Fairy Tales Final Paper

Richards Fairy Tales Final Paper 1 Jacquelyn Richards

Fairy Tales

3/26/14

Final Project (Rough Draft)

Han’s Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen has had many adaptations, both in film and theater, but one of the most notable may be Disney’s film, Frozen. Making its appearance in

November in 2013, the animated movie made a total of $66.7 million on its opening weekend alone (Buzz Feed Entertainment), and continues to earn money through merchandise and the recently now-released DVD. Frozen has gained praise for its departure from many Disney norms, and is indeed a good example of a fFairy Tales tale modified to meet cultural expectations and standards. Aside from parting from the original narrative of Hans Christian

Anderson’s Snow Queen, Frozen changes the tale to challenge the gender roles commonly found in fairy tales by undermining romance and transforming the villain into a remarkably relatable and likeable heroine.

The Snow Queen first appeared in Han’s Christian Anderson’s New Fairy Tales in 1845.

The tale begins with the description of a magic mirror created by the devil, which when looked upon would make everything and everyone reflected in it look hideous. A group of demons attempted to fly up to heaven with the mirror to make fun of the angels with it, but dropped it on the way up, causing it to shatter and spread around the world in tiny pieces. Two of the splinters found their way into the eye and heart of a little boy named Kay, whose best friend was a girl named Gerda. The glass in his eye made everything he saw appear ugly and flawed, while the glass in his heart began to turn it to ice, and made him become mean and nasty to Richards Fairy Tales Final Paper 2 Gerda. Seeing the flower garden they had been growing together as ugly and imperfect, he destroyed it, seeking instead the perfect form of falling snowflakes, the only thing he could see as beautiful. Kay is later on abducted by the Snow Queen, who takes him to her palace of ice and makes him forget all about Gerda and his family. Everyone assumes that Kay is now dead except Gerda, who goes on a long and difficult journey to rescue him and bring him home.

Inspired by this story was Disney’s Frozen, which spins the tale into a story of two sisters, Elsa and Anna, the former of which has powers to control the ice and snow. Fearing her powers, Elsa keeps them hidden from Anna and everyone else in the kingdom by keeping the castle gates closed at all times and isolating herself in her bedroom. After the death of the King and Queen, Elsa is crowned as new Queen, but an argument with Anna causes her to lose control of her emotions as well as her powers, revealing them to everyone in attendance and accidentally freezing the entire kingdom. Elsa flees to an isolated mountain, and Anna chases after her. Upon trying to get Elsa to return, Anna is accidentally struck by Elsa’s powers, freezing her heart. It is later revealed that the only way to thaw it is with an act of true love, or else she will turn to ice completely. Thereafter Anna, with the help of her friend Kristoff, must find a way to not only thaw the entire kingdom but her heart as well before time runs out.

It is well known that most (if not all) princess tales contain the element of romance or marriage. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel all have differing narratives, but at the end of the day, they are rewarded for their trials by getting to marry the prince and live “happily ever after.” Meanwhile, the men of fairy tales are rewarded with jewels and riches, and can live out their lives however they wish. Most traditional fairy tales portray this idea that women can only gain value through marriage (Deszcz, p28). In fact, Tatiana Korneeva, in an article Richards Fairy Tales Final Paper 3 discussing the sisters in Cinderella, noted that the patriarchal plots of fairy tales tend to define women “uniquely through their relationship with men.”

Not only do fairy tales make marriage the only purpose of women’s lives, but they also pit them against each other over the attention of men, as Fisher and Silber say in their article

“Good and Bad Beyond Belief” (p 121YEAR). The authors of this article talk about how females in fairy tales are extremely competitive and have no female friends, viewing every other woman as an enemy (121). They cannot relate to anyone they might view as competition, and “they must relinquish ties to other women so that all their energies can be harnessed in preparation for the fiercely competitive race toward men’s approval” (Fisher and, Silber , p130-131).

Korneeva in “Rival Sisters and Vengeance Motifs” analyzes the behavior and relationships between the sisters in different versions of Cinderella. She notes that the sisters are always competing with one another, and even Cinderella, who is kind and a lady, does her best to distinguish herself from her step-sisters through her personality (Korneeva). At the end of Mme d’Aulnouy’s version of the tale, Finnette Cedron, after marrying the prince Finette divides property between her parents and her new family with the prince. She allows herself and the prince to keep over 100 kingdoms for themselves, and then sends her sisters home to live with her parents, showing her sense of competition (Korneeva). Furthermore, Korneeva reminds readers of the fact that all three sisters were in love and trying to win the hand of the prince. She explains that this and similar motifs in other tales are the result of the ideals of the time. There was a strong focus on individuality, and young people were often seen as separate from and sometimes at odds with their families. This caused siblings (particularly those of the same gender) to distance themselves from each other. Korneeva says near the end of her Richards Fairy Tales Final Paper 4 article, “The social concerns about marriage and the imperative to find a husband often cause conflicts.”

Conflict between women can also be found in Snow White, especially between older and younger women, according to Gilbert and Gubar’s “Madwoman in the Attic.” In this book, the authors discuss several fairy tales, including Snow White. They comment on how the entire story focuses on the conflict between the old and young woman, both competitors for the affections of the magical mirror. They quote this as being a conflict between “mother and daughter, woman and woman, self and self” (Gilbert and Gubar). Indeed, fairy tales often do seem to pit young women against old, and the pure against the experienced, although every young woman does become old someday, and every pure one experienced. Fisher and Silber say that “The romance story, enshrined in fairty tales, divides girls from one another, from themselves, and from adult women.”

Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen is not explicitly a romance story (although one could interpret the relationship between Kay and Gerda as being romantic). However, traces of the culture that perpetuates the idea of women needing to compete and be married are still evident in the text. For example, in the fourth chapter of the story, Gerda comes to a castle in her search for Kay, where she meets a beautiful and clever princess. Gerda’s crow companion tells her all about this princess, who was one day singing a song that contained the words “why should I not be married?” As she sang these words, the princess decided right then that she should get married, and when she told her court ladies about it, they agreed and stated “we were just talking about that the other day.” Although the princess’ age is not mentioned in the story, Gerda at first mistakes the prince chosen by the princess as Kay, so the Richards Fairy Tales Final Paper 5 two of them must not have been much older than Kay and Gerda themselves, who are conveyed as “a little boy and a little girl.” Not only does this passage reinforce the notion of marriage at a young age, but also the imperative for women to marry.

As for female competition, The Snow Queen serves as a parallel to Snow White. In Snow

White, the protagonist is a young, innocent, pure, and childlike female, much like Gerda in the

Snow Queen. Also, in both stories the plot revolves around the conflict between the young innocent girl and her older, evil and inhuman antagonist. In Snow White this antagonist is the evil Queen, who attempts to murder Snow White so that she will be the fairest woman in the eyes of the magic mirror. The antagonist in the Snow Queen is none other than the Snow Queen herself, and though she does no direct harm to Gerda, she still creates conflict by kidnapping

Kay. Both in Snow White and The Snow Queen, the female protagonists and antagonists are competing for a male: Snow White and the Queen for the affections of the mirror and Gerda and the Snow Queen for Kay.

All female competition is removed in the Disney film Frozen, which also greatly undermines romance. To be sure, romance still exists in the film, but it is at a much smaller extent than other princess tales. In fact, the film even mocks fairy tale standards of romance: In the beginning of the movie, Anna, deprived of human affection (since her parents died and her sister keeps herself locked in her room) believes that she is in “true love” with Prince Hans, a man she meets the day of her sisters Coronation as queen. Later that day, Hans asks Anna to marry him, and which she accepts. The two ask for her sister the Queen’s blessing. Elsa is shocked and replies “You can’t marry a man you just met.” The ensuing argument is what causes Elsa to accidentally freeze the kingdom. Later on in the movie, Anna is on her way to find Richards Fairy Tales Final Paper 6 Elsa, with the assistance of her friend Kristoff, who asks what made Elsa lose control. Anna tells him about the argument, to which he responds “You mean to tell me you got engaged to someone you just met that day? Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to trust strangers?”

Later on in the movie, it is revealed that Hans has been playing Anna all along, and tries to kill both her and Elsa in order to gain control of their kingdom. This sends the message not to trust everyone you meet, which is quite ironic given the fact that a majority of Disney’s princess films have ended with a marriage to a man that the princess has known for less than a week.