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Hannah Tran
Professor Lynda Haas
Writing 37
3 November 2015
Women and Relationships in Fairy Tales Over Time
Once upon a time, many fairy tales featured young princesses who were damsels in
distress, ready to be saved by an already doting prince they never met before. However, the fairy
tale genre hasnt sustained for this long because it has remained the same since its inception;
instead, it has been able to adapt to its cultural surroundings. Through this, fairy tales reflect and
are shaped by their rhetorical situation. Classic fairy tales may have used conventions that reflect
oppressive values toward women, but this is not exactly the case for the modern retelling of these
tales. One such example of a reimagined fairy tale is The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil
Gaiman, and in this tale, the classic fairy tales of Sneewittchen and Sun, Moon, and Talia are
combined. Although The Sleeper and the Spindle is more based on Charles Perraults The
Sleeping Beauty in the Wood written in 1696, it is interesting to see the changes from the
original story to the adaptations we see today. This revamped fairy tale, originally published in
2014, is about a queen, who along with her three dwarves, must rescue a princess cursed to sleep
forever in order to save their two kingdoms from the curse as well. The Sleeper and the Spindle
is more than just a modern retelling of the classic fairy tales, Sneewittchen and Sun, Moon,
and Talia; it takes classic fairy tale conventions such as true love and the one-dimensional
princesses and reflects the evolution of the perceptions about female gender roles and the idea of
happy endings.

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Before looking at The Sleeper and the Spindle, it is important to look at the rhetorical
situations around which Sneewittchen and Sun, Moon, and Talia were written around, and
see how this affected the conventions that will be discussed. Sneewittchen was written in 1812
by the Grimm Brothers in Germany in their collection of fairy tales, Children and Household
Tales. In Sneewittchen, the titular character, Little Snow-White, is the most beautiful in all the
land, and because of this, her mother, the Queen, is jealous and devises multiple plans to kill
Little Snow-White, who is able to thwart her with the aid of seven dwarves. When the Queen
does finally succeed, Little Snow-White is saved by a nearby Prince, and they punish the Queen
by having her dance to her death at their wedding. Sneewittchen was written in a time when
the Grimms were heavily influenced by German Romanticism and German unity, and they tried
to reflect these ideas in their stories. In fact, according to folk and fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes,
all their research was geared toward exploring the epics, sagas, and tales that contained what
they thought were essential truths about the German cultural heritage (6).
In comparison, Sun, Moon, and Talia had been written down by Giambattista Basile in
Italy almost 200 years prior to Sneewittchen in his collection of tales called Pentamerone.
Sun, Moon, and Talia is about a young woman named Talia who is destined to fall into a state
of slumber like death when her finger is pricked by flax, and she is later saved by a King who
comes upon her and rapes her in her sleep, impregnating her with twins that she later names Sun
and Moon. Later, the kings wife finds out about this and tries to kill them, however, the King
intervenes, and he, Sun, Moon, and Talia live happily ever after. Basile was writing during the
1600s where the Italian Renaissance was still alive and well. It is probably because of the
Renaissance that Basile was inspired to collect these stories, and his collection was actually
admired by the Grimms. Basile served royal Italian families and spent much of his time in royal

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courts. Because of this, many of his stories feature royalty and castles and the woods, and Basile
wrote what was familiar to him.
In both Sneewittchen and Sun, Moon, and Talia, women are at the center as
protagonists and antagonists, and men are secondary characters. The role of women in these
stories is very similar, despite the fact that they were written nearly 200 years apart. As an
example of the lack of feminism in both of these stories, the characters Little Snow-White and
Talia are both beautiful maidens who, because of their beauty, get saved. They do not have to
take any real course of action throughout the stories, and everything is decided for them by the
characters around them. In Sun, Moon, and Talia, after the King comes back for Talia and tells
her about how she became pregnant, he bade her farewell, and promised to return soon, and
take her with him to his kingdom. Here, Talia has to keep waiting for the King to come for her
in order to be happy, and the actions in the story are really effects of the kings actions. In
Sneewittchen, Little Snow-White doesnt do anything, and the action is propelled by those
around her. From the beginning to the end, she does nothing to save herself from the trouble she
finds herself in. She only comes back to life because the princes servant feels plagued the
whole day long, just because of such a dead girl, and he hit her in the back with his hand. Then
the terrible piece of apple that she had bitten off came out of her throat, and Snow-White came
back to life. To see why the characters developed in this way, their rhetorical situations need to
be analyzed.
Both of these stories were written in patriarchal societies where men had all the power,
and women were expected to be passive and beautiful. In 1600s Italy, the Renaissance was well
under way, and art, politics, science, and philosophy were exploding. More and more people
were getting educated, including women, yet you only hear about mens contributions to society

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at the time. In Baldassare Castigliones book The Book of the Courtier, (one of the most
influential books to have come out of the Italian Renaissance that describes the etiquette and
morality of courtiers) Castiglione describes the Renaissance women as needing to become
educated to become a proper lady, and her education was to be of benefit to a man. She also
wasnt supposed to become too smart, let alone become smarter than a man. Italy at the time was
trying to preserve the patriarchal society, and men had power even over womens bodies.
In Sun, Moon, and Talia, Talia is sleeping in her castle, and when the King finds her,
he tries to wake her up. When she doesnt wake up, he proceeds to rape her. He then leaves and
forgets about her existence for quite some time. However, in the story, he did not rape her, he
gathered the first fruits of love. When the King had raped her, he impregnated her with twins,
and it is not until after Talia has given birth to them and they suck the flax out of her finger, that
she wakes up, and she finds herself alone in that palace with two children by her side, she did
not know what had happened to her. Nevertheless, when the King does remember Talia and
comes back for her, she harbors no feelings of animosity toward the king. In fact, when the King
tells her how her children came to be, their friendship was knitted with tighter bonds. The King
also had a wife back at home, and when she finds out that her husband committed adultery, she
becomes enraged at both the King and Talia, and she tries to murder and eat Talia and her
children. Adultery in Italy at this time was met with harsh ridicule and punishment for women,
yet men who engaged in the same behavior did not face any consequences. According to Anita
Fisher, a scholar specializing in the role of women throughout history, If wives did commit
adultery, informed neighbors placed horns on the doorways of the cuckolded husband. A great
many municipalities enacted criminal statues against adultery, although male adulterers were
heavily fined, while female adulteresses were liable to physical punishment, consisting of the

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most common form, whipping. This was due to the fact that women were seen as made for men,
let alone kings who had the right to do whatever they pleased, and this was their only role in
society.
Likewise, in Sneewittchen, the female protagonist does not contribute anything
substantial that leads her to her happy ending. She is valued only for her beauty, and it is because
of this beauty that the huntsman took pity on her and doesnt kill her, the dwarves liked her
very much and let her stay with them, and that the prince could not live without being able to
see her and takes her away with him. The only actions Little Snow-White actually takes is
getting herself into trouble by falling for the Queens tricks three time in a row, needing to be
rescued by the dwarves time and time again. In 19th century Germany, the feminism movement
was just beginning, and there was much scandal around the women who partook in this
movement, but often times, men overlooked them and disregarded their ideals. Martin Pugh, a
historian focused on European history, says of Germany in his article The Womens
Movement, While cultural factors favoured the women's movement, they were handicapped by
a repressive political system.
However, when the present day is analyzed, the role of women has radically changed.
In The Sleeper and the Spindle, the Queen herself, a reimagined Snow White, goes out to figure
what is going on with the cursed princess. Shes the one who called for her mail shirt. She
called for her sword. She called for provisions, and for her horse, and then she rode out of the
palace (Gaiman 21). When her and her dwarves finally reach the castle with the sleeping
maiden, it is she that volunteers to kiss the sleeping girl (Gaiman 49). The Queen is also
supposed to be getting married, but unlike the classic tales, she is already a queen when she is
getting married and reassures the prince that they will get married despite him being only a

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prince. Throughout the plot, it is clear that the Queen does not want to get married, or at least not
yet. At the end, she does not return to her kingdom to get married, deciding instead to continue
her adventures, and the dwarves do not stop her.
With many of the reimagined tales we are seeing today, the princess or female lead, is
taking more of a stand and is more proactive in reaching her end goal. This may be due to how in
recent times, pop culture has been co-opting feminism and vice versa. Wherever you go, you can
see that in social media, on TV, in celebrities, people are talking about feminism and the change
that they want to see. Starting in the 1990s, the third wave of feminism has influenced people
and female empowerment is being celebrated. With people like Beyonc and Meryl Streep
talking about this topic, it is hard for the public to ignore and not write about it. It seems that
Gaiman cant ignore this either and has said, I dont have a lot of patience for stories in which
women are rescued by men. He even dedicated The Sleeper and the Spindle to his daughters
and wrote the book to show them that their lives werent limited by their gender.
With the changing attitudes toward female roles over time also came the changing
attitudes toward how people think about love and relationships. In Sneewittchen and Sun,
Moon, and Talia, the male love interests in the stories are only meeting the female leads for the
very first time when they decide to get married or be with one another forever. The males in the
story are first drawn to the princesses by their beauty, and not more is mentioned as to why they
stay together. The characters being in, quote love are rarely mentioned and in Sun, Moon, and
Talia, only the kings wife mentions her husband being in love with someone else, while in
Sneewittchen, the concept of love is never mentioned. Talia even calls her relationship with
the King a friendship. The farthest we see into Talia and the Kings relationship is that he
married Talia to wife; and she enjoyed a long life with her husband and her children. With

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Sneewittchen, Little Snow-White and the Prince simply sat down together at the table and ate
with joy when she woke up. What is mentioned in the stories are closer descriptions to what we
would call infatuation today. None of the nitty-gritty parts of relationships are mentioned, such
as arguments or mutual respect, and the relationships portrayed seem to be the perfect happy
ending.
It wasnt really until well into the 19th century that people began thinking of marriage and
love being intertwined. Before this time, you got married for practicality and love was more of
something you had with someone you were infatuated with and didnt have to deal the hardships
of life with. It was books like Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen that pushed forward the idea
that love was something you could have with someone you were married to, and this book was
originally published in 1813, a year after the Grimms published their collection of fairy tales.
The Grimms were not authoritarians, and their stories existed for centuries before the Grimms
wrote them down, meaning they reflect the idea of love of those times as well. Although the
characters of these stories do end up getting married, thats where the story ends. For women in
most of the world, a good marriage was their happy ending. Columbia University states in their
core curriculum about this time period that, As a result, the position of daughters within the
family changed, as they became the means through which a family could attain greater wealth.
Familial aspirations, coupled with womens increased dependence on marriage for financial
survival, made courtship a central focus of womens lives. The behind-the-scenes of these
characters relationships with one another are never seen, and we just know that they live happily
ever after.
The concept of true love and happy endings portrayed in The Sleeper and the Spindle are
beliefs common and prevalent in todays society. It is never mentioned if the Queen loves the

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Prince, and when she heads off on her journey, she takes an action that is usually associated with
what a man would have done in those times. She chucked him beneath his pretty chin and
kissed him until he smiled (Gaiman 21). It is clear from the beginning that the Queen is
dreading getting married, and when she leaves the Prince, she kisses him to make him happy, not
to make herself happy. In the end, she decides not to get married because it is not what would
make her happy. In todays society, people are encouraged to marry others they love and are
happy with, and even by looking at this article title by the Daily Mail called When is the right
time to say 'I love you'? Too early and you look desperate, too late and you miss the magic, it is
evident that people in todays society are required to know their partner before saying, I love
you. It is even acceptable to not even get married at all. There are other options available to
people today where they can still live a fulfilled, successful life. It is looked down upon to marry
or love someone we barely know, and this is seen as reckless behavior. Through The Sleeper and
the Spindle, the reader is able to see how happy endings are represented today and the actions
that are the product of these thoughts.
As stated in the New York Times article, Whats Wrong With Cinderella by Peggy
Orenstein, Historically, princess worship has emerged during periods of uncertainty and
profound social change, and through these stories, we are able to gain an insight into the social
changes of 17th century Italy, 19th century Germany, and the present day. The role of women and
the idea of a happy ending are constantly changing throughout time, and this can be seen
through the unique genre that are fairy tales. In each time period, these ideas are reflected in
these stories and will only continue to evolve through different rhetorical situations.

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Works Cited
Fisher, Anita. Women in the Renaissance. HIST 252 handout. Clark College. Vancouver, WA.
n.d. Print.
Basile, Giovanni Battista. Il Pentamerone. Napoli: Porcelli, 1788. Print.
Castiglione, Baldassarre. The Book of the Courtier. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959. Print.
Cox, Tracey. "When Is the Right Time to Say 'I Love You'? Too Early and You Look Desperate,
Too Late and You Miss the Magic...(maybe Cheryl Should Have Held Off)." Mail
Online. Associated Newspapers, 30 July 2014. Web. 3 Nov. 2015.
Gaiman, Neil, and Chris Riddell. The Sleeper and the Spindle. New York: Bloomsbury, 2015.
Print.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. "Name of Story." The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the
Brothers Grimm. Trans. Jack Zipes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2014. Print.
"Historical Context for Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen." Www.college.columbia.edu.
Columbia University, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
Orenstein, Peggy. "Whats Wrong With Cinderella?" The New York Times. The New York
Times, 23 Dec. 2006. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.
Pugh, Martin. "The Women's Movement." The Women's Movement. History Today Ltd, 27 Mar.
1997. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.
Wood, Gaby. "Neil Gaiman on the Meaning of Fairy Tales." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media
Group, 20 Nov. 2015. Web. 3 Nov. 2015.
Zipes, Jack. "Introduction: Rediscovering the Original Tales of the Brothers Grimm." The
Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Trans. Jack Zipes. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton UP, 2014. Print.