Rapunzel versus Tangled

750 Words2 Pages

Fairy tales have long been part of children’s lives, folktales passed down from generation to generation, first orally and then written down. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are among the famous writers that made these stories available to a broader audience by transcribing them. The Grimm brothers’ “Rapunzel” recounts the story of a girl who is trapped in a tower as a result of the actions of her parents. This story went through many versions before and after its publication, including a Disney movie, Tangled. In this paper I will compare and contrast “Rapunzel” and Tangled, and how the story morphed as time and the world’s opinion changed.

Stories similar to that of Rapunzel are said to have started around the time of the beginning of Christianity, relating it to Santa Barbara’s’ ordeal with her father and her beliefes. Other stories from Italy, Germany, and Turkey, like “Little Parsley” (Petrosinella) or Persinette, would also be published before the Grimm Brothers released theirs (Ashliman). These stories influenced the development of the Grimm Brothers’ “Rapunzel”.
“Rapunzel” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is the story of a girl who is given to a sorceress after father steals a rapunzel plant to satisfy his wife’s craving. This sorceress raises Rapunzel as her own daughter, never revealing to her who she really is and who her parents are. Tangled is the Disney modern adaptation of the Grimm brothers’ story of Rapunzel. The essence of the story is still maintained, but Rapunzel takes a more active role as the plot progresses.
Comparing the two stories, there are several similarities between “Rapunzel” and Tangled. In both of them find the girl, Rapunzel, trapped in a tower by a sorceress or an old woman, with no way to escape. The only...

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...n. Rapunzel is pregnant with twins at the end of the story and is outcast by the sorceress when she finds out, sing of children (Ashliman). The information is then omitted from subsequent versions of the story.
In both stories, the reader can observe similarities and differences. “Rapunzel” is a classical story resembling the roles and perceptions society had around the time the story was written, the values expected of the women of that time. Tangled is a more modern version, in which the woman takes an active role on her life and how she wants to achieve her goals, side by side which the person she loves, sharing the adventure.

Works Cited

Ashliman, D. L. “Rapunzel” Folklore and Mythology: Electronic Texts, 2012. Web. 3 March 2014.
Tangled. Dir. Nathan Greno; Byron Howard. Perf. Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi. Walt Disney Animation Studios, 24 November 2010. Film.

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