What Makes a Sleeping
Beauty Tale?
Traditionally Accepted Themes
- the Wished-for Child (also seen in Rapunzel)
- the Accursed Gift
- the Inevitability of Fate
- the Spinner
- the Heroic Quest
- the Ogre Stepmother (not very common, actually)
- the Salvation through a Redemptor
- Slumber as metaphor for sleeping death
- the Substituted Victim (Spindle's End, anyone?)
My Tenets
1. A curse laid on a baby (preferably a princess) at birth by a magical entity
2. The family attempts to evade the curse (contributing to the problem)
3. The adolescent girl pricks her finger on a spindle, fulfilling the prophecy
4. The girl goes into a magical sleep (preferably for 100 years)
5. The girl is awakened by her true love
How do our readings stack up?
"Sun, Moon, and Talia" by Giambattista Basile - 100%
- We're pushing it here, but I will grant you that, Giambattista. While there is no proud entity who feels the need to punish the royal family, there is a prophecy of her eventual doom given at her birth, perhaps suggesting that fate itself is the evil entity of choice in this story.
- Yes, daddy pushed the prophecy along by removing all spindles and spinning wheels from the kingdom. That seems to be a moral: you cannot escape fate and will be punished if you try.
- True.
- This story seemed very bizarre in this respect. There's no real magic involved, she just gets an evil splinter which sends her into a centennial sleep. If you have magic at your disposal, you could at least try to make the story logical with some mystical reason why this happened. Maybe it's the translation, but I'm going to say that it's some bad storytelling.
- Though there was some argument in class, I'm going to say that this is also true. No, I am not suggesting that adulterous rape is love (far from it), but as we discussed, this is another animal altogether as a result of both the time period and the existence of a monarchy.
"The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods" by Charles Perrault - 100%
- Yes, this story has the "Malificient" story we love to hate. Hell hath no fury like a slighted fairy who has no golden plate! That should be the moral of this story.
- We have magical evasion fairy's attempt to mollify the curse and non-magical evasion in that daddy again forbids spinning in the kingdom.
- Of course, curiosity once again kills the cat. Another self-fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps that is another moral as well: little girls ought not to be curious.
- True. And this time, because of magic, she gets her whole kingdom to sleep alongside her. Excepting her parents (why is this? To prevent some strange succession issue when they all wake up under a new dynasty?)
- Yes, and no rape this time! How charming, Perrault! Also interesting, Perrault adds that the prince was "of another family from that of the sleeping Princess" so as to avoid strange questions of incest.
"Sleeping Beauty" by Disney - 100%
- Maleficient makes all the other evil fairies seem like kittens to me. "Oh I'm not offended! Gotcha!" She's no match for Merriweather though, is she?
- Her father does attempt to avoid fate by destroying the spindles of the kingdom.
- Yes, she goes into the spindle trance.
- She sleeps for maybe a day or two.
- Yes, Prince Philip rescues her with true love's kiss.
The Gates of Sleep by Mercedes Lackey - 100%
- Marina is cursed by her wicked Aunt, who has a mysterious source of evil magic.
- Yes, Marina's parents attempt to save her by sending her to live with her aunts and uncles.
- Marina is tricked into some sort of trance and pricks her fingers, just as her aunt desires.
- She goes into some brief enchanted dream-like sleep in which she battles her demons both within and without.
- Close enough; the moment he tells her his love for her, she recieves the burst of energy she requires to finally defeat her Aunt.
"Briar Rose" by the Brothers Grimm - 100%
- Another case of pride at being slighted. What fools these mortals be, am I right?
- Briar Rose is saved from death by the good fairy, but daddy still burns the spindles.
- Because she has never seen one, Briar Rose's curiosity about spindles once again condemns her to her fate.
- EVERYONE goes into a deep sleep (for reasons which are not explained).
- Briar Rose is awoken by her true love's kiss... "and the cook gave the boy the box on his ear."
"The Lady in the House of Love" by Angela Carter - 80%
- A curse laid on her at birth..... well if I want to be very deep here, I suppose so. While vampires are not normally "born," it seems that this "queen of the vampires" was somehow created as the last in a twisted succession of blood-sucking nobles (she is, after all, in her mother's wedding dress). Whether she was born or "reborn," her curse is that of being a vampire. She is disgusted by her fate, but she has no choice in the matter.
- Until the Countess, no one in the line seems to have been concerned about rebelling against their nature. Their portraits indicate the depravity and insanity which they have allowed themselves to sink to.
- As with #1, this is left to the imagination as it happened before the story begins. I think we can say that she was either bitten or infected with the vampiric nature by her parents and was thus cursed. That's close enough for me.
- The Countess suffers sort of a reverse of Sleeping Beauty's curse, but it is similar in that she is isolated from mankind for as long as her fate allots her. She is destined to "walk the night" like all vampires do, ensuring that she will never meet with mortals, who live and work during the daytime (not like people cannot come out at night, but this is a fairy tale). She must meet with her one true love in order to be free of the curse, but she is unable to meet anyone.
- She is "awakened" by her one true love. Is it traditional? No. But he rescues her from her cursed existence and for her, it is a happy ending.
Spindle's End by Robin McKinley - 80%
- Yes, Rosie is cursed at birth by Pernicia, a powerful and evil fairy.
- The curse is lightened by Sigil and when Katriona absconds with the baby, she is attempting to save her from her fate. She is aided in this endeavor by all characters in the story, both magical and nonmagical.
- SOMEONE pricks their finger on a spindle and Rosie is mysteriously drawn to the object.
- Peony falls into an enchanted sleep andddd
- Is not awakened by her true love, but by her best friend and "shadow," Rosie. This distinction was much discussed in class, but was determined to be less homosexual than homosocial.
Beauty Sleep by Cameron Dokey - 80%
- Yes, she was cursed a birth by the very evil and dangerous Jane! No, she is just a regular woman made bitter after years of being ignored by all. She seeks vengeance against these people by cursing their most precious gift: their only child.
- They attempt to avoid it by keeping her in a bubble-esque world.
- She does.. sort of, or does she? The timing in this story was a bit confusing, a plot point made reasonable by the forest's fickle nature.
- She goes into a very brief enchanted sleep.
- Not really, Ironheart is not her true love. But he does have a type of chivalric love for her.
"The Maiden-Tree" by Catherynne M. Valente - 80%
- Like "The Lady in the House of Love," you can view it in this way, but you have to look at it from an angle. Let's imagine that this girl is born with a susceptibility to drugs. She is born "cursed" to be "one of those girls" who gives in.
- Once again, Daddy Warbucks attempts to prevent his daughter's fate as she questions him. It's like when people give up liberties to be safe, there is that little voice saying, but wait . . . listen! She worries about the effect of his decree on other people, as though she knows it is futile.
- Although Daddy tried his best to educate her, she stills plunges the spindle into her breast.
- She certainly goes into a magical sleep. Magical and terrifying.
- It depends on which character you ask, but at the end of the story I think even the girl does not believe she will be rescued; the spindle will be the end of her.
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen - 80%
- I guess you could say that she was cursed at birth; not that being Jewish is a curse of course, but it turned out to be more of a sentence during WWII.
- Although this was not part of the story, I assume that Gemma and her family attempted to protect each other and avoid the fate which eventually destroyed them.
- Let's say that the gas chamber was the representation of spindle, for argument's sake. It induces her sleep, after all.
- Luckily for Gemma, she does not sleep for very long as she is rescued by Avenger and Prince. Despite this, she is in a type of enchanted death/sleep.
- Gemma is not awakened by her true love (Avenger), but rather by the older homosexual character known as Prince.
"Briar Rose" by Anne Sexton - 80%
- She is cursed at birth by a vengeful fairy.
- "The king ordered every spinning wheel exterminated and exorcised."
- It doesn't work; she still pricks her finger.
- She goes into a hundred year sleep.
- She is NOT awakened by her true love, but by her gross father raping her.
"The Wakeful Beauty" by Katherine L. Mead - 70%
Visiting hours: 2-4
- A different curse than the rest, but true enough. In this story, she is not to die on her 16th birthday or even sleep for one hundred years, but supposedly will not marry until her groom-to-be kisses her while asleep.
- They attempt to avoid it. Good gracious, they don't want her to a spinster princess, do they? I found it interesting that the characters believed in this curse so absolutely that they did not question it. What would happen if she simply got married? No one asks this question. I got the feeling that the "fairy" was just an in-law who took advantage of some gullible family members, but that's just me.
- Nope, no princesses were harmed in the writing of this short story.
- I'm going to say no again. It's hardly magical - the girl can barely keep her eyes closed. Although could you say that this was the magic? She would be unable to sleep until her true love arrived? Hmm . . . that is intriguing. I'll give you half credit for that, Katherine.
- She awakes after the kiss of. . . I hope he's her true love. He seems a bit brusque, but he took her despite the fact that she wasn't trying to look pretty. That certainly counts for something. I hope he's not just in it for the money.
Briar Rose by Robert Coover - N/A
I'm having difficulties categorizing this one because there are so many different versions of each story presented to us. In some, she is awakened, in others she is left to sleep forever. Perhaps she is rotting, perhaps she is being raped. Chances are she will not be awakened by her true love, but by some common person. It is doubtless part of the Sleeping Beauty canon, but cannot be evaluated in the same way as the previous works.
Summary
- Postmodern tales seem to skipped #5 frequently, most likely because "true love" and "soul mates" are ideas which postmodernists generally ridicule as social constructs.
- All in all, the tales score an average of 88% on my scale. Not bad.
- Walt Disney did not disappoint me, although I have to wonder: did I choose the tenets because of my childhood experiences wth the movie, or did the movie just happen to match up with my tenets?
Fun Fact: "Some folklorists have analyzed Sleeping Beauty as indicating the replacement of the lunar year (with its thirteen months, symbolically depicted by the full thirteen fairies) by the solar year (which has twelve, symbolically the invited fairies). This, however, founders on the issue that only in the Grimms' tale is the wicked fairy the thirteenth fairy; in Perrault's, she is the eighth."