Violence In Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, And Cinderella

One similarity between fairy tales is the presence of violence most notably in Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, and the Grimm’s version of Cinderella. Sleeping beauty shows a dragon being decapitated, Little Red Riding Hood sees a wolf eating humans then getting his insides ripped open, and Cinderella shows the stepsisters getting their eyes plucked out. The majority of fairy tales are heartwarming and provide a powerful message, so it is very odd to see violence included within them as well. It is worth noting that the violence is, for the most part, ignored by the readers. This is probably ignored because the reader is distracted by a number of others things with the story elements and plot. For example, in the Grimm’s version of

Cinderella the stepsisters cut off parts of their feet in order to fit their foot in the glass slipper. At this point, we don’t necessarily care about the evil stepsisters but rather Cinderella because she has faced many obstacles and been tortured by her family in the story thus far. All in all, one similarity in fairy tales is the violence included.
Another similarity with fairy tales is having a limited amount of time to complete a task. In The Little Mermaid, Rumpelstiltskin, and both versions of Cinderella this is shown with the main characters of each story. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel must fall in love within three days or die, and in Rumpelstiltskin the woman must spin straw into gold by the time sun rises or she dies. On the other hand, Cinderella must also do something in a given time frame by her fairy god mother, but it isn’t specified what, if any, consequence would be given. Fairy tales most likely have this in common with one another because it provides a good plot and you garner sympathy towards the innocent main character that could potentially die. In addition, The Little Mermaid and Rumpelstiltskin both show the main characters potentially giving up or give up something very personal and valuable to them. Ariel, from The Little Mermaid, offers her fins, while the woman in Rumpelstiltskin offers her first-born child. As stated before, we can connect and garner sympathy with the main character if we can understand their pain and struggle, so by having them give up something personal truly makes us root for them to complete their task in the alluded time. In summary, one similarity seen in numerous fairy tales shows the main character having to complete a task in a certain amount of time.