For centuries, we have been telling stories to each other. These stories, rich with the different cultures that touch them, taught us the things we were supposed to know: don’t trust strangers who want to follow you home; have faith that good things come to those who deserve it; being good and pure and just will give you a happy ending. Yes, I’m talking about fairy tales. To quote my favorite Disney princess, “Far places, magic spells, daring sword fights, a prince in disguise!” We thrive off of the stories of princes and princesses, jealous stepmothers and cruel fairies. Yet, we take for granted the things they teach us. We condemn the fantastical aspects of the fictional stories and ignore the morals and merits of a beauty who learns to look past a beastly appearance and find a prince. Society has begun to focus on the simple aspects of the story rather than the representation of love and faith that pushes a young girl to travel the world to rescue her friend from the darkness in himself. The world looks at the silliness of trading a daughter for radishes, when the true story is one of devotion, love, and faith. Fairy tales teach us about healthy relationships, if we would just open our eyes and read.
Beauty and the Beast:
Looking Beyond Physical Appearance
Take the tale of La Belle et la Bête – Beauty and the Beast. The best known version is actually an abridgement done by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, from the original extended tale by a Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. While Villenuve’s version gives more of a backstory to both the Beauty and the Beast, Beaumont’s tale is enthralling without it. Beaumont was a French novelist, as well as a governess and a mother. The story of Beauty and the Beast is just one in a collection of stories that she wrote. The story is a well-known one, popularized by Disney with sweeping music and talented voices. A beauty trades herself for her father to save his life, committing herself to be a prisoner of a horrible looking beast. In the original story, Beauty is one of six children of a wealthy merchant who loses his fortune. His family is forced into the poverty and only Beauty rises to the occasion and does her best to help her father.
It is this poverty stricken state that leads to Beauty’s father getting lost in the forest and finding the castle of the Beast. There, he mistakenly picks a beautiful rose from a bush to take back to Beauty. This enrages the Beast, who loves the roses more than anything. Learning the merchant has daughters, he demands the life of one of his daughters, or the life of the merchant, as price for the rose. The merchant intends to die but when Beauty learns of what has happened, she volunteers herself.
Even before the Beast enters the story, Beaumont idealizes the idea of a pure heart and a positive attitude. Beauty is the perfect woman, lovely, kind, and a dutiful daughter who, while grieved at the loss of her father’s fortune, decides to be happy without money. Her sisters stand out in stark contrast as gluttonous and greedy, unpleasant to even read about. As a governess, Beaumont no doubt wanted her young charges to understand beauty had to be within as well as without and represents that in this story. She also represents the ideal that life is not always kind and even if one is dealt a harsh fate, one can still make it worthwhile and be happy. However, I digress.
It is this poverty stricken state that leads to Beauty’s father getting lost in the forest and finding the castle of the Beast. There, he mistakenly picks a beautiful rose from a bush to take back to Beauty. This enrages the Beast, who loves the roses more than anything. Learning the merchant has daughters, he demands the life of one of his daughters, or the life of the merchant, as price for the rose. The merchant intends to die but when Beauty learns of what has happened, she volunteers herself.
Even before the Beast enters the story, Beaumont idealizes the idea of a pure heart and a positive attitude. Beauty is the perfect woman, lovely, kind, and a dutiful daughter who, while grieved at the loss of her father’s fortune, decides to be happy without money. Her sisters stand out in stark contrast as gluttonous and greedy, unpleasant to even read about. As a governess, Beaumont no doubt wanted her young charges to understand beauty had to be within as well as without and represents that in this story. She also represents the ideal that life is not always kind and even if one is dealt a harsh fate, one can still make it worthwhile and be happy. However, I digress.
The main theme of Beauty and the Beast is learning to look beyond the physical appearance of others and seeing who they are from their mind and soul. Beauty’s sisters are beautiful but vain, vapid, and lazy; the Beast is hideous to look at and admits to being witless, but as Beauty spends more and more time with him she learns he is softhearted and sweet. Eventually, she forgets what the Beast looks like and falls in love with him. However, underlying themes of honesty and promise-keeping also add to the depth of this story. Beauty refuses the Beast’s daily proposal because she cannot bring herself to lie to him, and when he allows her to visit her family, she forgets her promise to return in a week and it nearly kills the Beast with grief. This seems meant to represent the importance of honesty and keeping one’s promise in a relationship.
The entire story of Beauty and the Beast is a display of contradictions: the beautiful sisters with ugly personalities; the gorgeous heroine without an ounce of vanity; and the ugly beast with the heart of a prince, all molded to display the importance of looking beyond the physical, keeping your promises, and always telling the truth.
The Beast does turn into a prince when Beauty declares her love and they live happily ever after, because they were honest with each other. And her sisters? Well, they were turned into statues until they learned to admit they were wrong. They spent the rest of their existence watching Beauty’s happiness – “…as it was found in virtue…” – from the gate of her palace.
But fairy tales do not just teach adults how to have good, lasting romantic relationships; they also teach children about faith, loyalty, and friendship. For that, we turn to Hans Christian Anderson’s Snow Queen.
The entire story of Beauty and the Beast is a display of contradictions: the beautiful sisters with ugly personalities; the gorgeous heroine without an ounce of vanity; and the ugly beast with the heart of a prince, all molded to display the importance of looking beyond the physical, keeping your promises, and always telling the truth.
The Beast does turn into a prince when Beauty declares her love and they live happily ever after, because they were honest with each other. And her sisters? Well, they were turned into statues until they learned to admit they were wrong. They spent the rest of their existence watching Beauty’s happiness – “…as it was found in virtue…” – from the gate of her palace.
But fairy tales do not just teach adults how to have good, lasting romantic relationships; they also teach children about faith, loyalty, and friendship. For that, we turn to Hans Christian Anderson’s Snow Queen.
The Snow Queen:
Loyalty, Faith, and Friendship
Hans Christian Anderson is well known as the Danish author of fairy tales such as “The Ugly Duckling”, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”, “The Little Mermaid”, and “The Snow Queen”. He was well known for his Christian references and his fanciful tales of talking animals and mythical creatures. His story of the Snow Queen is a tale of two young friends, a lovely young girl and a clever little boy, who are caught up in the constant war between humanity and the devil. The boy, Kay, gets a glass splinter in his heart and his eye from a magical mirror the devil crafts and becomes cold and cruel. The Snow Queen then comes and takes him away to her palace in the North, kissing away his memories – the little girl, Gerda, thinking the Snow Queen had kidnapped her friend, resolves to travel the world until she finds him. Along the way, she meets up with temptations and distractions while Kay slowly becomes colder and is in danger of freezing to death, unaware of his darkening spirit. When Gerda finally finds her way to the Snow Queen’s palace, Kay is nearly frozen and dead but does not recognize his childhood friend until her tears warm him and melt the ice around his heart, freeing him from the glass splinters. They return home, grown up but still children at heart.
Like most of Anderson’s stories, the presence of Christian faith is prominent. Gerda prays to protect her from the cold around the Snow Queen’s palace and again when Kay does not recognize her, reciting a prayer that they had learned together. Roses are also important: roses create a sort of rooftop retreat for the children in the summer and roses break the spell an old witch woman has over Gerda.
Like most of Anderson’s stories, the presence of Christian faith is prominent. Gerda prays to protect her from the cold around the Snow Queen’s palace and again when Kay does not recognize her, reciting a prayer that they had learned together. Roses are also important: roses create a sort of rooftop retreat for the children in the summer and roses break the spell an old witch woman has over Gerda.
Gerda is met with many obstacles and temptations. She encounters a lonely old witch who wants only to keep her and care for her; flowers that tell stories sad and lovely but know nothing of Kay; a crow that leads her astray to the palace of a princess, who offers Gerda luxury and lovely things; and a spoiled robber maiden who threatened to kill her if Gerda displeases her – but it is with the robber girl that she learns Kay has been taken by the Snow Queen to her palace in a country called Lapland. She is tempted by comfort and pleasures and even by fear to give up her search for Kay – but she did not give up because he was her friend.
She displays an ability to get help from nearly everyone she meets, even the robber girl, who gives her supplies and a reindeer for the last leg of her journey. The great lengths Gerda goes to in rescuing Kay is a display of the importance of friendship. That even a child can be a hero, if the relationship is strong enough. In the end, it is Gerda’s great love for her friend that saves Kay from death and the darkness of the devil’s mirror – proving, of course, that friendship and love are more powerful and important than magic or money.
She displays an ability to get help from nearly everyone she meets, even the robber girl, who gives her supplies and a reindeer for the last leg of her journey. The great lengths Gerda goes to in rescuing Kay is a display of the importance of friendship. That even a child can be a hero, if the relationship is strong enough. In the end, it is Gerda’s great love for her friend that saves Kay from death and the darkness of the devil’s mirror – proving, of course, that friendship and love are more powerful and important than magic or money.
Fairy Tales Today
Today’s popular literature –and even the modernization of classic fairy tales – is geared towards the social norm of finding infinite, impractical love and power. The media-fueled ideals of manic love like Twilight or sexualized relationships like Fifty Shades of Grey scream at us that we must be completely wrapped up in relationships that consume everything else until all that is left is that single relationship. Rather than a girl who cares so much for her father she’d rather die in his place than let him die, we have heroines who threaten to leave their fathers because he sees her relationship for what is: unhealthy and dangerous. And, personally, if a guy wants me to sign a confidentiality agreement before we have a relationship then he’s going to dinner alone. The best part about the classic fairy tales? They don’t meet any of the criteria for an emotionally abusive relationship.
Author: Susanna W. Bird