Essay on Lanval and Yonec

In the folktale “The Blue Beard” written by Charles Perrault, conforms to both Dworkin’s and Lurie’s representations of fairy tale heroines. Perrault states, “The fatal effects of curiosity, particularly female curiosity, have of course long seen the subject of report” (133). Andrea Dworkin author of “Women Hating” and Alison Lurie author of “Don’t Tell the Grown-Ups” explain their different views regarding the heroines in fairy tales.

According to Disney, and other fairy tales, there are only three things that a woman can be; a pretty, love-motivated “dancing girl”, a “femme fatale” that knows of the power her sexuality can have on those around her and is trying to use this power for control, and a pear- shaped “grandmother” all-knowing and just trying to help a poor dancing girl find the prince of her wildest dreams. Throughout fairy tales and movies there is constant examples of these three women – and only these three models of women. This poses a problem for growing girls as maybe they do not fit one of these archetypes, and feel as though they are missing out on life – or they believe that they can only live a life represented by these characters.

Even though these qualities are praised in this culture, medieval narratives commonly uphold unrealistic virtues of what a perfect woman is. After Lanval vows to keep their love a secret, the queen of the court tempts the knight with her love. She says, "Lanval, I have honored, cherished and loved you much. You may have all my love: just tell me what you desire! I grant you my love and you should be glad to have me" (pp. 1771). Shortly after Lanval rejects her advances, the queen further establishes her ill will towards the good knight by saying, "I well believe that you do not like this kind of pleasure. I have been told often enough that you have no desire for women" (pp. 1771). The importance of these accusations exemplifies the queen's power and influence over Lanval. Although he graciously declines the queen's love, he regrettably reveals his love to the queen in an attempt to prove himself to the court. He says, "And I will tell you one thing; you can be sure that one of her servants, even the very poorest girl, is worth more than you, my lady the Queen, in body, face and beauty, wisdom and goodness" (pp. 1771). The manner which the queen entices Lanval reveals that both power and evil can be easily compared to this woman's actions, showing readers the other side of the coin. The division between these two women illustrates how often this society feeds off of a virgin/ whore dichotomy, branding such women

Today's culture is one dominated by the media. People, especially young, impressionable females, are bombarded with images of “beautiful” and “desirable” women; these “sexy” women are lacking modest clothing, wearing copious amounts of make up, and are content to be viewed as objects, particularly by members of the opposite gender. In a society where the vision of true beauty has been distorted to such an extreme, fairytales serve as a reminder of the value of a beautiful

In the basis of ancient medieval literature, there were at least three principle concepts that were guidelines for writers: the tradition of chivalry, use of power, and the art of courtly love. In her lais, or lyrical narrative, Marie de France uses all three of them, but not exactly in the traditional sense that men of her time favored. Through her writings, Marie de France has shown great focus on members of the aristocracy that were not as prominently acknowledged, which included both women and single knights, and portrayed characters that she observed in real life in ways that did or did not conform to their stereotypes. Additionally, she challenged the roles often found in 12th century writings by using ordinary heroines and heroes to work through both genuine and figurative conflicts. Through the lai of “Lanval”, Marie subtly works through the theme of courtly love in a separate ideal setting that both challenges and reverses the typical gender roles without completely letting go of the accepted cultural standards of that time.

Whether Female antagonists within fairy tales are portrayed in a positive or negative light their roles within the stories are very important if not crucial to the development of the protagonists. Karen Rowe in “Feminist and fairy tales” explains the divide between different female antagonists. Female antagonist come in all forms, Faeries, ogresses, evil queens, and evil witches step mothers and or step sisters. For the most part these characters are often divided between good and evil, or light and dark, but what is often realized, is that there isn’t much of a combination between the two groups in which an antagonist falls in between both categories. In this essay I will lay out the thematic roles of these different types of female antagonist’s portrayed within fairy tales.

Throughout the years, fairytales have had a crucial role in perpetuating stereotypes regarding gender roles in society that portray women as dependent and distressed, also that being an attractive,young woman is the cause of most predicaments, and how women are entitled to specific jobs in the house while a man is supposed to go out and do all the hard work. In most cases, a beautiful young woman is put in a serious situation by a villain and/or monster who needs a hero, more specifically, a male, to come to her rescue. This is typically classified as using the literary device “Damsel in Distress”.

Within the fairy tale, the evil queen transforms herself numerous times, twice into an old woman and once into a peasant. The queen, the only villain in the story, transforming herself into an old woman expresses the contotation that age and the marks it leaves on ones beauty is evil. Such an idea is correspondent to a common theme throughout many of the Grimm fairy tales as 57% of tales containing young female characters referred to the character’s beauty, while only 5.2% of tales containing older female characters described them as pleasing appearance-wise (Baker-Sperry and Grauerholz 718). This data proves the ageist opinion of the Grimm brothers that older women are unattractive and shows the perpetuation of such an idea to present-day audiences, as even modern-day fairy tales lack beautiful or kind older women. Furthermore, a more apparent and harmful depiction of beauty in the tale was the value of Snow-White’s beauty due to her namesake, her pale complexion.

In fairytales, royal women are typically regarded as delicate, sophisticated creatures, controlled by the kingdoms to which they belong. However, it is the strength within these women that is far more admirable than their outer appearance could ever be. This is why looking at royalty as perfection—a gift of beauty, wealth, and dignity—creates a widely known myth that hides the unattractive truth behind the royal life. Although you should always seek to look beyond the surface, “The Princess in the Suit of Leather” shows that upon deeper inspection you ultimately get hit with the harsh reality of conservative gender roles.

Disney’s animated film, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, centres around the female lead, Aurora, and from the very beginning, a huge emphasis is placed on her physical characteristics and unrealistic body proportions. In a scene at the start of the film, infant Aurora is blessed with magic gifts from each of the three fairies, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather. Each of the fairies bestowed upon Aurora one gift; the first of which, from Flora, was beauty, and the second of which, from Fauna, was the gift of song. Aurora was to have, ‘Sunshine in her hair,’ with, ‘Lips that shame the red, red, rose.’ This strong emphasis on physical traits and beauty reinforces gender ideals in women and carries the negative message that being beautiful is more important than having other traits such as kindness and

In well-known fairy tales the males and females characters are often portrayed in the same light. The male characters are often described as the hero with strong masculine traits while the female characters are portrayed as the damsel in distress. Throughout the years fairytales have been casting the same stereotypes for their characters. In the story Beauty and the Beast the author de beaumont depiction of what an ideal woman is lays in Beauty. She is meant to embody the role of a feminine, humble caretaker, lover, and savior. The author depicts males as provider’s, however, it is clear that the men in the story are dependent on a positive female figure for life. Beauty’s disappearance threatens both her father and beast with death, symbolizing

In Sleeping Beauty, the Prince is portrayed a strong and courageous person, he can be seen as a great character because he overcomes many obstacles to be able to help the Princess survive. Although Sleeping Beauty is a fairy tale and is stereotypically more admired by girls, the masculine tale might be liked by the male population because they aspire to be the male hero. Maleficent shows the feminine tale and warns the girls that not men cannot be trusted in some cases, and that there is no need to have a man by your side. A woman can survive on their own using her own intelligence and courage to overcome any obstacle that she might face. For the female population, this change is very important because this “hero” story helps us relate to the character and our desire to do great and special acts (Seger 387). This film proved that a woman is capable of defeating evil, and brings a new perspective into Disney

Overall, the emphasis that fairy tales place on physical appearance can be very detrimental to a child (particularly a girl’s) development and ideas of reality. To add, fairy tales, although perhaps unintentionally, depict that attractiveness determines who is good and who is evil. The protagonist is often the princess, who is described as the prettiest in the land. The antagonist on the other hand is often less attractive and more than likely labeled ugly (Schussler). Because fairy tales often depict good conquering evil and evil succumbing to its immorality, this therefore shows the reader that ugly people are punished (Schussler). This also can influence a girl’s self-esteem, considering that the created sense of beauty is impossible, thus they may feel inferior (Danish). Grauerholz hypothesizes that “[t]hese powerful messages that say women need to be beautiful may compel some women to seek beauty at the expense of other pursuits, such as careers or education” (Grauerholz). The exaggerated emphasis on beauty has potential to be a very limiting

Most of today’s media has awash society with idealistic representations of gender, often leading both men and women craving for unattainable perfection. Likewise, reality is frequently perceived as a poor substitute for the enchanted world, where good always thwarts evil and with characters living “Happily Ever After.” When most children or adults think of the great classical fairy tales today, the first thought that usually comes to mind is Disney. Their representations of classic fairy tale texts are so powerful that a vast majority has formed mental images of the princesses and other characters depicted in fairy tales, whether it be from classic books to popular media, the unchanged variable for any woman is beauty (Wohlend 60); usually presented with a flawless and virtuous female protagonist, who encounters obstacles that are vital to overcome in order to live happily in the end. Thus the Disney Corporation plays an important role in shaping the self-esteem of young girls, by playing a persuasive role as producers of culture in the, “construction of knowledge…with a limited worldview, skewed and dominated by corporate interests” (Garofalo). By doing so, Disney and other media sources alike, create a challenge for society to compete with these unrealistic representations and anticipated identities that are projected for society and that are regimented by design practices deemed by manufacturing media (Wohlend 59). Disney’s princesses emanate with, “excesses of

The beautiful woman usually embodies good virtues and behaves as a woman of the time period is expected too. They represent the opposite role of the villainous woman because the heroine is all that is good while the villain is all that is bad. The heroines are also usually title characters as is the case of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. These heroines also usually go through torture such as "having her eyes torn out" but is rewarded for her torture as in the same example when the heroine's vision "one year and a day later, are replaced and can see seven times as clearly as before," which makes "the listener feel how suffering can purify and strengthen" (Luthi 144). Another reason for women playing such a key role in fairy tales is the Oedipal complex. In fairy tales the Oedipal complex manifests itself from the female perspective (or the Electra complex). "[F]airy tales enacting Oedipal conflicts split the mother figure in two: one mother who stands by her child and another (step)mother who stands in the way of the female child's attempts to secure the love of her father" (151). Women appear in fairy tales for many reasons; be it that the genre was created by women, or that the female characters portray two