The Princess And The Pea Research Paper

1382 Words3 Pages

Shira Freiman
Malatack
Honors English – Period 5
3 November 2014

A Woman’s Role Worldwide

“Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted to find a princess, but she would have to be a real princess” (The Princess on the Pea). The prince being referred in this line of “The Princess and the Pea”, a Danish fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen, will settle for none other than the most sensitive princess available. The following line taken from “The Most Sensitive Woman in the World” by Christian Schneller of Italy, sounds almost exactly like the beginning of the Danish version. “The parents of a prince wanted him to marry, but he said, ‘“I will marry only such a woman about whom I can say with good conscience that she is the most sensitive …show more content…

She was to cook, clean, and stay at home to care for the children. A woman was expected to be prim and proper, while at the same time hunched over on her hands and knees, scrubbing away at floor scuffs left by her husband (Women in the Nineteenth Century). The version of “The Princess and the Pea” from Denmark written in 1835, implies that in order to be considered a lady, you must act like a stereotypical woman. According to Meriam-webster.com, a lady is defined as “a woman who behaves in a polite way” (Lady). The 21st Century seems to accept this definition, but back in the 1800’s, this was not always the case. “The Princess and the Pea” even goes as far as to say that the prince needed a “real princess”. In fact, when the princess greets the king, she is not believed to be a real princess. Just because she looked a bit sloppy from the storm going on, she was thought to be an imposter. The princess had to prove herself, because her word was not taken to be the truth. She was thought to not be a real lady, just because she did not look the way a man feels a woman should. After spending the night and becoming bruised by a pea that lay twenty mattresses below her, the prince finally decided that she was the real deal. The tell-tale sign that she was in fact a princess, was her sensitivity to the pea. Had she been too ‘masculine’ to not notice …show more content…

However, they are presented in such a way that is obnoxious and child-like. Crying over the littlest things, and complaining of pain from things that do not cause pain. Recall that the Danish “Princess and the Pea” was written in 1835, and the Danish feminist movement did not officially begin until 1870. Until women decided to step up and fight for their rights, it was free-range for the men to say and do what they wanted. Dansk Kvindesamfund, the Danish Women’s Society, led the movement. Until around 1915, Danish women were not even able to vote (The Women’s Movement in Denmark). The insignificance of women before the movement can be seen very easily throughout “The Princess and the Pea”, from the way she is not believed to be a princess because she does not look beautiful, to the way she complained about sleeping on the

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