Háskóli Íslands

1. Introduction The Grimms’ fairy tales have been popular in Western culture for generations. The Grimm brothers collected the fairy tales and published them in 1812 and 1814, in their book Children’s and Household Tales. Ever since, we have read these stories, we have seen film adaptions of them, and because the fairy tales are especially popular amongst children, we have seen our children even dress up as characters from them. Child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim suggests that one of the reasons for that popularity might be that children often wish they were princes or princesses and the fairy tales provide an environment filled with kings and queens (205). This exciting environment stirs children’s imagination, offering them the opportunity to fantasize about this magical world and playing out fairy tale scenarios. The fairy tales recorded by the Brothers Grimm share some similar motifs which reoccur throughout the stories. Marriage and happy ending are common themes, along with stereotypical representations of women: including the evil witch and the innocent good girl. In addition, these stories make a good example of socialization. They provide female role models who constitute acceptable versions of what is considered to be “feminine”, legitimate feminine goals and aspirations (Barry ch. 6). The fairy tales of “Little Snow-White”, “Little Red-Cap”, “Cinderella”, “Hansel and Grethel”, and “Briar-Rose”, all include some of these elements which are products of a patriarchal society. The protagonist is usually a beautiful girl who has “feminine” qualities: she is a good, innocent, selfless girl who puts others’ needs in front of her own. She is childlike, she does not believe in evil and does not wish harm upon others. As an opposite, the antagonist is an unacceptable version of “feminine”, an evil woman who is very selfish, filled with hatred, and her only goal in life is to sabotage the heroines’ goals. After the protagonist has overcome obstacles, the fairy tale usually ends with the heroine marrying a handsome prince she barely knows, who determines her ultimate social position, happiness, and fulfilment in life; or, her lack of these (Barry ch. 6). The Grimm brothers have been criticized for introducing messages, motivations, judgments, and morals to their stories according to values and pedagogical demands of their time (Tatar 28). They emphasize the virtue of hard work in their stories, and connect it with beauty and desirability as much as possible as a result of their preconceived notions of sex and class (Tatar 29-30). In that way, the fairy tales are didactic. They teach their young readers the “appropriate” way of behaving, especially young girls. This essay offers a feminist reading of the fairy tales of “Little Snow-White”, “Cinderella”, “Hansel and Grethel”, “Little Red-Cap”, and “Briar-Rose” by the brothers Grimm; how the stories demonstrate women as victims of patriarchy by examining the Grimms’ representation and objectification of women; and by showing the extent of patriarchy that women are exposed to. I will be using Margaret Hunt’s translation of the original Household Tales by Brothers Grimm from 1884. Secondary sources include the groundbreaking book, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim, a psychoanalyst who uses Freudian psychoanalysis to analyze the fairy tales, Madonna Kolbenschlag’s Kiss Sleeping Beauty Good-Bye: Breaking the Spell of Feminine Myths and Models, for her feminist critique of a few fairy tales, and folklore specialist Maria Tatar’s The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales, along with some articles about fairy tales and feminism. Since I am working with the Brothers Grimm edition, I will use their version of the characters’ names, but when quoting someone else directly, I will follow their chosen convention.

2. The Evil Stepmother: the Wicked Witch The motif of the evil stepmother and the one of the wicked witch can be found in many of the Grimms’ fairy tales. The fairy tale antagonist is usually a female, who wishes the young female protagonist nothing but harm and wants to kill her. In fact, female friendships in fairy tales do not exist. The heroine never has a close, loyal, female friend, only female enemies. According to Madonna Kolbenschlag, fairy tales have taught us that “relationships between women are destined to be insignificant, inconsistent, shallow, and insincere”, and as a consequence, women have been taught that this does not apply to men and that they are easier to get along with (41). Thus, women are “trapped into functioning as individual support systems for male enterprises and networks” (Kolbenschlag 41-42). Furthermore, women become even more vulnerable to male exploitation when female relationships are insignificant. They cannot seek help from other women and need to rely on men. More often than not, the female fairy tale villain is the heroine’s stepmother. When the protagonist only has one parent alive, it is most often the father. Sylvia Henneberg points out that this is the case with Snow-White, Hansel and Grethel, and Cinderella, who all keep their fathers but their mothers are replaced by evil stepmothers (127). However, many critics argue that these heroines’ birth mothers do not die at all. Rather, they transform into evil stepmothers at some point: notably when Snow-White, Grethel, and Cinderella reach their “prime” and begin to threaten their mothers with their youth and beauty. Henneberg discusses Barbara Thaden’s ideas about the dead mother plot: that it may be a feminist necessity.

Since a long tradition of patriarchal oppression has transformed the adult woman into a weak role model who has the potential to transmit her own victimization to the next generation, she must die to allow her daughters to break free from received patterns of womanhood and develop as individuals. (qtd. in Henneberg 127)

In that way, the dead mother plot undermines the mother figure as she is an obstacle for feminist and patriarchal influence contenders (Henneberg 127). However, the heroine’s father is usually absent or does not try to prevent the evil stepmother from hurting his child. According to Thaden, this lack of nurturing

3 parental figures in the fairy tales stems from sexism and ageism, and might also be characterized as a general anxiety of female influence. Youth is preferred over old age: female youth in particular. Therefore, Henneberg argues, the antagonist is usually an older woman rather than a young one. Moreover, women who are given the right to live in the fairy tales are cast in stereotypical roles such as the selfish, evil crone; the good, self-sacrificial woman; or the ineffectual or demented grandmother (126). Young girls are essentially good and pure, but as they grow older, their pureness fades and they increasingly display characteristics which are common character traits among antagonists: narcissism, cruelty, and more. As an example, Snow-White might be a good girl in the beginning, but she will gradually turn into a villain over time. Fairy tales thus fail to reflect the reality of aging as they are “thinly veiled expressions of our culture’s anxiety of aging, a burden all too often squarely placed on the shoulders of women” (Henneberg 132). In his analysis of the effects of fairy tales on children, The Uses of Enchantment, Austrian-born American psychologist Bruno Bettelheim claims that the frequent appearance of a weak father figure suggests that wife-dominated husbands create uncontrollable difficulties for the children, and do not help to solve them. The reason why the stepmother is depicted as evil and rejecting, while the father is depicted as ineffectual and weak, relates to a child’s expectation of her parents: a father’s duty is to protect his child from dangers of the outside world, while a mother’s duty is to provide nurturing care and meet her child’s needs. Thus, when a mother fails her child, the child’s life is in danger, as is evident in “Little Snow- White” and “Hansel and Grethel”. However, when the weak father neglects his obligations of protecting his child, she must fend for herself. Bettelheim also argues that if the child is deprived of loving care by one or both parents, she cannot identify with them: a girl who cannot form a positive identification with her mother gets stuck in oedipal conflicts, and regression sets in (206). While Bettelheim’s Freudian theories are relatable and useful on some levels, his writings are tainted by patriarchal attitudes and he has been criticized for failing to look at the fairy tales from a feminist view point. The struggle between the Queen and Snow-White, according to Bettelheim, is a feminized Oedipal one (207). This fairy tale is essentially about the relationship between a stepmother and her stepdaughter who are competing against each other for the affection of Snow-White’s father. Bettelheim notes that the Queen does not turn

4 into the typical evil stepmother until Snow-White has matured and reached the age of seven, which is when the Queen begins to feel threatened by Snow-White and becomes jealous of her. The Queen’s obsession with the mirror is linked with narcissism, as she is constantly seeking reassurance about her beauty and thus herself (Bettelheim 202). Her lack of self-confidence is also an example of the patriarchal attitude that women need approval and acceptance from men about their appearance. Furthermore, the feminist critics Gilbert and Gubar claim that Snow-White’s mother, the Queen, does not die at childbirth: rather, she metamorphoses into a witch after having become a mother and having taken control over her own sexuality (37). The characters of Snow-White and the Queen are complete opposites. Snow-White is considered as “feminine” and is represented as an angel: young and fair, sweet, ignorant, and passive. As a foil, the Queen is represented as “unfeminine”, a monster. Although she is also fair, she is older than Snow-White and therefore not as beautiful. In addition, she is fiercer, more artful, more active, and of course, a witch (Gilbert and Gubar 36). While Snow-White is a heroine who leads a life that has no story, the older and demonic Queen wants a more eventful life, a life of stories and story-telling, which strengthens her “unfeminine” qualities even further (Gilbert and Gubar 39). When the Queen finds out that Snow-White has become fairer than she is, she is shocked and jealous, and “from that hour, whenever she looked at Snow-White, her heart heaved in her breast, she hated the girl so much” (Grimm “Little Snow-White). One of the reasons why the Queen hates Snow-White so passionately is that “female bonding is extraordinarily difficult in patriarchy: women almost inevitably turn against women because the voice of the looking glass sets them against each other” (Gilbert and Gubar 38). The magical mirror is voiced by the King, the patriarchy, who drives the Queen’s rage and madness. It is he who determines who is the fairest of them all and makes her want to kill and replace the “more beautiful still” Snow- White. The Queen is jealous of young Snow-White because of what she represents, and what the Queen has already renounced when giving birth to her: innocence, passivity, selflessness, and purity (Gilbert and Gubar 38). Therefore, the moral of “Little Snow-White” is that uncontrolled passion must be restrained or it will become one’s undoing (Bettelheim 214). Comparably, the stepmother in “Hansel and Grethel” is evil and vile. It is her idea to desert Hansel and Grethel deep in the woods, during hard times of famine. The stepmother seems to have a tight hold on Hansel and Grethel’s weak father as he does

5 not dare stand up for his children and disobey her. She feels no love towards Hansel and Grethel, only resentment, and frequently calls them fools, sluggards, and simpletons (Grimm “Hansel and Grethel”). While the evil stepmother in “Little Snow- White” is destructive and driven by jealousy, the evil stepmother, and actually women in general in “Hansel and Grethel”, are also destructive but driven by greed as well. The wicked witch is greedy for the children’s flesh and wants to eat them. Grethel is greedy for the bread house and the witch’s jewelry, and kills the witch. Last but not least, the evil stepmother is greedy for food and wants to get rid of the children in order to get more for herself. Similar to the evil stepmother in “Little Snow-White”, it is very possible that Hansel and Grethel’s birth mother, their evil stepmother, and the wicked witch are in fact the same person: she is Hansel and Grethel’s birth mother who “reemerges in the woods as a false provider, as a cannibalistic fiend masquerading as a magnanimous mother” (Tatar 72). Moreover, Henneberg claims that the evil witch assumes the role of the absent birth mother, “as it enacts two literary matricides as a means to create a space in which the cultural script of the old woman as despicable threatening influence can be rehearsed and reified before she, in turn, must die” (129). Evidence for this argument can be found in the story: the (step)mother gives the children only a small piece of bread before deserting them in the woods, hoping they will stumble upon the witch’s bread house. Being a witch, she is able to disguise herself, as she does when she deceives Hansel and Grethel into thinking she is a kind, old woman. Finally, when Hansel and Grethel return home to their father, they learn that their cruel stepmother is dead although it is not stated when or how she died. Thus, Grethel kills her own mother when she pushes the witch into the oven. The evil stepmother and the cruel stepsisters in “Cinderella” are perhaps among the best known antagonists in children’s literature. According to Bettelheim, this fairy tale is about “the agonies of sibling rivalry, of wishes coming true, of the humble being elevated, of true merit being recognized even when hidden under rags, of virtue rewarded and evil punished” (239). While Cinderella’s interests are sacrificed to her stepsisters by her stepmother, she is also pushed down and degraded by them all and is expected to do the dirtiest work around the house. She receives no credit or thanks for anything she does, although she performs the chores well (Bettelheim 239). The stepsisters are described as being “beautiful and fair of face, but vile and black of heart” (Grimm “Cinderella”). Their beauty does not match their

6 inner worth. Their abusive relationship is built on the stepmother and sisters claiming more and wanting more of Cinderella, and her obeying them without a word. The stepsisters are supposedly jealous of Cinderella and make her suffer because of it. Because a woman’s only goal in life is to find a man and marry, the stepsisters are desperate and willing to do whatever it takes to marry the prince, even mutilating their own feet. The stepmother urges her own daughters to cut off parts of their feet, namely a big toe and a part of a heel, because as queens, they will not have to walk anywhere anymore (Grimm “Cinderella”). Their mutilation is thus a sacrifice for marriage: they must sacrifice parts of their body to achieve their ultimate goal, which is to marry, become housewives, and have children. Bettelheim notes that the sisters’ mutilation is the final barrier to Cinderella’s happy ending because it precedes the prince’s finding Cinderella. With help from their mother, the stepsisters try to cheat Cinderella out of what rightly belongs to her for the last time. As a contrast, Cinderella would never do such things because she does not wish to gain happiness through anything but her true self (Bettelheim 267). In the end, the sisters get punished for their falsehood, not only by the mutilation but also by blindness after a bird picks out their eyes, “and thus for their wickedness and falsehood they were punished with blindness for the rest of their days” (Grimm “Cinderella”). This is a symbolic statement of their blindness in believing they could promote themselves by degrading others and putting their trust in outward appearances (Bettelheim 273). In the end, the destructive, wicked antagonist must suffer a most painful death for the protagonist to be happy and get her happy ending with the prince. Forgiveness is not an option, because the protagonist’s humiliation and helplessness must be revenged. The villain’s punishment is usually described in much greater detail than the good fortune of the hero: Cinderella’s wedding is almost wholly devoted to the description of the doves picking out her stepsisters’ eyes, and the only central event in Snow-White’s wedding is her stepmother’s dance to death (Tatar 181). Symbolized by the fiery red shoes and the silent but painful act of dancing, the untrammeled sexual jealousy of the Queen destroys itself (Bettelheim 214). The wicked witch in “Hansel and Grethel” is punished for her cannibalistic desires by being burned in the oven. Lastly, the stepsisters in “Cinderella” mutilate their own feet and become blind after Cinderella’s bird friends pick out their eyes in revenge. This story is somewhat different from the other Grimms’ fairy tales in that the evil stepmother is accompanied by the evil stepsisters, who fully participate in Cinderella’s mistreatment

7 and abuse. However, the evil stepmother does not have to pay for her deeds for Cinderella to achieve happiness, although she is just as cruel to Cinderella as the stepsisters who are punished accordingly. Thus, the fairy tale implies that the stepmother’s abuse of Cinderella is somehow deserved, but not that by the stepsisters (Bettelheim 247). Tatar claims that when the heroine has completed the tasks assigned to her, or when she has returned from the dead, she has succeeded in reversing the effects of her stepmother’s villainy and the process of disenchantment is complete. The fairy tale’s description of the stepmother’s tortured death in graphic detail emphasizes the end of her reign of terror, making sure she dies both in body and spirit, and that she will no longer be a threat to the newlyweds (147). In this patriarchal environment, women are inferior and should not display agressive behavior or they will receive punishment.

3. The Innocent Heroine: the Angel in the House As mentioned above, the female protagonist in the Grimms’ fairy tales is stereotypically represented as an angel. She is always beautiful and displays virtues meant for teaching young girls the right way to behave, namely innocence, diligence, selflessness, and passivity. Maria Tatar notes that the female protagonist is tested in her knowledge of domestic skills, which includes tasks that she needs to finish without help, before meeting her prince. She is placed in humble and demeaning circumstances and must not display humility. If the heroine succeeds in escaping oppression at home, she goes on a journey which ends with her in a new place of domestic drudgery, where she shall continue to work quietly (Tatar 116). This is true for Snow-White and Cinderella, who quietly adhere to domestication of themselves throughout their stories. Snow-White is a classic example of the good and innocent heroine. Being docile, dutiful, submissive, and selfless, her qualities make her a good role model. These same qualities save Snow-White’s life when the huntsman takes her out into the forest to kill her. He decides to let Snow-White live because she is a beautiful, good girl. However, her innocence and naivety also put her in danger as she believes in no evil and lets herself to be tempted and fooled by the Queen: not only once, but three times. When the Queen tempts Snow-White with the beautiful laces, the comb, and the apple, Snow-White demonstrates a hint of self-interest for the first time in the story when she gives in to her longings for these “feminine” objects. Snow-White’s interest in these things and the fact that she is willing to sacrifice her own life for them, despite the dwarfs’ warnings, is a typical patriarchal representation of a woman: the assumption that she wishes to be fashionable. Furthermore, Madonna Kolbenschlag claims that Snow-White lets herself be tempted by the Queen because she, too, is insecure about her appearance: she is worried about “who is the fairest of them all” (55). While the Queen expects to benefit from Snow-White’s apparent death and finally to be the fairest of all, her tricks turn out to have the opposite effect. As she lies in the glass coffin, Snow-White’s passivity is strengthened and she has become an eternally beautiful, inanimate object for others, mainly men, to admire (Gilbert and Gubar 40). Unless she is willing to cook, make beds, wash, sew, knit, and clean for them, the seven dwarfs will not let Snow-White stay with them. But if she is willing to

9 conform to the role of a housewife, or a servant, she can stay and “have everything she wants”. Thus, Snow-White’s living with the dwarfs “is an important part of her education in submissive femininity, for in serving them she learns essential lessons of service, of selflessness, of domesticity” (Gilbert and Gubar 295). She learns how to be a good housewife for her future prince, and it is not until after she has been educated in housekeeping that the prince meets her and wants to marry her. It is possible that the most famous innocent heroine of the Grimms’ fairy tales is Cinderella, as her innocence is stressed throughout the story and her virtue is perfect (Bettelheim 246). She has a kind heart, she is very selfless, and she silently obeys her stepmother’s and sisters’ orders, accepting their abuse and domestication of her. The stepmother makes Cinderella wear an ugly, old frock, and lie among the ashes when she is finished with her work. Cinderella’s lying in the ashes might be a symbol of her degradation on one hand, and a symbol of her innocence, purity, nurturance, empathy, and docility on the other (Kolbenschlag 73). Her place among the ashes also further strengthens her status as a member of a lower class, a slave, as opposed to other family members. According to Kolbenschlag, Cinderella must learn from her mistreatment and domestication in order to prepare herself for her “real” life with the prince (73). Her “willing acceptance of a condition of worthlessness and her expectation of rescue (as a reward for her virtuous suffering) is a recognizable paradigm of traditional feminine socialization” (72). Similar to Snow-White, Cinderella is being prepared to become a hard working housewife. She should complete tasks around the house without complaining. Thus, Cinderella works her way up the social ladder by working hard and looking good (Tatar 223). Women should accept to be victims, like Cinderella, and wait patiently for men to rescue them. Unlike her stepsisters, Cinderella is not materialistic. She does not care about appearances or fancy clothing. This is demonstrated in her act of selflessness when she asks her father for only a twig to plant on her mother’s grave, while her sisters insist on having beautiful dresses and fancy jewelry. Later, when Cinderella desperately wants to go to the king’s feast where the prince shall find himself a wife, she begs her stepmother for approval. The stepmother in turn plays an evil trick on her: she empties a dish of lentils into the ashes, not once but twice, and gives Cinderella a short time to pick them out. If she succeeds, she can go to the feast (Grimm “Cinderella”). This task is one of the impossible tasks which heroines in fairy

10 tales must finish: hard and difficult tasks must be well performed before Cinderella can have her happy ending (Bettelheim 260-261). It teaches young girls that girls and women in general must work hard in order to achieve happiness. Cinderella gets help from her bird friends and finishes these tasks in time, but the stepmother breaks her promise and does not allow her to go to the feast. Still, Cinderella decides to go in spite of her stepmother’s disapproval. She meets the prince but escapes him on her way home. Cinderella leaves her slipper and the prince promises to find her, because he shall take none other for his wife than the one whose foot fits into the slipper (Grimm “Cinderella”). Instead of telling the prince the truth about her identity right away, Cinderella is patient and rather waits for the prince to choose her and save her. She is not aggressive like her stepsisters (Bettelheim 270). As opposed to the stepsisters’ big and masculine feet, Cinderella’s small feet make her especially feminine and therefore more desirable (Bettelheim 268). Because Cinderella has petite feet which are a perfect fit for the shoes, the prince is willing to share his kingdom with her. In that way, the shoe is a symbol of “that which is most desirable in a woman”: it represents sexual bondage, imprisonment, and on another level, it is a symbol of power with its restrictions and demands for conformity (Kolbenschlag 74- 75). The moral lessons of the story are fairly obvious. The appearance of a person does not tell anything about their inner worth and, as in all fairy tales, virtue will be rewarded and evil punished (Bettelheim 273). In his essay on “The Philosophy of Composition” from 1842, the famous poet Edgar Allan Poe asserts that “the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world” (201). Poe’s opinion was quite popular among poets and writers at the time, who often wrote poems and stories about beautiful dead or dead-like women. This view is evident in some of the Grimm’s fairy tales, although the brothers Grimm only collected the tales and edited them slightly. The beautiful heroines in “Little Snow-White” and “Briar-Rose” become even more beautiful when they fall asleep, seemingly dead. In fact, Briar-Rose, or Sleeping Beauty, might be the ultimate representation of the innocent and passive heroine in the Grimms’ fairy tales because of her hundred years’ sleep. Like Snow-White, Briar- Rose’s passivity and beauty is strengthened as she lies sleeping and lifeless in her bed for all those years. Briar-Rose does not age when she sleeps, and therefore her beauty grows over time instead of diminishing: she is the “incarnation of perfect femininity” (Bettelheim 236). Briar-Rose’s beauty is much stressed throughout the story. When

11 she is born, she “was so pretty that the King could not contain himself for joy” (Grimm “Briar-Rose”). Of course, she has all the qualities a good girl should have: “so beautiful, modest, good-natured, and wise, that everyone who saw her was bound to love her”. According to Kolbenschlag, Briar-Rose is not only a symbol of passivity, but also “a metaphor for the spiritual condition of women - cut off from autonomy and transcendence, from self-actualization and ethical capacity in a male-dominated milieu” (5). Bettelheim argues that the fairy tale of Briar-Rose is a parable of menstruation and sexual awakening. When Briar-Rose pricks her finger, she becomes overwhelmed with seeing the blood and falls into a long and deep sleep. Her sleep is “a time of quiet growth and preparation, from which the person will awaken mature, ready for sexual union” (232). Therefore, the central theme of the fairy tale is this period of passivity needed for successful growth during adolescence (225). Another well known “good” heroine is Little Red-Cap, commonly known as Little Red Riding Hood. She is a young, innocent, and dutiful girl who is loved by everyone who looks at her (Grimm “Little Red-Cap“). Before sending Red-Cap to her grandmother, her mother instructs her to behave and present herself in a proper feminine fashion: to “walk nicely and quietly”, and not forget to bid her grandmother good morning. She should be polite and behave accordingly, as a good girl would do. Although her mother also warns her not to stray from the road, Red-Cap does so after a brief conversation with the wolf. She longs for independence and to break away from the patriarchal society which tells her to stay on the road. However, Red-Cap ultimately gets punished for her misbehavior when the wolf swallows her up. Bettelheim has argued that sexuality is subtly implied in the story, namely by the wolf’s seduction of Red-Cap, and by the fact that she does not know how dangerous it is to give in to her desires (176). When she takes advice from the wolf and strays from the path her mother has outlined for her, Red-Cap encounters “badness” (Bettelheim 176-177). Because she gives in to her desires, the story can be viewed as a parable of rape: she apparently invites the predator to rape and kill her. After she has been “revived”, Red-Cap thinks to herself in the end, “As long as I live, I will never by myself leave the path, to run into the wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so” (Grimm “Little Red-Cap”). Therefore, the moral of the story is clear and simple: young girls should be good and obedient, listen to orders and instructions from authority, and not stray off the road or they will be punished accordingly. The story

12 thus justifies patriarchal limitations of women’s behavior and warns against female transgression. Finally, Grethel from “Hansel and Grethel” falls into the “good girl” category. She is helpless and, like other heroines, she relies on a man for support and safety: her brother Hansel. Even though sibling solidarity is very rare in fairy tales, Grethel loves her brother very dearly and they share a beautiful relationship. The friendship between the two is only possible because they are not of the same sex (Tatar 209). If Grethel had a sister, they would not have been as close, since female bonding is impossible in fairy tales. When problems arise, Grethel cries and Hansel takes on the role of the leader, or, the savior. It is his idea to use pebbles and breadcrumbs to lead their way out of the forest and back to their home, while Grethel is passive and simply does what she is told, following Hansel’s lead. Like Snow-White and Cinderella, Grethel undergoes training in housekeeping when the witch makes Grethel her own slave, making her fetch water and cook “the best food” for her brother to make him fat (Grimm “Hansel and Grethel”). However, when Hansel is locked up in a cage, Grethel cannot rely on him anymore and must take matters into her own hands. She saves her brother by tricking the witch into the oven and killing her. Bettelheim notes that Grethel is an example of how a female can both be a rescuer and a destroyer in a story, when she saves Hansel from the witch but destroys the witch in doing so (164). Because Hansel is the man and the savior, Grethel needs to be the one that does the killing: being female, she cannot only be the one who rescues them both. Rather, she must also be the one who kills someone. Grethel’s short leadership ends as soon as she has freed Hansel from the cage, as he immediately re-assumes control over the situation and orders Grethel to fill her pockets with jewelry before they hurry out of the forest. Grethel’s dependence on Hansel strengthens the patriarchal view that women are unable to think for themselves and that they must lean on men for support.

4. The Benevolent Huntsman: the Male Savior Since it is a common belief in the Grimms’ fairy tales that women are powerless and cannot save themselves, they must be saved by a male savior: more often than not a benevolent huntsman. Rescuing male characters are often cast in the role of hunters in fairy tales because hunting is a typical masculine occupation, which was an aristocratic privilege during the 1800s. However, the hunter in the fairy tales does not kill friendly creatures. His role is to dominate, control, and subdue wild beasts. Thus, the huntsman is seen as a symbol of protection (Bettelheim 204-205). He protects the heroine from dangers of the outside world. Many critics therefore argue that both huntsmen in “Little Snow-White” and “Little Red-Cap” are unconscious representations of the protagonists’ fathers. The huntsman in “Little Snow-White” is ordered by the Queen to kill Snow- White but saves her life instead, demonstrating a suitable image of a strong and protective father figure. Bettelheim notes that none other but a father substitute would dare go against the Queen’s will. Although the huntsman does not kill Snow-White, he does not take a strong stand against the Queen either. He tries to appease them both by not obeying the Queen’s orders entirely and by not making sure Snow-White is completely safe. He does not shoot Snow-White but leaves her in the woods for the wild animals to kill her (Bettelheim 206). Besides, Gilbert and Gubar claim that by ordering the huntsman to kill Snow-White, the Queen has asked her patriarchal master to do the subversive deed she wants to do in order to retain power over him and to steal his power from him. Of course, the huntsman cannot sacrifice his power to her and spares Snow-White’s life (39). Both Snow-White and the Queen rely on men for help and they are unable to make their own decisions. Likewise, the huntsman in “Little Red-Cap” has the same qualities as the huntsman in “Little Snow-White”: he is essentially the responsible, strong, and rescuing father figure (Bettelheim 172). He emerges from the woods, senses there is something wrong in grandmother’s house, and finds the wolf lying asleep in her bed. Rather than shooting the wolf out of anger, as his immediate reaction is on seeing the wolf in grandmother’s bed, the huntsman cuts it open in order to rescue Red-Cap and her grandmother. Unlike Red-Cap, the huntsman is able to restrain himself and does not allow his emotions to control him. After the wolf is dead, the huntsman skins the wolf and goes home with it. His work is done and he supposedly never sees Red-Cap

14 or grandmother again, as Rachel Prokopious points out: “Little Red Cap’s need for her father figure reverts from savior to the cultural role fathers hold as the family’s breadwinner, causing the huntsman to vanish completely from her everyday life” (48). Nevertheless, the huntsman has had a lasting effect on Red-Cap’s life as she makes a promise to herself that she will always listen to her mother and never disobey her again (Grimm “Little Red-Cap”). The mistakes Red-Cap makes in the story hint at her lack of education (Prokopious 50). Red-Cap tells the wolf the exact location of her grandmother’s house only moments after having met him, even though he is a complete stranger, and lets him distract her. The fact that Red-Cap does not seem to know that she should not speak to strangers, let alone disclose address information to them, suggests that her mother has not taught her so. This lack of knowledge is thus due to her lack of a physical father figure. It is not until after the huntsman has protected Red-Cap and saved her from the wolf’s stomach that she learns these moral values, and how to protect herself by killing the wolf (Prokopious 51). Red-Cap’s mother is unable to teach her daughter some common sense and how to protect herself, something she must learn from her father. Thus, as a father figure, the huntsman has taught Red-Cap right from wrong, thereby reinforcing patriarchal control over women. Furthermore, Prokopious notes that Red-Cap might not even have ended up in the wolf’s belly in the first place had the huntsman, her father, been present in her life. If so, she might have obeyed her mother but because she disobeyed, Red-Cap got eaten by the wolf, “a consequence caused by the inability of a father-figure to convey moral standards to her through his physical example” (Prokopious 49). Bettelheim argues that the hunter is attractive to the reader because he rescues the good and punishes the bad, while displaying acts of violence to serve the more social purpose in rescuing the powerless women (177). The idea of the huntsman thus strengthens the gender ideology that promotes women’s passivity and, as a contrast, men’s activity: men are those who take actions in the story while women can only depend on men. Men are essentially strong and women are essentially weak.

5. The Prince Charming and Happily Ever After A typical Grimm fairy tale ends with the words, “...and they lived happily ever after”. The heroine has overcome obstacles, met her prince charming, married him, and will now supposedly live “happily ever after”. After all, women’s only goal in the fairy tales is to find a man to marry and become a housewife. The marriage partner is always a wealthy prince. Bettelheim notes that in fairy tales where the heroine marries prince charming, the prince demonstrates his love for his future bride in some way to make sure the reader knows his feelings. However, the reader knows nothing about the heroine’s feelings. It seems as if the Grimm brothers deliberately avoid stating that the heroine is in fact in love with the prince. The prince falls in love with the protagonist solely because of her imminent beauty, a symbol of her perfection, regardless of her inner worth. The prince must become active and prove that he is worthy of the woman he loves, as opposed to the heroine’s passive acceptance of being loved. Although the fairy tales of Snow-White and Cinderella end with “happily ever after”, nothing is said about their life after they have married. The reader does not know whether they will indeed live happily ever after with their partner (Bettelheim 277-278). The reader is not introduced to the prince in “Little Snow-White” until he comes forth and sees Snow-White seemingly dead in her glass coffin upon the hill. He instantly falls in love with her because of her beauty and bluntly declares that he sees Snow-White only as an object. When the prince notices Snow-White upon the hill, he begs the seven dwarfs to give “it” to him: not “her”, “for I cannot live without seeing Snow-White. I will honor and prize her as my dearest possession” (Grimm “Little Snow-White”). The prince sees her for nothing else but his possession, a prop to be admired in his castle. Thus, she will be the perfect candidate for Queen as she lies there beautiful and lifeless, an idealized image of herself (Gilbert and Gubar 41). However, it does not seem to matter whether Snow-White loves the prince or not. It is only stated that she “feels friendly” towards the man who revives her. Her being the fairest of all, she marries the most powerful of all (Gilbert and Gubar 42). Although the dwarfs save Snow-White’s life two times, they ultimately fail to save her for the third time because help “must come from beyond, from a transcendent force”: namely, the prince. The dwarfs are rather indicators of death than life savers (Kolbenschlag 37). When Snow-White has been brought back to life, the prince

16 orders her to come with him to his father’s castle where she shall become his wife. It is a command rather than a proposal, one she cannot deny. Snow-White’s housewife training and education is now complete and she has become an eligible woman to marry. She is ready to become an obedient housewife for the rest of her life. Because Briar-Rose is exceptionally beautiful, many princes find her desirable and are willing to risk their own lives in order to achieve her. But it is impossible to get through the thorny hedge which surrounds her castle and many princes have died miserable deaths when trying to. Yet when the one and only “king’s son” comes to rescue Briar-Rose, the hundred years have just passed and the thorns turn into beautiful flowers which let him pass unhurt. Bettelheim claims that only when Briar- Rose has finally gained both physical and emotional maturity and is ready for love, sex, and marriage, the thorns turn into flowers and the prince is able to reach her (233). The prince finds Briar-Rose sleeping and cannot turn his eyes away because of her beauty. Briar-Rose does not wake up until the prince kisses her. Thus, he has power over her life and it is only because of him and his kiss that she awakens. The kiss also awakens Briar-Rose’s womanhood which was undeveloped up to then. Life can only go on if the maiden grows into a woman (Bettelheim 234). However, the reader knows nothing about Briar-Rose’s feelings towards the prince, other than that she looks at him “quite sweetly” after he has brought her back to life. Immediately after he has kissed her the kiss of life, they marry, and the tale ends thus, “And then the marriage of the King’s son with Briar-Rose was celebrated with all splendor, and they lived contented to the end of their days” (Grimm “Briar-Rose”). Because the prince has come all this way to save Briar-Rose‘s life, she is bound to marry him and give him the happy life he deserves. While it is clear that the prince in “Cinderella” is very fond of Cinderella, nothing is stated about her feelings for him. It can only be assumed that Cinderella does have some feelings for the prince, since she goes to the feast three times in order to meet him. The prince wants to dance with her exclusively all three evenings and does not let anybody else near her, for she is his and his only. The prince is attracted to Cinderella’s beauty and he sees her as a possession. He wishes to escort her home “to see whom the beautiful maiden belonged” (Grimm “Cinderella”). But each night, Cinderella escapes the prince on their way back home. Kolbenschlag argues that Cinderella’s escaping the prince is due to her obedience and obligation towards her family members: “If the heroine does not return to domesticity and docility at regular

17 intervals she may lose her ‘virtue’ and no longer merit her expected one”, and that “too much time spent ‘abroad’ may result in indiscreet sex or unseemly humbris, or both” (74). In that way, Cinderella’s running away makes her even more desirable to the prince, hinting at her virtue and virginity. On the other hand, Bettelheim claims that Cinderella escapes the prince because she wants to be chosen for the person she really is, not for her glamorous appearance, because “only if her lover has seen her in her degraded state and still desires her will she be his” (264). Cinderella refuses to be chosen as a wife on the basis of an appearance created by magic and makes sure the prince has to see her and recognize her in her old, ugly frock (Bettelheim 267). She wants him to love her and want her for who she truly is. However, the prince does not notice Cinderella or recognize her until she has tried the fancy slipper on, which fits her perfectly. Only then does he look at her face and realize she is the girl he has been looking for. The prince is materialistic and only cares about appearances, not about a person’s inner worth. In the end, the prince takes Cinderella on his horse, rides away with her, and they marry. Maria Tatar states that although the fairy tale ends with a happy couple, the fate of a single character is at stake as the tale unfolds. The female protagonist must undergo many humiliations in the fairy tale: she must let herself be humiliated and degraded by others in order to gain her happy ending. (Tatar 92). As a result, Snow- White and Cinderella are examples of “victimized female heroines who rise to or return to the ranks of royalty once they have been humbled and humiliated”: they “undergo a process of humiliation and defeat that ends with a rapid rise in social status through marriage but that also signals a loss of pride and the abdication of power” (Tatar 94-95). As a contrast, the male heroes demonstrate meekness and humility that make them qualified for wealth, power, happiness, and a wife (Tatar 95). The feelings of the female heroine plainly do not matter. Thus, through prince charming and marriage, Snow-White, Cinderella, and Briar-Rose are saved from evil. Women must evidently be rescued by the patriarchy.

6. Conclusion A feminist analysis of the Brothers Grimms’ fairy tales reveals that women are objectified and that they are victims of patriarchy. Feminine socialization is evident in the stories, as the heroines from “Little Snow-White”, “Cinderella”, “Little Red-Cap”, “Hansel & Grethel”, and “Briar-Rose” clearly demonstrate. They are all examples of female role models meant for teaching young readers the acceptable version of “feminine”, and how girls should behave. Passivity, virtue, innocence, obedience, and diligence is rewarded, while dependence, aggressiveness, jealousy, and narcissism is punished. Women are cast in stereotypical “feminine” roles, namely the good girl and the evil witch. The fairy tale antagonist is almost always a female character: if someone needs to be evil, it falls into the hands of a woman. In the end, when the villain has tried to sabotage the heroine’s life, she needs to pay for her deeds and suffer a painful death before the heroine can have her happy ending. It is a common belief in the Grimms’ fairy tales that women are helpless and need to rely on men. They must be rescued by the patriarchy: the male savior. The benevolent huntsman is often cast in the role of this male savior, hence the huntsmen in the fairy tales of “Little Snow-White” and “Little Red-Cap”. As a strong man who kills wild beasts for a living, he acts as a protector and saves their lives. Furthermore, it can be argued that the huntsmen in both fairy tales are thinly veiled representations of the heroines’ fathers. The huntsman in “Little Red-Cap”, for instance, teaches Red- Cap an important life lesson, making her realize her mistake and promise to never disobey her mother again. The role of the huntsman further strengthens the patriarchal view that women are inactive and weak, and must be saved by active and strong men. Since women’s only goal and purpose in life is to get married, a Grimm fairy tale ending is considered to be a happy one when the heroine marries prince charming and they supposedly live “happily ever after”. The heroine has patiently waited for the prince to come for her and bring her back home to his castle. She has been humbled and humiliated, and is ready to climb the social ladder. However, the true feelings of the heroine towards the prince are never fully stated, only those of the prince. He falls in love with the heroine solely because of her beauty, but the reader only gets a hint that the heroine might feel friendly towards the prince. Thus, the Grimm’s fairy tales imply that the heroines’ feelings do not matter. Women should simply do what they are told.

As the Grimm’s fairy tales were collected and published in the nineteenth century, it is not surprising that they are filled with patriarchal views and representations of women. Thankfully, the atmosphere of today is much different and is constantly changing to the better. Gender equality is not yet a fact, but it will be some day, slowly but steadily. We must work together in order to achieve full gender equality and eliminate patriarchal views from our society. We must teach our children about equality and inform them better. I hope that children, especially young girls, who read the Grimms’ fairy tales today do not believe every word or look up to the assigned female role models. I hope they know better and aim high, higher than marriage or domestication.

Works Cited

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Prokopius, Rachel. “Little Red Cap’s Physical and Psychological Father.” Pentangle: Sigma Tau Delta Journal of Literary Studies, 2016. Northern Kentucky University, pp. 47-54.

Tatar, Maria. The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2019.