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The real tale of sleeping beauty
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Throughout the years there have been many different stories of Sleeping Beauty, but none have ever been as great as these two tales. The two stories are Briar Rose one by Jane Yolen, and one edited by Maria Grimm. Through comparing and contrasting these two tales, the reader finds that both stories had the princess fall asleep differently, the princess’ worldly positions differed in riches and poor, and how long they slept and who woke them up were almost the exact same. . In the edition of Briar Rose by Jane Yolen, at first glance a lot of the tale is the same, but after closely looking at it the reader can see they are different. One of the main differences spotted is how the princess was put to sleep by the fairy. In her version, the princess and everyone in the kingdom were put to sleep by a mist. Yolen states, “A mist. A great mist. It covered the entire kingdom. And everyone in it... Everyone slept…” (Yolen 61). In the story the evil fairy sent a mist on the whole kingdom putting everyone in the kingdom to sleep. When going over the this part in the book and reflecting, Gemma was actually in a concentration camp, and the mist was …show more content…
During Grimm’s story, the king and queen were so overjoyed that they birthed a daughter and they gave her anything she could have ever wanted or needed. Yolen did not let her princess have many things in her version. Grimm stated that “And on it went until the girl had everything in the world you could ever want.” (Grimm 131). As a true princess from royalty they were expected to have it all. This was important to the story because it let the reader know that she was really a true princess because Gemma was trying to hide her horrible past of evil with a beautiful fairytale. While these two stories have many differences, they are very alike in how the princess’ fall asleep and how they are woken
Alice Walker’s “Roselily”, when first read considered why she decided to use third person. Especially when the story is in such a private line of thought, but then after my second time reading the story I decided that Roselily would not be a strong enough woman to speak about the social injustices that have happened to her. One key part of the story is her new life she will be facing after she is married in Chicago, while comparing it with her old life she is leaving in Mississippi. In Chicago she will no longer have a job, but instead be a homemaker where she will be responsible for the children and home. Also, in Chicago she will become a Muslim because it is what her new husband will want her to be, but back in Mississippi she was of the Christian faith. One of the more positive outcomes of her marriage is that she will go from extreme poverty, to not having to worry about money on a day to day basis.
One of the first versions of Sleeping Beauty was published by Charles Perrault in 1697. However, he based his story on a tale by Giambattista Basile in 1634, called Sun, Moon and Talia. A lord got a beautiful daughter, named Talia. He asked many astrologers and wise men to tell him her fate and after a while they concluded that she would be put in great danger by a splinter of flax. The lord ensured that no flax, hemp or anything of that kind was brought into the house to keep his daughter safe.
...ndency on the fairy godmother and the prince encourages a meek and inactive behaviour to achieve a rewarding future (Robbins, 104). Overall, Cinderella’s behaviour is “...weak, silent and passive...” (Trousdale & McMillan, 12) which is unacceptable for a modern western woman.
Highly similar in form, they are both short works, collected as fairy tales with similar plot structure (a woman becomes engaged, visits her betrothed’s home, discovers he is a murderer by witnessing the dismembering of a maiden behind a cask/barrel, retains evidence of the crime in the form of the maiden’s severed hand with a ring, and exposes the betrothed’s crimes via public storytelling, resulting in his punishment). Neither tale requires a happily ever after beyond the bridegroom’s punishment, though Jacobs’ punishment is more brutal. Notably, Grimm’s bridegroom is more brutal himself, with graphic torture of the maiden and cannibalistic tendencies. Jacobs’ bridegroom acts alone, a serial murderer, while Grimm’s bridegroom is a member of robber band. Jacobs’ characters are more fully formed, with greater detail ascribed to his named characters. Jacobs and Grimms’ stories revolve around high and working class circumstances respectively, contrasting a lady with a miller’s daughter, a mere home with a castle, and an ax with a sword. The framing of both variations has the heroine as the central character, with her personal account of the bridegroom’s crimes matching the narrative’s version in diction and syntax. Both heroines draw power from narratives, spinning tales like the female character of the storyteller featured in many collections. They also obscure their accusations using a
The first clear difference is seen in the format the versions are written in. While the Grimm’s is written in prose, Sexton’s is a poem, with many stanzas and a few rhyme schemes as well. Despite the stories being similar, this format helps Sexton, who was a poet, separate her version from that of the Grimm’s, and helps her story create its own original identity. The Grimm’s prose form allows a more straightforward approach to its audiences, while Sexton’s poem helps it give the story a deeper meaning. Another major difference was Sexton’s addition of a new introduction and conclusion to her story. The poem starts off by mentioning other stories and fictional tales, but ends with truthful statements that show just how fictional the relationship between Cinderella and the prince is, like “Regular Bobbsey twins” (Sexton 79). Sexton also breaks the fourth wall in some instances, mostly to show her cynical and sarcastic attitude towards her story’s own character, Cinderella. In comparison, the Grimm’s Cinderella is shown to be the typical goody-two shoes damsel in distress, which every girl should try to be like. Sexton’s commentary in her poem changes this attitude towards Cinderella, and instead makes Cinderella look like the fragile, naïve, and helpless woman that she is. These divergences are what grab new and old readers of either the fairy tale genre, or Cinderella’s story alike. Old readers get to experience new elements and a fresh take on an old story, while newer readers can find it easier to understand and follow through Sexton’s story and the ideas it’s trying to convey. All these contrasting elements help change Sexton’s versions tone and connotations, despite the stories being very
This modern fairy tale contains diverse characters but none of them is as important as the grandmother. Through her narration, the reader gets all the information needed to understand the story. Indeed, by telling her own story she provides the reader the familial context in which the story is set with her granddaughter and her daughter but even more important, she provides details on her own life which should teach and therefore protect her grand-daughter from men, and then save her to endure or experience her past griefs. This unnamed grand-mother is telling her life under a fairy tale form which exemplify two major properties of fairy tale, as mentioned by Marina Warner in “The Old Wives' Tale”: “Fairy tales exchange knowledge [through the moral] between an older [most of the time feminine] voice of experience and a younger audience”. As suggested in the text, fairy tales are a way to teach insights of life through simple stories directed to, most of the time, younger generations. Most of the time because fairy tales work on different levels of moral which are directed to categories of people, for instance in “Little Red Riding Hood” the moral ...
The novel Briar Rose by Jane Yolen is a heart wrenching story of Sleeping Beauty intertwined with the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust. Yolen portrays the difference between the fairytale and the ugly reality through this novel. The character, Gemma, tells a fairytale called Briar Rose to her three granddaughters every time she is with them. Gemma’s identity at the start of the novel is hidden, and Becca, Gemma's granddaughter, is on a journey to unveil and discover the truth about her identity and Briar Rose. The truth ends up being that Gemma is the Briar Rose she speaks about in her stories. During this journe, Becca discovers not only her grandmother’s identity but also her own. Becca grows up and realizes that her grandmother chose her to find the truth because she and Becca are so much alike. Through structure, techniques, and themes, Briar Rose has proven to be a good book.
Even though the time periods are very different (by 200 years) the formulas for their fairy tales seems to remain constant. Character development, which is very important in fairy tales is both well done and accurately portrays the living situation for a character in the time period of when it was written. Perrault's version seems to put Cinderella's family in a higher, well-off situation of the Grimm's because she is still abided to obey the rules that her dying mother had set for her. Something that you would see a women do in the late 1600's. Her higher class and the rules of her generation has set her to not have revenge on her step-sisters and helps them marry in the end, making a happy ending to the story for everyone. This also gives off the rules of the time to the young girls who would be listening or reading this story back then. They knew their place in society and tales like Perrault's reinforced it. The Grimm's version, titled Ashenputtle, has key elements in the story line that make it very different from Perrault's Cinderella. The theme becomes very different as the end of the tale results in revenge on the step-sisters from Ashenputtle. This variation in the story line represents the setting in which the Grimm's either lived in themselves, or the living situation of the people who related this tale to the Grimm's.
The Grimm’s stories have strict criteria for good and evil. Good women are not the hero, they do not plan, nor do they get themselves out of bad situations; they are obtuse and wait until a Prince saves them. These qualities doom the female protagonists (and readers) to pursue the only destiny women have, and that is to be a wife and mother (Rowe, 1978). Cinderella is the heroine and the ideal good girl. She is unambiguously beautiful, kind, and compassionate. She does not complain or get angry. This is foreseen early in the Grimm’s Cinderella story:
It is more obvious in this tale than others, but some of these aspects are the nickname of Cinderella, the evil stepfamily, the three balls, and the beautiful slipper. However, Perrault and the brothers Grimm made some parts of the story very different. In the Grimm’s version, Cinderella’s mother was very important to her and she was very important to her father, while in Perrault’s her mother is not even mentioned and her father is more attached to his new wife than he is to his daughter. Perrault described the stepsister’s as less beautiful than Cinderella, while the brothers Grimm described them as just as beautiful but with bad personalities. Another major difference was Cinderella’s magic helper. In Perrault’s story Cinderella had a fairy godmother that gave her horses, a carriage, footmen to escort her, and new beautiful clothes, and in Grimm’s story her magic helper was birds that only provided clothes. A main difference that a lot of people would notice is the fact that in the Grimm’s tale Cinderella’s slipper was made of gold, and in Perrault’s it was glass which is what most people are familiar with. The endings of the stories also differed. The Grimm’s version ended in a much darker way. Both stepsisters got their eyes pecked out and were doomed to live a life of blindness, which was clearly not a very child friendly way to end a story. In
Have you ever had your only friend sabotage you and steal everything that you are? Have you ever watched your dad take his death spill from his horse knowing you can’t save him? Perhaps your first companion, friend, and makeshift mother suddenly disappear from your world and a few days after you learn she is dead? Maybe you were born to be queen, but instead, you’re shipped to another land, betrothed to a prince you don’t even know. I hope not. But Crown Princess Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee aka Ani has, and there are plenty of rough waves in front of her. If you have ever read the Grimm Fairy Tales the story it may seem familiar, and it should be. The whole entire book was based on the tale. But even so, the tale still leaves some unanswered
In “Briar Rose,” Anne Sexton utilizes a classic fairy tale to inform the reader of her own childhood experiences with sexual abuse. Instead of simply retelling the story, she puts a new twist on it and transforms it into an elaborate metaphor: Sexton is the Briar Rose from her own story. Not so much a cry for help as a plea for awareness, Sexton uses carefully crafted words to depict Briar Rose’s and her own struggle to expose the perpetrator of sexual abuse. She also uses her adaptation of the story to address how cultures view claims of sexual violence (particularly incest), marriage, and the relationship between genders.
A lot of the fairy tale stories that we have seen as young adults and even as adults are original folk tale stories that have been modified and rewritten to accommodate our new cultures. Cinderella happens to be one of these stories that have been changed over the years. There are many different versions of Cinderella, an African Cinderella, a Hungarian Cinderella and even a Chinese version. All of the Cinderella’s are similar in plot, but the author dictates the story’s theme based on the people whom he is writing for which completely changes the story’s tone, mood and other elements. While Perrault's version stresses the values and materialistic worries of his middle-class audience, Grimm’s' focus is on the harsh realities of life associated with the peasant culture. Perrault’s and Grimm’s Cinderella’s have the same plot, but their writing style is different which completely modifies the tale.
In many classic stories, youth often equates to beauty; as old age does to a scornful, maybe even evil person. A well known example of this being the differences between Princess aurora (also known as Briar-Rose) and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. I watched Sleeping Beauty as child over 10 years ago, and I saw Maleficent about 2 years ago when it came to theaters. When I first viewed these two Disney versions of the story, I never knew the original version of “Sleeping Beauty.” When I watched Maleficent I wanted to believe that was closer to the original story because it was more engaging and it was not about a set in stone princess and villain. Disney’s Sleeping Beauty is more faithful to the original tale it was based on, but Maleficent is a far better and interesting spin of the story.
Even though the two versions are extremely similar, they contain slightly different morals. When the Grimm Brothers wrote their story, the world was a different place and children did not need to be babied. That is why they chose to write such a cruel ending to their version. In the modern-day Cinderella, there is a profusion of magic and there is no violence, which is a change from the original story. By changing this and the ending, children receive a different message from the story. However, both stories give kids hope that they will live happily ever after.