell: Sleeping Beauty as Verbal Icon and
Seductive Story” quotes French political activist, writer, and feminist Simone
de Beauvoir, “Woman is the Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, she who
receives and submits. In song and story the young man is seen departing
adventurously in search of a woman; he slays the dragons and giants; she is
locked in a tower, a palace, a garden, a cave, she is chained to a rock, a
captive, sound asleep: she waits”. (Tatar 2014). To demonstrate Beauvoir’s
argument of the passivity of women, let’s look at several classic princess
fairy tales.
One particularly significant example is “Sleeping
Beauty.” Charles’ Perrault writes an original version, but the story is also
told by Walter Disney and Twentieth Century North American Drama. In each case,
the general story is of a beautiful woman who pricks her finger on a spindle,
falls into a deep, cursed sleep (for one hundred years in the drama and
Perrault’s versions), and is found by a courageous prince who journeys on a
daring adventure. While the woman waits for her prince, he fights thorns and
dragons.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/12481/sleeping-beauty-syndrome-disorder-where-you-sleep-all-day
Another example is Madame LePrince de Beaumont’s original
“Beauty and the Beast”. In this story, a weary and unfortunate merchant
stumbles upon a cursed castle where a Beast initially takes him captive. The
Beast demands that the merchant’s daughter die in his stead, a demand which
Beauty willingly submits to. Later, the Beast repeatedly asks for her hand in
marriage. It is only by submission to the Beast’s requests that Beauty is able
to obtain happiness for herself and for Beast, since her stay and her love
breaks Beast’s spell. In this way, Beauty’s submission is demonstrated as a
virtue.
Cinderella is a classic fairy tale told by Charles
Perrault and Walt Disney of a young girl who is abused by her stepmother and
stepsisters but obtains freedom and happiness through the help of her fairy
godmother and marriage to a prince. Out of fear of upsetting her father and
being scolded, Cinderella never resists her ill treatment, “The poor girl
suffered all in silence, not daring to complain to her father.” (Gustafson
115). Then the stepsisters ask Cinderella, “Cinderella, would you not like to
go to the ball?” and Cinderella replies, “Please, sisters, do not mock me… How
could I ever dream of such a thing?” Instead of fighting for this right, she
freely offers to do her stepsisters hair for them as well as she can. It is not
because of a fight that Cinderella achieves her dreams, but because a fairy
randomly appears and provides her with all her needs. Like Beauty, Cinderella’s
submissive character is portrayed as a virtue when Perrault consistently
describes her as “very sweet and gentle in nature.” (Gustafson 114).
https://ayearindisneymovies.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/week-12-cinderella/
In the Grimm Brothers’ version of “Rapunzel”, Rapunzel
never resists the abusive Mother Gothel. In fact, Rapunzel even tells Mother
Gothel about the prince who visited her. Most children are familiar with this
female protagonist waiting in a tower for her prince to rescue her from the
tower. Rapunzel never escapes from the tower, but is removed by Mother Gothel
herself and abandoned in a wood, where she miraculously reunites with the
injured prince.
http://cjc7664.deviantart.com/art/Rapunzel-130572182
The Grimm Brothers also write a version of
“Rumpelstiltskin” where a girl is trapped and told to weave straw into gold.
She does not resist the king, but breaks down in tears. She initially gives in
to all of Rumpelstiltskin’s demands. When the king is satisfied with her work,
“…he celebrated his marriage to the girl at once” (Ehrlich 170) without any
word of consent from the girl, and this marriage seems to be celebrated as a
good thing by the Grimm Brothers. Although the girl does win back her child
from the deal she made with Rumpelstiltskin, it is by winning a challenge that
Rumpelstiltskin offered her – not by challenging him herself.
The Andrew Lang retells an interesting version of “Pretty
Goldilocks” which does not include any bears (that would be “Goldilocks and the
Three Bears”) and which seems to demonstrate a theme opposite to the ones formerly
discussed. This is a story about a king who demands Goldilock’s hand in
marriage, but she persistently refuses him and his gifts. The King sends a man
named Charming to woe Princess Goldilocks, but she makes impossible demands.
First Charming must find her lost ring in the stream. Then he must kill the
violent giant Galifron, and lastly, he must obtain water from the Gloomy Cavern
guarded by two dragons. Upon hearing this last demand, Charming complains,
“Princess, you at least can never need this water, but I am an unhappy
ambassador, whose death you desire.” (Lang 177).
Although at first this old fashioned story seems to
contradict the anti-feminist theme demonstrated in stories such as “Cinderella”,
“Sleeping Beauty”, and “Beauty and the Beast”, one only need to look a little
deeper to see that that is not the case. After Charming completes all of his
quests, Princess Goldilocks regretfully complies to the King’s demands, even
though she truly desires to stay where she is and marry Charming, “Why didn’t
we stay where we were? I could have made you king, and we should have been so
happy!” (Lang 178). The King even imprisons Charming, and Goldilocks, “threw
herself at the King’s feet and begged him to set Charming free” (Lang 179).
Nonetheless, the King clearly makes the decisions, and so Charming remains
imprisoned. In the end, Charming and Princess Goldilocks do end up together
happily, but it is not by Goldilock’s efforts. Rather, it is by the King’s
folly of accidentally putting himself under a sleeping curse which ultimately
kills him.
In general, traditional fairy tale writers, such as
the Grimm Brothers, Andrew Lang, Walter Disney, Charles Perrault, and Madame
LePrince de Beaumont, give women roles of humility. Many examples have been
demonstrated, and many more still exist. We see the courageous Prince in
“Sleeping Beauty”, the Prince in “Rapunzel”, and Charming in “Pretty Goldilocks”
fighting dragons and giants, but the women sleep, wait in a locked tower, and
give in to kings’ demands. Their submissive characters are portrayed as
virtues, such as in Cinderella’s kindness and Beauty’s revival of Beast. The
fairy tale princess would wait until near the twenty-first century before
fighting for herself.
References:
Cinderella. Dir. Clyde Geronimi,
Hamilton Luske, and Wilfred Jackson. Perf. Ilene Woods Eleanor Audley Verna
Felton, Rhoda Williams, James MacDonald, Luis Van Rooten, Don Barclay, Mike
Douglas, Lucille Bliss. Walt Disney Productions, 1950. DVD.
Ehrlich, Amy, comp. The
Random House Book of Fairy Tales. New York: Random House, 1985. Print.
Gustafson, Scott,
comp. Classic Fairy Tales. Seymour, CT: Greenwich Workshop, 2003.
Print.
Johnston, Emma. Sleeping
Beauty. 2016. TS, Twentieth Century North American Drama. University of
Chicago, Chicago. Web. 2 May 2016
Lang, Andrew, and Frank
Godwin. The Blue Fairy Book. Philadelphia: D. McKay, 1921. Print.
Perrault, Charles, and Betts, Christopher. Complete
Fairy Tales. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press, 2009. ProQuest ebrary. Web.
26 April 2016.
Sleeping Beauty. Perf. Mary Costa, Eleanor
Audley, Bill Shirley, Verna Felton. Walt Disney, 1959. Amazon
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