K Nelson (remember to include your name on all papers)
This paper does some EXCELLENT close readings! I really love the way you’re reinterpreting sexuality and
female kinship in these tales. I’m having a little trouble with the structure of the arguments (sometimes
it reads like a series of insights not an argument), but it’s very close.
It is often assumed that the fairy tale princess is robbed of her autonomy in order to fulfill societal
expectations of women in the era the tales were written. The chaste, silent “pure” woman who is
reliant on the prince to offer her some salvation is a common theme in fairy tales. There is, however,
another story being told in these same tales, a story of female sexuality, kinship, and autonomy. In this
paper I will examine the themes of female kinship and autonomy as they are presented in the "Briar
Rose" fairy tale archetype. These tales include Snow White, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White
and Rose Red. All of these stories share a protagonist who is associated either through her name or
elements of the story with rose bushes. In these tales, female autonomy is explored through the
relationship the protagonist has with other women in the story, generally in the guise of an antagonist,
such as Snow White’s stepmother. Other times, the protagonist simply has a family member or a fairy
godmother who acts as an ally. Autonomy is also explored through symbolism, the time that elapses
between coming of age and marriage, and the (in)ability of men in the story to act on their own accord
and “save” the protagonist.
In regards to kinship, we have three types of relationships modeled. The first is an antagonistic
relationship between Briar Rose (we will use this name when referring to the tales in general as opposed
to a specific tale) and an older woman. In Snow White it is the stepmother; in Rapunzel it is the witch.
In Perrault’s version of Sleeping Beauty we have the mother of the prince to serve as an antagonist, but
the intention of the fairies is much more ambiguous and falls under the second kinship model.
This model is represented by the “good” fairy in Sleeping Beauty and the old woman in the tower (the
vengeful fairy in disguise?) who entices the princess to prick her finger and enter a state of sleep. The
mother in Snow White and Rose Red falls into this category. It can also be seen at times in Rapunzel’s
witch. This is the older female that cares for the princess. She either educates the princess about the
realities of sex or fails to do so but she acts as a protector and role model for at least part of the story.
The third model only exists in Snow White and Rose Red, although it exists elsewhere in other tales:
female kinship. This is the only tale that shows a female bond between peers. Snow White and Rose
Red are sisters, they are symbolically the same two halves of the female psyche that Snow White and
the stepmother; however here they are not in conflict. This story stands in contrast to the Snow White
that has permeated our culture, it is a story in which the lustful, strong woman can exist side by side
with the virtuous, passive, sleeping woman.
Sleeping Beauty begins with a king and a queen wishing for a child. This theme is repeated in Snow
White and Rapunzel. A symbolic conception takes place; in this story (which one?) a frog crawls out of
the queen’s bathwater (Tatar 97). Upon the birth of a child a feast is held. Several fairies are invited to
the feast to act as godmothers to the princess. Angela Carter argues that these fairies represent women
of independent means, an argument that holds true given the importance of fairies in Victorian culture
(Rochere 16). The wise old come to bless the child, while one fairy is left out. This fairy curses the child,
saying that upon coming of age the child will prick her finger upon a spinning wheel and die. Another
fairy is unable to stop the curse but is able to add a footnote – the child will not die but will instead sleep
for one hundred years. The child becomes dead-but-not-dead, reflecting the Cult of the Dead Woman
which was prevalent in art and writing across Europe in the 17th century. A woman’s options after
childhood are represented as limited, to say the least. One can be dead or practically dead. This in itself
says enough about the expectations of women during this time.
At this point in the story the king burns all of the spindles in the kingdom, but the girl finds one locked
away in a tower. She has taken the story into her own hands, exploring the castle while her parents are
away. Like Bluebeard’s wife she unlocks all the locked doors, displaying a curiosity that is ultimately
punished. Like Bluebeard’s wife she seals her own fate (Tatar, 99). The evil fairy has laid a trap and
waits for her in the tower, suggestively holding a spindle. The curious girl touches it and falls asleep for
100 years, as was her destiny. When she awakens a prince is conveniently waiting for her. They are
married swiftly. In the Perrault version of the tale what follows is a secret and then dangerous marriage.
Males in this story are portrayed as useless. The father tries vainly to stop the curse from happening,
but not only does he fail to get rid of a spinning wheel in his very own castle, he leaves his daughter
alone on the eve of her fifteenth birthday. The prince shows up just in time, but it is not until a 20th
century version of the story is created by Disney that prince’s kiss wakes the princess. In earlier versions
the brambles part and the roses bloom suggestively just as the prince approaches. He simply arrives as
the curse is lifting. Many other princes have failed to penetrate the castle, dying in the brambles. The
princess experiences a sexual and actual awakening in her own time, saying “is that you, my prince? I
have been waiting a very long time”. (Rochere, 14). In an act which reflects that of the girl’s father, the
prince thinks it appropriate to leave his new wife and their two young children with the cannibal mother
while he goes on holiday, again leaving the girl to fend for herself.
Angela Carter theorizes that the 100 year “sleep” is actually a time of sexual learning, bestowed upon
her by the benevolent godmother. The old woman in the tower was clearly a fairy in disguise and one
interpretation is that she is initiating Sleeping Beauty into the forbidden world of sex and pleasure.
Carter says that by “waiting a very long time” the princess has been building up a desire for the wedding
bed. Reinforcing this is the assertion that “the good fairy had given her… very agreeable dreams.”
(Rocere, 14). What follows is a swift marriage. Carter argues that the time between coming of age and
marriage is, according to Perrault, important in establishing trust between husband and wife, and that
women are likely to enter into unhappy or dangerous marriages if they do not spend a number of years
“sleeping” (Rochere, 6). The princess manages to do this regardless of her sleep, marrying the prince
upon first sight and falling into the hands of her ogre mother in law. Carter believes that Perrault ends
the story well into Sleeping Beauty’s wedding in order to warn women of this folly and to encourage
them to learn from their elders, educate themselves about sex, and enter into a long courtship, as
opposed to reinforcing existing models of marriage in which women are married young to strange men
(Rochere, 5). The hundred year sleep then becomes less a version of the cult of the dead woman and
more a necessary time of respite before marriage.
CARTER’S VERSION – LADY OF THE HOUSE OF LOVE
Rapunzel, when examined deeply, is an incredibly complex story, addressing issues such as childlessness,
woman’s desires, autonomy, the security of the home, and female sexuality. The story begins with a
couple who wishes to have a child. The wife has a craving for a specific herb – in the original version
written by Charlotte – Rose de la Force, the herb is parsley (Windling) , in the Grimm version it is
rapunzel. In both versions the child is given the name of the same herb her mother craved. The
significance of this is vast: everybody in the story craves Rapunzel and she carries the name of an herb
that is important in a woman’s ability to care for her own body. The witch’s garden is an herb garden
and the herb taken is either an emmenagogue (parsley - used to stimulate menstruation – i.e. an
abortificant) (Warner, 334) or an herb that strengthens the uterus and supports a pregnancy (rapunzel)
(KINGS). This gives the mother a certain amount of autonomy over her pregnancy and makes the witch
a knowledgeable woman; perhaps a midwife or village herbalist. This is interesting, as female readers in
the 17th century would likely have been aware of this, while male readers (aside from perhaps
physicians) would not have.
It is also interesting to note the motivation of the parents who so easily give up their child; is this an
unwanted pregnancy and the witch has offered to take the child off their hands, or are they simply
another fairy tale couple who willingly trades the one thing that matters to them for short term
satisfaction? In “The Difference in the Dose: A Story after Rapunzel”, Marina Warner’s witch is an
herbalist who is unable to have a child of her own. She plants an herb garden in East Harlem and waits
until a pregnant woman asks for an herb used in abortions. She then offers to adopt the child. (Warner,
324).
Moving on, we will examine the character of the witch. This is a woman who takes another family’s
child so she can lock her up in a tower and keep her totally to herself. She is not stern or rough with
Rapunzel until she has broken her trust, in fact she comes up to visit and bring food and gifts. They are
seen as very close, and in the Italian version Rapunzel eventually flees the witch using magic,
presumably learned by the only person in the story capable of teaching it, the witch herself (Windling).
We see here a relationship between the women that represents a child / parent relationship or a sort of
apprenticeship. In any case, it is fine until the prince comes along.
At this point, we must ask ourselves two questions. The first: what threat does the prince embody?
The second: Who is actually in power throughout the story?
There are two possible answers to the first question, and referring to the Grimms’ version we see the
witch say this: “Wicked child! What have you done? I thought I had shut you off from the world, but
you betrayed me.” (Tatar, 112). The emphasis is on the betrayal experienced by the witch. Rapunzel
has left the explicitly female only world for a man, a husband. What type of betrayal is not emphasized,
and a psycho social analysis may see the prince replacing the witch as a lover. It may also be the
possessive mother who wishes to keep her child forever young.
The second possibility is that the witch, Rapunzel’s caretaker, is concerned for her adopted daughter,
who has betrayed a societal code (sex before marriage) and has put herself in a compromising situation
that leaves her without much choice – she must marry a man she hardly knows in order to preserve her
virtue. Warner’s short story supports this version, the seventeen year old goes to bed with a man thrice
her age during a party she throws while her adopted mother is out of town (Warner, 320). The couple
later marries and the girl is estranged from her mother, her “prince” whisks her off to far away lands.
The original Rapunzel narrative seems to say that this could end badly for her, as it has for Sleeping
Beauty in Perrault’s version, or Bluebeard’s wife. When it comes down to it the prince has accessed
Rapunzel’s tower through trickery and takes her as a mistress. The Grimms’ insistence that she marry in
secret serves to distract the audience from this fact. Both Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel feature a
female lead still connected to the worldly part of herself. Sleeping Beauty has the good fairy to teach
her, through dreams, about the joys of sex while Rapunzel has been denied this education. It is the
fault of the witch that she has not educated the girl about the ways of the world.
It is also the witch who exercises power in the story. In the French version, she is actually a fairy, a being
that is associated with a threatening version of female autonomy. It is interesting that Persinette is also
Fae, emphasizing this theme. The witch has the ability to kill the husband and the wife for entering her
garden at the beginning of the story. They agree instead to give their firstborn child to the woman,
seemingly without conflict. She holds Rapunzel captive and upon finding herself betrayed banishes
Rapunzel to the wilderness and blinds the prince. When they find each other again “the food in their
larder turns into stones, the well fills up with venomous snakes, the birds in the sky above turn into
dragons breathing fire (Windling).” It is also, in the end, only the mercy of the witch that releases them
from her torments.
The men in this story hold no power; neither the husband nor the prince. What about Rapunzel?
Rapunzel is a plant that self – fertilizes. This only happens if sexual reproduction does not happen. “it
has a column that splits in two if not fertilized, and “the halves will curl like braids or coils on a maiden’s
head, and this will bring the female stigmatic tissue into contact with the male pollen on the exterior
surface of the column.”” (Tatar, 105) Perhaps Rapunzel the woman can be sexually satisfied alone.
Perhaps the witch’s intention is to keep the girl in the tower with her forever, without need of a man.
Whether Rapunzel allows the witch to do this or takes it upon herself to find a male lover, she is living
up to her name. Her hair represents her sexuality and we cannot deny that she lets it down of her own
free will. She does this for the old woman as well as the man. Rapunzel may be sheltered but she has
achieved sexual autonomy nonetheless.
In the Italian version (Basile?) it is her magic that stops the witch’s perusal. In many versions it is her
tears that restore her prince’s eyesight. The poor emasculated prince is nothing except the object of
pity in the reader’s eyes. He is unable to cure his own blindness or stop the witch from filling their
larder with rocks. He is prepared to let his family starve to death because he knows he can do nothing
to stop it.
USING “A DIFFERENCE IN THE DOSE: AFTER RAPUNZEL” include more of this story to round out.
In Snow White we have an Evil Stepmother antagonist. The main point of conflict exists between Snow
White and her stepmother, a representation of the strong, sexual woman fighting to maintain control
over the pure, chaste part of her soul (Gilbert, Gubar). The stepmother really carries the show while
Snow White fades into the background, her presence in the story reflecting the societal expectations of
women in the 17th century: purity, silence, and death. This is the only story that may actually uphold
the values it is criticized for and yet the women still hold audience’s attention. Gilbert and Gubar go so
far as to argue that the story should be called “Snow White and her Wicked Stepmother” (Gilbert,
Gubar), because the daughter / stepmother story is more important than the prince / princess story or
the story of the dwarves. The Grimms’ version of Snow White is fifteen pages long in Maria Tatar’s
Annotate Fairy Tales. Snow White’s mother and father take up two paragraphs. The huntsman comes
and goes in half a page, and the dwarves occupy roughly two pages with an additional half page spent in
mourning for Snow White and negotiation with the Prince. The scene where Snow White wakes up
while the Prince looks idly on – again the kiss was added by Disney - is about a paragraph. The rest of
the story is occupied with the Wicked Stepmother and the girl.
The father quickly fades into the background, his voice only echoing in the magic mirror which is actually
a reflection of the Queen’s own narcissism (Gilbert, Gubar). An alternate interpretation is that the
mirror and the disappearing husband signify the independent woman as without outside prospects
(Gilbert / Gubar). The huntsman refuses to kill Snow White but also does not attempt to save her,
expecting her to get eaten in the woods. The dwarves are unable to provide her shelter for long. Like
Sleeping Beauty’s father they can do nothing about her “death”. The prince is not interested in a living
wife, he purchases her coffin and the dead girl is to be put on display. Who would marry such a man?
When she awakens it is because his servants have dropped the coffin, not because he has done anything
particularly valiant.
The witch holds power overtly even as she struggles to keep it and is ultimately punished. She tries not
once but three times to kill Snow White, using her intelligence (Tatar, 88), witchcraft (Tatar, 89), and
finally retreating to “a remote, hidden chamber in which no one had ever set foot” (Tatar, 90) in order
to make the objects used against the girl. This remote chamber could easily represent a mysterious
source of women’s power. The witch uses poison, historically a women’s weapon (Gilbert, Gubar). The
narrative states that the witch (stepmother) is willing to die in order to kill Snow White, which
simultaneously reinforces her position of power (she has consented to death) and brought home the
ultimate message – that to be a woman is to embrace death. Female autonomy and sexuality must be
killed if one wishes to survive, and if the heroine allows that part of herself to thrive she will be killed
anyway.
Snow White has chosen a life of virtue, represented by her name, appearance, and willingness to keep
house for the dwarves. The presence of the dwarves simply reinforces this virtue, they are emasculated
and elderly, offering her a respite from temptation. She takes on elements of the trickster archetype
throughout the story, however. When she stumbles upon the dwarves’ home the story transforms into
Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She eats and drinks from each plate in turn and tries three beds before
she declares one “just right”. When the dwarves arrive home they recite the familiar words “who’s
been sitting in my chair / eating from my plate / sleeping in my bed?” (Tatar, 85). Like Goldilocks, Snow
White is capable of fending for herself. This gives the reader a glimmer of hope. We wish to see the
whole woman restored.
When Snow White allows the witch to enter the house the symbolism becomes complicated. The act
itself ties Snow White to the witch. She wants these objects of vanity and temptation and she will have
them. The first two objects are necessary if Snow White is to be a proper lady; the irony here is that
they are deadly. As she is laced up properly, she ceases to breathe. A comb causes her to fall
unconscious. The story of Snow White is warning girls that the trappings of femininity will ultimately kill
them but will also provide them power (Gilbert, Gubar). Snow White triumphs over the witch’s desire
to see her killed, becoming a full representation of the perfect, corpselike woman (Gilbert, Gubar). The
witch cannot change by partaking of the “pure” portion of the apple, which is white in color. Snow
White, although facing a presumed death, eventually wakes and is not injured by her lustful, angry
counterpart, represented by the red portion of the apple. The two halves of the woman cannot exist in
the same body.
Snow White learns to be a proper lady in the dwarves’ home. According to Gilbert and Gubar, the story
further undermines the role of women in society by making women’s work less important than a group
of tiny, old men (Gilbert, Gubar). In this light, the entire story becomes a commentary on the
tribulations of women in society as opposed to an indoctrinating story of a woman’s proper place.
It’s difficult to see where you are making an argument here and where Gilbert and Gubar are making an
argument.
YANGAI MIWA’s IMAGES
Examining “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” alongside “Snow White and Rose Red” shows us what
happens when the strong, lustful woman and the chaste, silent woman are able to live side by side. It is
interesting to note that “Snow White and Rose Red” has faded into the background through the ages,
while the other story still exists today. In Snow White and Rose Red, the characters are sisters. They are
an ambiguous age. They are referred to as children in the story but married at the end.
The children live in a cottage in the woods with their widowed mother. Thus far, Snow White and Rose
Red is the only story that does not include a father figure, although Snow White’s father in Snow White
and the Seven Dwarves is largely absent. There is, in fact, no man in their life, making this family the
strongest version of female kinship we have seen. With the continued absence of conflict between the
girls or between the girls and their mother, it is also the healthiest.
The girls are described as sweet and kind, although Rose Red is louder than her sister. She spends more
time playing in the woods while Snow White helps her mother around the house. This is an obvious
allusion to the girl’s metaphorical roles. They are the same women that are represented by Snow White
and her stepmother. The reader may infer that the girls are not in conflict with each other because
they are still children, however upon marriage they continue to live side by side, happily ever after,
maintaining their bond.
The girls are so pure of heart that they exist in harmony with nature. The animals of the woods are their
companions, they are watched over by angels. They walk hand in hand and sleep together outdoors,
coming to no harm. They are not at odds with nature like other children in fairy tales. They share
kinship that is not threatened from within the relationship or from the outside.
Andrew Friedenthal argues that the girls are engaged in a lesbian relationship. This, combined with the
fact that the family exists independently of a father figure, carries too many taboos for the story to be
celebrated historically (Friedenthal, 161). He uses examples from the text, pointing out that they “walk
hand in hand”, “if they tarried too late in the wood… they lay down on the moss and slept till morning”
and that they swear never to leave each other(Friedenthhal, 166) . There are other elements – they
collect red berries, symbolizing the arrival of menstruation, which suggests these habits carried into
their lives long past childhood. I agree with his analysis and would add that the relationship is blessed
by the angel that keeps them from falling off the precipice as they sleep. Additionally, the girls keep the
seasons. Rose Red fills the home with roses in the summer, while Snow takes care of them in winter,
keeping the fire lit and the kettle on. Her mother reads aloud to them in the winter. The girls sit with
their mother and spin – an inherently sexual act in fairy tales that signifies not only coming of age but
the first sexual experience (Friedenthal, 167). Their mother, a peasant woman, cares for her daughters
by herself, teaches them about sex, and reads to them. She is literate and knows the ways of the world.
They are at one with nature and receive the blessings of the angels.
A bear arrives in the winter, seeking refuge and to warm himself by the fire. It is important to note that
Rose Red opens the door to the bear, who symbolizes male sexuality entering the girl’s lives, while Snow
White hides from it. The mother invites the bear in and insists he is a “good and honest creature”. The
girls go from being fearful of the creature to combing its hair (an act of domesticity) and rolling about on
the floor with it (sexuality). Their mother uses this opportunity to teach her children, saying “Snow
White and Rose Red, don’t beat your lover dead”. The imagery here is very overt, but not more so than
any of the sexual innuendos in the other stories we have examined. There are two differences. The first
is that instead of condemning the girls’ actions, the mother encourages them and teaches her daughters
about sex. The second is that the girls seemingly have no problem sharing a lover.
The bear continues to come visit throughout the winter, courting the girls. In the spring he must depart.
Here Snow White is the one who expresses sadness that the bear must leave. She notices that a bit of
his fur is shining with gold, alluding to the fact that he may be more than a bear. Friedenthal argues that
at this point in the story Rose Red is left behind. She initially “opened the door” for the bear to enter
their lives but is not rewarded; Snow White, symbolically chaste, notices the bear’s double identity and
will eventually marry him. Her regret that he must leave suggests that she is accepting and ultimately
desirous of heterosexual love, while her sister is not (Friedenthal, 167).
What happens next was initially confusing for me as a reader, for the story completely changes path.
The bear goes into the woods to keep a dwarf from stealing his treasure, and the story enters a
narrative about social class under feudalism that is not congruent with the story of the sister’s sexual
awakening. The bear is a lord and the lands around the cottage belong to him, he has been cursed by a
dwarf who walks around the forest making off with the treasure that is buried there. The dwarf is a bit
of the wilderness that must be conquered, he is the peasant who does not own the treasure present
there simply because the land belongs to the lord. This is reinforced by the lines he is given in the story,
for example: “these thick logs that serve to make fires for coarse, greedy people like yourselves quite
burn up the little food we need (Sur La Lune).”
When the girls come upon the dwarf (three times) he is in trouble. His beard is stuck in a rock, or a tree,
or a stream. They free the dwarf by cutting his beard shorter and shorter each time. The dwarf does
not thank them, he is actually quite rude. Upon being freed he insults the girls, steals a little more
treasure, and stomps off into the woods.
By cutting off his beard the girls have saved him; however, he has lost his culture: “you shortened by
beard before, but you must now cut off the best bit of it. I can’t appear like this before my own people.
I wish you’d been in Jericho first”. Not only are the girls stealing his culture, the dwarf is a Jew, signified
here by his allusion to Jericho, the first city to be stormed by the Israelites (Sur la lune). He wishes they
had been there so his people could have been in a position to destroy their culture as opposed to the
other way around.
So what’s up with this? Why insert a story about social class and race in the middle of a coming of age
story? It turns out the original is entitled “The Ungrateful Dwarf”. The girls are still present but the
story revolves around their interactions with the dwarf. It is a female trickster story, where the girls
outwit the dwarf three times. The third time the bear shows up and threatens to eat the dwarf. The
dwarf suggests the bear eat the girls instead. The bear eats the dwarf and wanders back into the woods.
The bear is not present at all in this story until the very end. He is not a prince, just a hungry bear. He
poses no risk to the girls, nor is he there to save them. The girls procure all of the dwarf’s gold and
brings it home to their parents (in this story they have both parents). Their family is self – sufficient and
able to purchase lands and castles. Their reward is to climb the social ladder, not get married. This
story mirrors Tom Thumb more than anything else, the family going from the peasantry to the wealthy
class. It is an empowering story for women that does not rely on men.
The Grimms changed the story, adding the bear – prince. It is unclear whether the story changed orally
before it was recorded by the Grimms, but the original meaning could not be erased. The girls are still
independent, still tricksters, and still lovers. They do not need a prince. They are married at the end,
when they save the prince by breaking the spell (not the other way around). Snow White marries him,
while Rose Red gets his brother. In this way they are able to continue living together in the type of
romantic friendship that predated lesbianism as a concept. If examining the girls as two halves of the
same girl, the message here is that a woman can indeed carry her sexual self into her marriage and adult
life. It is no wonder that this story has largely been ignored in contemporary society, it does indeed
confront a deeply held taboo.
DO I NEED TO INCLUDE A MODERN INTERPRETATION? FRIEDENTHAL ADDRESSES THIS.
Conclusion: Re-State Thesis, tie together stories: Common themes – dead woman, time of sexuality
before marriage, safety as defined by grown – ups, ultimate fate of women after marriage, dichotomy of
woman – chaste vs, sexual, strong and visible vs. silent. Contemporary stories and how they change /
support original narrative. Original narrative as empowering or social commentary as opposed to
moralistic or indoctrinating, re-state support of theorists for this approach.
Other questions: How to cite articles in books – queering the grimms. How to cite Angela Carter article
which is not written by her but I am quoting her ideas? I have at least 4 maybe 5 sources, do I need
less?