Women in Fairytales and O. Henry: A new perspective
Women in Fairytales and O. Henry
A new perspective
It is popular to think that the progression of time and social perception of womans’ status and her (equal) rights, has changed in the literary world, particularly within the genre of fairytales.
This intensifies when comparing late and early legends, those that evolved out of folklore and myth against those that were written by authors with a more defined agenda.
However, the difference between traditional attitudes and a modern perspective is not only a matter of chronology.
Many ancient legends and fairytales present a clever and resourceful woman as the protagonist, a character that does not act as expected for women of their time.
The following discussion brings to light the similarities between “obsolete” and “progressive” narratives.
“The needs of Bogle’s customers were supplied by two waitresses. […] One of the waitresses was named Aileen. She was tall, beautiful, lively, gracious and learned in persiflage… The name of the other waitress was Tildy [… who was] dumpy, plain-faced, and too anxious to please to please. […] Will it tire you to be told again that Aileen was beautiful? […] The customers at Bogle’s were her slaves… They who were in a hurry restrained their impatience for the joy of merely gazing upon her swiftly moving, graceful figure. They who had finished eating ate more that they might continue in the light of her smiles. Every man there–and they were mostly men–tried to make his impression upon her.”1
The Goose Girl by the Brothers Grimm unfolds the story of a princess who was banished from her upper class position by a cruel hearted maid. The maid takes the princess’s place as the designated wife of the prince and sentences the royal princess to a work as a goose girl.
The personality of the princess is distinctive and typical of the fairy tale genre. It is well fitted to her royal status: she is gentle and delicate and has long golden hair. Her world moves for her in a predetermined timeline, her destiny being marriage to a handsome prince.
The bride does not know who her chosen husband is to be, as he does not yet know her (if he had known, he would have surely recognized that the woman who presented herself as his fiancée was actually the servant). Their betrothal had been arranged at a young age, probably out of the traditional need, to unite those of true blue blood and to maintain the purity of their noble line. In the past such marriages were a diplomatic way to make a peace covenant between kingdoms, but since the king had passed away many years before the story even began, it is not without grounds that the political element was missing from this specific engagement all that the was left was the obligation to maintain the genealogy “within the family” (in particular since the bride was about to leave her kingdom never to return). Therefore, the contradiction between the promised future of the bride and what actually happens is for her an unbearable tragedy2.
The queen equipped her daughter with a respectable dowry, which would insure her future as a king’s wife. “She likewise assigned to her a chambermaid, who was to ride with her, and deliver her into the hands of the bridegroom.”3 With this, it seems, the queen ended her responsibility. Her delicate flower of a daughter must not travel alone on her way to meet her husband. The queen did not check the character or nature of the chaperone4. Furthermore: she gives her daughter a handkerchief with three drops of blood, which were meant to protect her on her journey. When the maid takes possession of the handkerchief, it becomes a weapon with which the maid gains control over the weak princess. However, the fact is that the maid did not even need the handkerchief as the drops of blood did not help the bride to rebel against the maid who had refused to dismount from her horse in order to serve her lady water in a golden cup5.
The Goose girl is the perfect reflection of her mother: obedient and submissive, who does think much or struggle for what she believes. After the pretend princess orders the knacker to kill Falada (the true princess’s magical talking horses) the true princess gives the knacker a piece of gold, in order to nail Falada’s head beneath the gateway, through which she had to pass with the geese twice a day. She could have used the money for a better cause – to bribe a servant to reveal the deceit to her mother or to escape the palace – but instead she chooses to perpetuate her situation and to mourn bitterly her condition6. That and more: when she goes out to herd the geese with Conrad, the Goose boy, she demonstrates magical powers, but she does not use them intelligently (just to distance Conrad from her while she combs her hair undisturbed). Even Conrad is more active than she: on their second day of work he goes straight to the king himself and complains of his new partner: “I won’t tend geese with that girl any longer… she angers me all day long.”7
The Goose girl does not rescue herself. The king does8.
The maid is a decisive character9, but unfortunately she has an evil inclination, which diverts her actions accordingly. It is important to state that the concept, which attributes evilness and sorcery to a woman who deviates from “socially permitted” norms, does not exist here10. The maid is not wicked because she is active: she is wicked because she is wicked11.
Without a doubt, she is not a role model, but neither is the Goose Girl, despite her beauty, gentleness and modesty12. The Goose Girl is not a legend that preserves a narrow – minded pattern of good woman = obedient woman, but a legend that uses stereotypes in order to tell a more complex story, one that challenges the popular version of a fairytale, which always glorifies the beautiful and the regal.
“In steaming, chattering, cabbage-scented Bogle’s there was almost a heart tragedy. Tildy with the blunt nose, the hay-coloured hair, the freckled skin, the bag-o’-meal figure, had never had an admirer. Tildy was a good waitress, and the men tolerated her. They who sat at her tables spoke to her briefly. with quotations from the bill of fare; and then raised their voices in honeyed and otherwise-flavoured accents, eloquently addressed to the fair Aileen. […] Tildy was content to be the unwooed drudge if Aileen could receive the flattery and the homage. The blunt nose was loyal to the short Grecian. […] But deep below our freckles and hay-coloured hair the unhandsomest of us dream of a prince or a princess, not vicarious, but coming to us alone.”13
Miriam Yalan-Shteklis’s story, Bathsheba, is an example of a legend that centers on a smart and intelligent woman, who is acknowledged by the smart and powerful hero. She even wins his heart, without one word on beauty or golden hair.
Yalan-Shteklis’s story has a great resemblance to The Peasant’s Wise Daughter, but the way in which these two stories emphasize different aspects of the heroines enables the joint reading as a complementary pair.
In The Peasant’s Wise Daughter, the intelligence and cleverness of the (nameless) girl are apparent at the beginning: “There was once a poor peasant who had no land, but only a small house, and one daughter. Then said the daughter, “We ought to ask our lord the King for a bit of newly-cleared land.” When the King heard of their poverty, he presented them with a piece of land, which she and her father dug up, and intended to sow with a little corn and grain of that kind.”14
Yalan-Shteklis postpones the discovery of the heroine’s wisdom: Bathsheba is the daughter of a poor man. His rich brother had given him a young heifer, all skin and bones. Thanks to Bathsheba’s devoted care, the heifer had grown to be a lovely cow that calves a calf. Since the two brothers claim ownership of the calf, they ask for the governor’s decision. The governor gives them three riddles and promises the calf to the man with the best answers. The rich brother always answers from his own narrow knowledge of the world while Bathsheba’s father asks her for her help and advice. Bathsheba’s intelligent answers show how smart and devoted a daughter she really is. Her clever replies lead the peasant’s daughter to marry the governor and although her wisdom remains intact, her hasty actions almost cause her the loss of her love15.
In The Peasant’s Wise Daughter, the king is angry with smart heroine, for operating behind his back – an act he considers to be an insult and treason.
The final trial states: “Come to me not clothed, not naked, not riding, not walking, not in the road, and not out of the road.”16 The fact that he asks her such unfeasible tasks indicates the man is asking the woman to be and not to be at the same time, as unfeasible as being a clever woman.
Bathsheba’s shrewdness overcomes the narrow convention of the status of woman in fairytales. She conquers the governor heart with her intelligence and thanks to her wifely love she is able to make her husband acknowledge the mistaken idea – that a woman cannot be as smart and as just a ruler as a man.
“Among the customers at Bogle’s was a young man named Seeders, who worked in a laundry office. […] One day when Mr. Seeders came in to dinner […. after he] had finished his weakfish he got up, put his arm around Tildy’s waist, kissed her loudly and impudently, walked out upon the street […] In a moment she had advanced from a hopeless, lowly admirer to be an Eve-sister of the potent Aileen. She herself was now a man-charmer, a mark for Cupid, a Sabine who must be coy when the Romans were at their banquet boards. [… Seeders] had taken the sackcloth of her uncomeliness, had washed, dried, starched and ironed it, and returned it to her sheer embroidered lawn–the robe of Venus herself.”17
If The Goose Girl contrasts the princess to the wicked servant and The Peasant’s Wise Daughter places Bathsheba before her wise husband in cleverness, Grimm’s Little Brother and Little Sister ranks the sister facing her own brother. Here these are no false disobedience or intelligent choice. Here there are mutual genetics, which express differently in each family member.
The little brother is, seemingly, the positive character of the story: he is the one who offers his sister to escape the tortures of their wicked stepmother. On the other hand, he is also the one who cannot restrain himself from drinking the enchanted spring’s water (he holds back twice but fails to resist the third time). Was not his sister as thirsty as he was? Did the sun not dry her throat as well?18
“The brother had knelt down at once by the brook, and had bent down and drunk some of the water, and as soon as the first drops touched his lips he lay there a young roebuck. And now the sister wept over her poor bewitched brother, and the little roe wept also, and sat sorrowfully near to her. But at last the girl said, “Be quiet, dear little roe, I will never, never leave you.” Then she untied her golden garter and put it round the roebuck’s neck, and she plucked rushes and wove them into a soft cord. With this she tied the little beast and led it on, and she walked deeper and deeper into the forest. And when they had gone a very long way they came at last to a little house, and the girl looked in; and as it was empty, she thought, “We can stay here and live.” Then she sought for leaves and moss to make a soft bed for the roe; and every morning she went out and gathered roots and berries and nuts for herself, and brought tender grass for the roe, who ate out of her hand…”19
The brother’s seeming diligence is in fact childish recklessness, which is also expressed in his conduct during the royal hunt: the brother – roe cannot contain himself from going out and observing. His logical and practical sister, who arranges a home and a comfortable life for them, tried to dissuade him again and again, recounting the dangers but his stubbornness remains.
The little sister is the responsible one while her brother is the one who needs to be taken care of.
He gets injured – she dresses his wounds.
He becomes hasty – she restrains him.
He does not think matters through while she remains calm, even when the handsome prince requests her hand in marriage20.
The little sister is not royalty, but her worthy deeds and her great beauty atone for her lack of pedigree and authorize her as a creditable candidate for the kingdom. The stepmother and her ugly daughter who wish to harm the little sister and brother are an obvious contrast to her positive representation. The stepmother (who is also a witch) only seeks to hurt while her daughter with only one eye in the center of her head is a combination of the Goose Girl (intended to marry a prince) and the wicked maid, who also wants a crown she is not entitled to.
“But behind the convenient screen Tildy had thrown herself flat upon a table … and was sobbing her heart out–out and back again to the grey plain wherein travel they with blunt noses and hay-coloured hair. From her knot she had torn the red hair-bow and cast it upon the floor. Seeders she despised utterly; she had but taken his kiss as that of a pioneer and prophetic prince who might have set the clocks going and the pages to running in fairyland. But the kiss had been maudlin and unmeant; the court had not stirred at the false alarm; she must forevermore remain the Sleeping Beauty.”21
O. Henry’s story takes place in the life of here and now. A gray and disillusioned reality. Into this hard routine Tildy wishes to pour something of the old legend, the fairytale that elevates the prettiest of them all. O. Henry understands the place from which her distress was caused and he sympathizes with her pain, but he refuses to embrace Tildy’s new perception of herself. When he describes her feelings in regards to the violent admirer who attacked Aileen (“What bliss it must have been to have had a man follow one and black one’s eye for love!”22) the readers can sense his light irony in his voice. This sense intensifies as the story progresses, with Tildy’s yearning to be someone noticeable – a little too much (“She had a thrilling but delightful fear that Mr. Seeders would rush in suddenly and shoot her with a pistol. He must have loved her desperately. […] Even Aileen had not been shot at with a pistol. And then Tildy rather hoped that he would not shoot at her, for she was always loyal to Aileen; and she did not want to overshadow her friend.”23)
O. Henry describes the need to feel the sweetness of the fairytale, especially from the woman who was not blessed with the perfect image of a beautiful princess, but at the same time he protests against the superficial exaggeration that considers beauty and blind admiration the only true and worthy value. He depicts how even the slightest attention can make a significant change in one’s life, but he does not allow his own compassion to confuse his mind, once the line towards the far-fetched is crossed24.
In the realistic world of O. Henry both realities reconcile.
The Goose Girl versus the evil maid, the peasant’s daughter versus the clever ruler, the composed sister versus the hasty brother: contrasting of the two perceptions is needed to emphasis the idea of a whole woman.
We need fairytales that sometimes present one-dimensional aspect in order to understand the richer narrative, which offers a wider and deeper perception of life.
Alongside every Rapunzel and Fiona there are Jasmine and Thumbelina.
Alongside every princess who refuses to kiss a frog there is a little mermaid who is willing to give her life for love.
Alongside every fairytale that places in its centre a traditional character of a submissive and shallow woman, there will be a contra, strong individual, who will offer the reader a wider, smarter and more human perspective on the world.
Not only in the 21st century.
