The Death Of A Virtue : An Update On Women

People have been telling fairy tales for centuries. When the concept of childhood arose, fairy tales were rewritten with a moral in mind. A woman’s duties and place in society were clearly presented in these fairy tales. In addition to this, some even provided morals specific to young women. Although morals vary from culture to culture, the view on a woman’s sexuality is relatively static; a woman is meant to be a virgin. This moral is revealed through a literary analysis of “Little Brier-Rose” by the Grimm Brothers, which is a metaphorical tale advocating for the preservation of virginity in females.

In both Goblin Market and “The Bloody Chamber”, women face objectification as pornographic objects whose solitary purpose is to be a man’s appealing possession. Evidently, the objectification of women impacted the way each author constructed their texts. Feminist movements aiming to undermine these rigid female and male roles are prominent in the time period of both literary works. Both Christina Rossetti and Angela Carter use strange worlds to differentiate from the typical fairy tale’s predictable conclusion and instead make a statement through the use of a female heroine. Both literary works contrast the archetypal idea that a man must always be the savior

The extent to which the Lais of Marie de France can be categorized as fairy tales is dependent on the definition of “fairy tale.” Using various scholars’ definitions of “fairy tale” and conceptions of the fairy tale genre, criteria for “fairy tales” arises. Then, close-readings of three lais, “Guigemar”, “Lanval” and “Yonec”, are used as a mechanism for meeting or failing the criteria. This methodology is then evaluated and problematized. The criterion for fairy tales includes origin, form, content, style, and meaning. Etymologically, the word ‘fairy tale’ has disputed origins. Supposedly, it comes from the French “contes des fees” or “tales about fairies”, popular in French courts and salons in the seventeenth century. However, Jack Zipes argues that “conte féerique” actually translates to “fairy tales” and refers to narrative form, rather than content.

Original fairy tales restrict the opportunities of female protagonists, allowing their fate to be controlled by male characters and society’s restrictive expectations of women. Authors such as Perrault of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ were quick to provide advice to their suggestible female readers in moral that girls should not try to drift from the path that society has laid out for them. Thus they became ‘parables of instruction’ (Carter) to indoctrinate the next generation in the values of a patriarchal society. Fairy tales of this time consistently remind us that those of the female sex will not prosper if they choose to ignore and defy the social constructs. Pre 1900s, the roles of women were entirely predetermined. A clear female dichotomy was established portraying them as either ‘the virgin’ or ‘the whore’. Stereotypical perceptions of women reduced them to biological functions and stated that they should acquire the role of wife and mother – objectified to such an extent where they were essentially their male counterpart’s possession. Both authors scorn the importance placed on domesticity and conformity, stressing the vital nature of being able to choose and uncover the consequences of societal ignorance. Carter highlights to her literary audience a passive generation of women who face the inability to vocalise their thoughts and opinions in the context of oppressive patriarchy. Within her work ‘The Company of Wolves’ “The

The tradition of telling fairy tales to children effects not only the listener but also the reader. Maria Tatar, in her book Off with Their Heads!, analyzes how fairy tales instill and reaffirm cultural values and expectations in their audience . Tatar proposes that fairy tales fall into three different tale-types: cautionary tales, exemplary stories, and reward- and- punishment tales. These three types portray different character traits as desirable and undesirable. Due to the tale’s varying literary methods it can change the effectiveness of the tale’s pedagogical value. In Tatar’s opinion, all of these tales are similar in the way they attempt to use punishment, reward, and fear to encourage or discourage certain behaviors. In the cautionary fairy tale “The Virgin Mary’s Child”, the use of punishment and fear to discourage certain behaviors is enhanced by the Christian motifs and values employed by the tale. These literary devices encourage the audience to reflect on and internalize the lessons that are presented in the fairy tale.

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

It provides only a cursory look at ATU’s tale classification and feminist fairy tale theory, focusing more on tale content. With four versions of a widely dispersed tale closely linked to other tale types, such as ATU 312 “Bluebeard,” a more comprehensive anthology is needed in further research, as in the case of Paul Delarue’s look at hundreds of “Bluebeard” tales, both oral and collected. A deeper analysis of Atwood’s longer text would also improve this analysis, although core aspects were discussed. Overall, this comparative work of early and contemporary variations of “The Robber Bridegroom” explores several recurring elements: power sources (narrative, magical, and physical), dreams and storytelling as key plot points, fox imagery, and female roles as narrators, heroines, and villains. While the early versions emphasize female heroism, typically depicting women in isolation with male family members, contemporary variations feature female camaraderie, for the heroines and villains.

This in itself begins to uncover a deeper meaning to her literature; both obvious and latent in ways which create a curiosity to analyse the text in-depth. With ‘The Bloody Chamber’ collection, Carter made a clear attempt to demythologise classic fairy tales, using them not only to deconstruct traditional masculinity, but also to highlight liberation and re-evaluate the female standpoint within a patriarchal society. Carter herself argued that although 18th century aristocratic writers who penned these tales sprinkled in some morality in order to convert them into suitable parables for children, the darkness of their content and belittlement towards women remained. Carter (2013, page unknown) To counter this, her stories restored the female psyche of her protagonists by rewarding their active sexuality rather than punishing it into passiveness or misogynistic suppression.

In the book “The Good Earth” Olan could often be compared to a Virtuous woman. They both share the quality of being faithful to their relationships. A quality they do not share is the Virtuous woman makes enough to live off of while Olan is poor. Another quality they do not share is Olan’s husband treats her different than how virtuous woman’s husband treats her. Throughout the story “The Good Earth”, Olan could often be compared and contrasted to the qualities of a virtuous woman.

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 a society unbridled with double standards and set views about women, one may wonder the origins of such beliefs. It might come as a surprise that these ideals and standards are embedded and have been for centuries in the beloved fairy tales we enjoyed reading as kids. In her analytical essay, “To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tales”, Karen Rowe argues that fairy tales present “cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues.” Rowe presents an excellent point, which can be supported by versions of the cult classics, “Cinderella” and “Snow White”. Charles Perrault’s “ The Little Glass Slipper” and the Brothers Grimm’s “ Snow White” exemplify the beliefs that

Over time, historians have interpreted the use of animal imagery in western folk and fairy tales as a means for providing entertainment and moral lessons to western society. However, many historians have different ideas about how animal imagery and stereotypes actually affect a society besides keeping away from wolves and bears and such. Dr. Jack Zipes, a professor of German and comparative literature, promotes in his paper, "What Makes a Repulsive Frog So Appealing: Memetics and Fairy Tales,” that the story of “The Frog Prince” is actually a story about the strategies of mating and how the frog symbolizes its appearance of an unsuitable mate to a suitable one. In addition to how specific animal stereotypes and

But in fact we use the stories that we tell children, and especially those that we tell over and over, to instill messages, to teach cultural norms, to establish the roots of what we hope will be proper behavior as the children grow up. Fairytales are a form of propaganda. The traditional fairytale almost always reflects (and therefore works to reproduce) the power relations of patriarchy; its rigid sexual patterns teach that fear and masochism are tenets of femininity and all of the symbolic inversions that occur are not chances to upset the standard patriarchal hierarchy but are instead ways of maintaining it (Bacchilega, 1997, pp. 50-1).

Within the larger scholarly conversation surrounding folklore, different academics have employed contrasting techniques to interpret folk tales and to investigate the social and psychological conditions in which folklore developed and changed from one form to another. With a particularly strong focus on those tales of French origin, historian Robert Darnton examines a number of fairy tales related to Paul Delarue’s “The Story of Grandmother” from a historical perspective in his essay “Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose”. In contrast, Catherine Orenstein criticizes Darnton’s narrow historical focus and his failure to observe the thematic changes relating to gender which occurred when authors began to cement tales into the

Angela Carter, an English writer, is best known for her feminist rewriting of classical fairy tales. In her stories she prominently uses themes, such as, virginity, the pornographic image, violence and sex, and many others. Degrading someone to the status of a mere object, in other words objectification, is a theme Angela Carter shows in many of her fairy tales, specifically the objectification of women. According to Carter, the objectification and subjugation of women is part of a “latent context” of fairy tales that she expressed simply by virtue of being a woman. Both “The Tiger’s Bride” and “The Courtship of Mr. Lyon” are fairy tales intertextually linked with “Beauty and the Beast” and show the reader Carters’ views on femininity. Not