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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 were centered around young princesses who were damsels of
distress, ready to be saved by an already doting prince they never met before. This may seem like
a familiar concept, but it also may not. Classic fairy tales may have used these conventions, but it
is evident in this day and age that 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 Little Snow-White and Sun, Moon, and
Talia are combined. This revamped fairy tale was originally published in 2014 and is about a
queen, who along with her 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, Little Snow-White and Sun, Moon, and Talia; it
takes classic fairy tale conventions such as true love and one-dimensional princesses and through
them, reflects the evolution of the perception of female gender roles and the idea of love.
Before we can look at The Sleeper and the Spindle, we have to look at the rhetorical
situations around which Little Snow-White and Sun, Moon, and Talia were written around,
and how this affected the conventions that will be discussed. Little Snow-White was written in
1812 by the Grimm Brothers in Germany in their collection of fairy tales, Children and
Household Tales. In Little Snow-White, 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

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multiple plans to try 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 in burning iron shoes to her death. Little SnowWhite 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, 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 (Zipes 6).
In comparison, Sun, Moon, and Talia had been written down by Giambattista Basile in
Italy almost 200 years prior to Little Snow-White 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
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 Little Snow-White 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. In Little
Snow-White, Little Snow-Whites mother is jealous of her beauty, kills Little Snow-White, and

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Little Snow-White is later saved by a prince who she lives happily with. In Sun, Moon, and
Talia, Talia is a beautiful young woman who is cursed, she gets saved by a king, and they live
happily ever after. 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.
Both of these stories were written in patriarchal societies where men had all the power,
and women were expected to be passive and nice. 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 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 had 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

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Talia, and comes back for her, there are 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. This was due
to the fact that women were seen as made for men to pleasure them, and this was their only role
in society.
Likewise, in Little Snow-White, Little Snow-White does not really do anything
substantial that leads her to her happy ending. She is valued only for her beauty, and it because
of this beauty that the huntsman doesnt kill her, the dwarves let her stay with them, and that the
prince takes her away with him. Little Snow-White actually keeps getting herself into trouble by
falling for the Queens tricks each time, 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.
However, when we move to the present day, we can see that this has radically changed.
In The Sleeper and the Spindle, the Queen herself 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
and wakes up the maiden. The Queen is also supposed to be getting married, but unlike in the
classic tales, she is already a queen when she is getting married and reassures the prince she is

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marrying that they will get married despite him being a prince. Throughout the book, 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, and her 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 coopting 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 in the United States, 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.
With the change of the female role in these stories also came the change of how people
think about love. In Little Snow-White 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 Little Snow-White, love is never
mentioned. Talia even calls her relationship with the King a friendship. What is mentioned in
the stories are closer descriptions to what we would call infatuation today. None of the nittygritty parts of relationships are mentioned, such as arguments or mutual respect, and the
relationships portrayed seem to be perfect.
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

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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.
Although the characters of these stories do end up getting married, thats where the story ends.
We never get to see the behind-the-scenes of these characters relationships with one another,
and we just know that they live happily ever after.
The ideas about love portrayed in The Sleeper and the Spindle are beliefs common and
prevalent in todays society. It is never mentioned if the Queen loves the Prince, and when she
heads off on her journey, 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, we are encouraged to marry people we love and are happy with. 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, we see how love is 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
how we view relationships in each time period are reflected in these stories and will only
continue to evolve through different rhetorical situations.

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Works Cited
Basile, Giovanni Battista. Il Pentamerone. Napoli: Porcelli, 1788. Print.
Castiglione, Baldassarre. The Book of the Courtier. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959. Print.
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.
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.
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.