Rapunzel Analysis

In “Rapunzel,” the now blind prince miserably wanders the wilderness for years before happening upon the sound of Rapunzel’s voice. The prince follows the voice and finds Rapunzel, who has given birth to twins. When Rapunzel recognizes him, she embraces the prince. Rapunzel’s tears fall into the prince’s eyes, and he is able to see again. In Tangled, Rapunzel powerlessly watches Flynn die after he cuts her hair. She sobs while holding his dead body. The magic in Rapunzel’s hair remains in her tears, and when her tears hit Flynn’s body they heal him. He is brought back to life, and the two return to Corona, where Rapunzel is reunited with her family and she and Flynn get married and live happily ever after.

Not only do Disney princesses result in bad self esteem, they also encourage passiveness and reliance on others. The feminine and vulnerable side of these princesses, reflect the reliance on their hero and true love. The Disney princess stereotype insinuates that girls should be sweet and submissive, and should fully rely on a male-counterpart. Conversely, new characters, such as Elsa (Frozen), Rapunzel (Tangled), and Merida (Brave), do not express this passive characteristic. At the same time, these princesses continue to need assistance to reach the desired solution. For instance, Princess Rapunzel still needed hero Flynn Rider, in order to navigate her to her parents throughout the movie. None of these princesses independently found a solution to the main conflict in any of these Disney films.

Watch the movie Tangled and you’ll find yourself hooked, desiring the knowledge of what’s next. While watching this movie, two main literary themes became apparent. Disney's Tangled is the story of a stolen girl trapped in a castle with her captor as a mother. Throughout the story, Rapunzel wants nothing more but to leave her . Tangled’s plot employs many gender stereotypes and shows a large socio-economic divide.

Disney directly exposes the idea that young girls should make their main goal in life to find their prince charming, fall madly in love, and live happily ever after. Making young girls’ aspiration in life revolve around finding a man of their dreams “transfix[es the] audience and divert[s] their potential utopian dreams and hopes through the false promises of the images [Disney] cast[s] upon the screen” (22). Disney tells the audience that women need a man to be happy. Disney presents the idea that women are dependent on me. Just like in The Little Mermaid, Ariel goes as far as surrendering her voice, to a witch named Ursula, and abandoning her family in order to be with her prince. Ariel also trades in her life as a mermaid, drastically changes her body, and sacrifices her greatest talent all in order to win her prince. Disney sends the message that girls need to give up their talents and lives in order to be with a man. Disney suggests that a woman’s main priority is her lover, no one or nothing else. Disney effectively portrays women in a negative way, depicting them as weak and needy. No attempt to break the stereotypical gender roles of women are evident however, these stereotypes are growing as Disney instills this image of women in the minds of viewers.

After this, the now old-and-ugly witch grows to love Rapunzel, but not enough to focus on nurturing her and her needs- she’s too focused on regaining her beauty and youth. She locks Rapunzel in a tower in an attempt to keep her safe from the dangers of the outside world, and fills Rapunzel 's head with terrifying, fanciful depictions of life outside the tower. Meanwhile, she begins searching for the cure to her curse.

This translated to today’s literature, by establishing that no one wants to read about an unflawed character or one with excess. This leads to discussion about another characteristic, the happily ever after. “Then he took her to his kingdom, where he was received with great joy, and there they lived long and happily.” (Grimm 94) In these fairytales, the down on their luck, the poor are rewarded with unknown riches or marriage into nobility, or escaping their curse. In Rapunzel, the cursed maiden is discovered by her long lost prince and married into royalty. The basic concept is that we want to read about flawed persons who rise to the occasion and best those who don’t believe in them, ending up happy. This echoes in today’s literature still, because we see ourselves in these flawed characters, seeing as if they can persevere, then so can we. What makes all of these happy endings possible (and why we connect to the characters) is the way these characters come upon riches and joy. Another characteristic of the Grimm’s stories are the main characters perseverance, selflessness, patience or beauty to achieve betterment. Rapunzel waited several year, while raising her children before she found her happy ending, but it states that “Rapunzel was the most beautiful child in the world” and that “as he drew near he heard a voice singing so sweetly that he stood still and listened. It was Rapunzel in her loneliness trying to pass away the time with sweet

Like all fairytales, Rapunzel has a history that extends far earlier than the 1800s when it first transcribed by brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. However, Rapunzel is a tale that continues to be re-written and re-interpreted even today. From the 1970s with the feminist revitalization of fairy tales to the early 2010s with Disney’s Tangled (2010), this timeless tale continues to engage its listeners. In 2015, Katie Kapurch of Texas State University revisited Rapunzel with an eye on its more recent modernizations. By starting with Anne Sexton’s poem “Rapunzel” from her 1971 collection Transformations, Kapurch analyzed the lesbian elements of the tale in order to examine the 21st century Tumblr culture that “ships” Tangled’s Rapunzel with Brave’s (2012) Merida.

Like the introduction, the main part of the tale is also composed of three distinct parts which form a short story on their own. A clear beginning, a central story, and an ending exists. The opening of the main part is concluded after the prince, although enchanted by Rapunzel’s singing, gives up his plan to pursue her when faced with a barrier: no entryway to the tower in which Rapunzel lives. When the prince enters the forest a second time, he is a changed person – he now has a motivation to act on his desires for Rapunzel. The prince is no longer a man who easily gives up; he is eager to form a plan for entry into the tower, and at the same time, the life of the sheltered Rapunzel. She too undergoes a

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s classic fairy tale Rapunzel features two archetypal characters: one who has a supernatural ability (Rapunzel) and the heroic prince that rejoices with the beautiful maiden doubtfully taken by an evil sorceress from her parents.1 First, the mishap begins by a mother who gets seriously ill and is in need of rampions to keep her from dying; however, the couple must hand over their first-born child to the witch.2 This type of trade shows how evil the witch is and the couple risks their first born child and makes their child a less of a value.3 When the child was born, the witch took the baby and named it Rapunzel (another name for rampion) to remind the tragic trade.4 When she turned twelve, she was brought to a

The fact that he is first drawn to her voice rather than her appearance seems to suggest an attraction more to who she is rather than anything physical. Her “voice” may be symbolic of Rapunzel’s thoughts and personality. However, the first time the prince finds Rapunzel, he is obviously unprepared to proceed into this facet of his life. He searches for a door through which to reach her but is

Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm also known as the Grimm brothers are historically known for their uniqueness both in their styles of writing and the exceptional illustrations of their works. Their age old literature has been told and retold with the essence of gothic architecture and contemporary children's stories for decades now. This essay will contrast the Grimm brothers story of Rapunzel and Disney's story of Rapunzel, it will also include comparing their illustrations with Molly Bang's theory.

In fairy tales, female characters are objects, and their value centers around their attractiveness to men. Since fairy tales rely on cultural values and societal norms to teach morals or lessons, it is evident that fairy tales define a woman’s value in a superficial way. Fairy tales teach that, typically, beauty equates to being valuable to men because of their fertility and purity; whereas, ugliness equates to being worthless and evil, including being ruined because of their lack of virginity. Descriptions readers see from fairy tales like “Rapunzel,” and “Little Snow-White” revolve around the women’s, or girl’s, physical appearance, and both stories play out to where the women remain in a state of objectification. In addition, they are damsels

Continuing in her position as the moral control, the witch tries to protect her Rapunzel by locking her up. This attempt to preserve the girl's chastity ultimately fails because a prince discovers her when he hears her singing. Song is a symbol of

Scene analysis Stay with me By: Wesley G 7f 1) Before the witch goes to Rapunzel, she sees the prince riding his horse towards the tower and realizes that Rapunzel was meeting with the prince, so the witch casts a spell which produces thorns to harm the prince. The witch is upset that Rapunzel didn’t obey her, so she scolds her and says things like”what would you have me be, handsome like a prince” (Disney, 2015) while Rapunzel refuses these things are true. The witch continues, not wanting to let her “daughter” go and telling Rapunzel to stay with her, which explains the name of the song, “Stay with me” (Disney, 2015). Eventually, the witch ends the song and cuts Rapunzel’s hair, saying “where you’re going, no one lay eyes on you again!”

The tale “Rapunzel” takes place deep in a forest where a unborn girl is already set as a debt to a witch from her parents. Once the girl is given to the witch and gets older, she is locked in a