February Fairy Tales & The Sleeping Beauty

February Fairy Tales - The month in which I compare and contrast various classic fairy tales to their modern counterparts.

The tale of The Sleeping Beauty is an interesting one to track. The dramatic plot changes that take place throughout the course of the years show that the first few disturbing versions are a far cry from the happily ever after of Prince Steffan and Princess Aurora. While reading my short summaries (peanut gallery comments included) on a few of the versions, pay attention to how the morals within the story drastically change as the writer caters to different audiences. (Wow - can you tell I miss my Humanities classes haha.)

The Greco-Roman Sleeping Beauty
In a nutshell, a great lord gives birth to a daughter who the astrologers (that's right, there are no fairies, just an oracle) say is destined to be killed by a splinter. The father refuses wood of any kind be brought in his house, but we all know how this goes - the girl finds some old weird lady with a spindle, pricks her finger and appears to be dead (sounds like it came right out of Oedipus Rex, right?). Thinking she is dead, the father places her in one of his old country houses on a nice bed and leaves. Several years later, a king comes across the mansion, sees the girl, and immediately falls in love with her, thinking she is under some enchantment (which I guess she technically is, as she is in some sort of comma something-something). 9 months later (drum roll please) the sleeping beauty gives birth to twins (she is still asleep during all this, mind you). After some time, one of the little tykes sucks the splinter out of her finger, finally waking her up. Unfortunately, the king's wife finds out what happened (yes, he is married) and is so jealous (one Italian writer used the phrase "with a heart of Medea") she orders the cook to kill them and serve their flesh to the king. The queen avidly watches as the king eats the meal, telling him all the while how he is "eating his own." Eventually, the queen finds out the cook actually did not kill them, but hid them instead. So in a fit of rage, the queen decides to burn the sleeping beauty and her children. The king comes by just in time to see what is going on and decides to burn his wife instead.

Supposed moral of story: "Those whom fortune favors find good luck even in their sleep."

Kim's moral of story: "More proof that Greco-Roman mythology is usually depressing, immoral, violent, everything hangs on the thread of destiny, and it was written by a bunch of male chauvenists."

Perrault - La Belle au Bois dormant
This version is great because it tones everything down a bit, but still ends with a happily ever after. I think the best part of the whole thing is that it caters to French nobility of Louis XIV (it's SOO funny - just wait - you'll see). It starts just like we all know - a girl is born, the fairies come, there is a fairy everyone forgot to invite (they all thought she was dead - pretty good reason not to invite someone), and feels slighted so she comes anyways and bestows a gift on the girl that "she will touch her finger on a spinning wheel and DIE!" Luckily, one of the younger fairies hides herself just in case something like this happens and ends up being the damage control. She says she will not die, but sleep for 100 years until a worthy prince comes to kiss her. Again, we all know how it goes and the princess somehow finds a spindle to prick herself on. They try everything to wake her up (including unlacing her corset), but to no avail. Finally, someone fetches the fairy and she decides to put everyone to sleep. Here comes one of my favorite parts - "She touched everything in the palace - governesses, maids of honor, ladies of the bedchamber, gentlemen, officers, stewards, cooks, undercooks, kitchen maids, guards with their porters, pages, and footmen, all the horses which were in the stables, the cart horses, the hunters and the saddle horses, the grooms, the great dogs in the outward court, and little Mopsey, too, the Princess's spaniel, which was lying on the bed."

So she sleeps and the prince comes to the castle. All the brambles that grew around the castle part before him as he approaches (some people have all the luck) and he sees the beautiful sleeper. She wakes up and they talk for four hours before really falling in love (yay - they actually talk!). All the while, the prince is thinking "She was entirely and very magnificently dressed; but his royal Highness took care not to tell her that she was dressed like his great-grandmother, and had a high collar." (Ha - I love this detail! Something I have actually always wondered about: what kind of generational gap would there be between the two?) Then they go to the great mirrored hall (do any other castles besides Versailles really have a great mirrored hall?), wed, and have two children.

The problem: the prince's mom is an ogress and therefore orders the cook to kill each of her inlaws in turn to eat them. The cook has mercy on them and therefore hides them in a closet and gives the Queen other meat instead. As usually happens, the mother ogress finds out and decides to throw them in a large tub of snakes. Just like in the other one, the prince comes just in time to ask what the meaning of this is. His mother is so enraged that she throws herself into the tub and dies. "The Prince was of course very sorry, for she was his mother, but he soon comforted himself with his beautiful wife and his pretty children."

Moral of story:
"This Fable seems to let us know
That very often Hymen's blisses sweet,
Altho' some tedious obstacles they meet,
Which make us for them a long while to stay,
Are not less happy for approaching slow;
And that we nothing lose by such delay."

(Translation: don't hurry love and marriage is better when you have obstacles to overcome. I guess I sort of agree with that)

Brothers Grimm and Disney (wow - I'm not sure I'll ever be able to put those in the same sentence again!) - the happily ever afters where the whole jealous wife/angry ogress mother part is cut off entirely. Why? I'm not sure - is it politically incorrect to talk trash about your inlaws? Was it just too long to put in an animated film? Was cannibalism too touchy of a subject? Does our society just concentrate more on love than marriage? Perhaps a combination of the above? What do you think?