I’ve been thinking about fairy tale princesses this week.
When I was a kid we had a recording of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, narrated by Danny Kaye. I used to listen to it a lot. Finding this image of the album cover gave me quite a pang of nostalgia, let me tell you! Anyway, my favorite story was The Princess and the Pea. You remember that one, right? The prince has all but given up his dream of finding a real princess, when all of a sudden in the middle of a dark & stormy night who should show up at the castle gates but a weary, bedraggled, alleged princess. They don’t believe her, so they put her to the test. All night long she tosses and turns atop twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds, unable to sleep because of the single pea underneath. And there is much rejoicing and a happy ending, because only a real princess would be sensitive and delicate enough to detect the pea.
What a horrible, classist idea! How come only a real princess can detect the pea? Are the rest of us commoners doomed to a life of boorish ugly insensitivity just because of an accident of birth? Why, it’s downright un-American!
This week I read The Princess Test by Gail Carson Levine, courtesy of my 9yo daughter. This author is known for her retellings of old fairy tales with feminist, often humorous, twists. Ella Enchanted, for example, is a retelling of Cinderella wherein she is actually a spunky gal who submits to her stepmom & stepsisters only because she’s under a spell of “perfect obedience.” Fairest, a retelling of Snow White, very effectively conveys the message that character is more important than looks. (Fairest is clever in other ways, too. I highly recommend it.) Needless to say, I was very curious to find out what this author did with The Princess and the Pea in The Princess Test.
And guess what? In The Princess Test she’s not a princess! She’s just a very picky, hyper-sensitive girl. She has to wear fine clothes because anything less than silk and velvet is too scratchy. She’s unable to do any household chores except fine embroidery. She can only eat royal food. She (of course) detects the pea, marries the prince, and lives happily ever after.
This story did not work for me at all. It may be downright un-American, but I don’t want the prince to marry a picky, hyper-sensitive commoner. I want him to marry a real princess.
What do you think about this? Do you think it’s right that fairy tale princesses should be automatically endowed with virtue, beauty, and the ability to detect peas, just because they are princesses? My gut reaction is damn right, they should! But why?
8 Comments
I suppose the thing is that in the true fairy tale fashion a real princess would also be the nicest of human beings, just the sort of person you’d want for your best friend, whereas this young woman sounds like a pain in the proverbial and definitely in need of a come-uppance. I can only hope that the prince concerned was a right royal so-and-so as well and that they deserved each other!
I have been curious recently about the foundations of folk tales, and added to my shopping list a semi-scholarly looking book, Medieval Folklore, by Carl Lindahl. The book appears to offer explanations of the origins (if not the logic) of story ideas such as the virtuous or magical princess archetype you describe (and that Disney has exploited in such a major way).
When you use the “search inside” option on the Amazon description of the Lindahl book, the first entry covers the recurrent figure of the “Accused Queen,” who is always victimized by inappropriate suitors and evil mothers-in-law. Maybe the pea-sensitive princess is a latter day version of this character.
I got on the task of exploring fairy tales after reading a book called the Rumpelstiltskin Problem, by Vivian Vande Velde. Since the original tale makes no sense, Vande Velde retells it six different ways to explain hidden motives and otherwise illogical events in the plot. Like the Levine books you cite, Vande Velde updates the characters so a contemporary reader can enjoy them in a new way.
A curious entry from the Lindahl book might challenge both Levine and Vande Velde: the book’s index lists the motif of the speaking buttocks as a regular feature of medieval folklore. Perhaps the modern reinterpretation of that one survives in tales told by Jim Carrey. . . .
My first response is that we are brainwashed at an earlier age to believe fairy tales should be a certain way. Then add the fact that it’s a way to escape from reality, the reader’s fantasy. Who wants too much realism there?
You’ve brought up a great point and it’s made me wonder….hmmmmm. :)
Yes, princesses should posses the ability to detect peas under layers of bedding and be superior in beauty, wealth, wit and charm. Why? because…they are fairy-tale princesses and fairy-tale princesses only exist in fairy-tales so they should be utterly and completely un-real and all that we, common girls, cannot be!
I must say, I just stumbled across your blog today and I adore it. I will surely be looking up these Levine books soon!
I think we want our princesses to be extra special in some way, since it preserves our sense of the magic of royalty. Especially for those of us who’ve grown up in countries without a monarchy, I think we enjoy the idea of the princess on a pedestal.
These books sound like fun - Princess and the Pea was actually one of my favorite “fairy tales.”
Ann — it’s true. The girl in the book was a bit obnoxious. In fact it said that as a baby she cried and cried and cried all day long (you know, because her clothes weren’t silk, her food wasn’t right, etc.). My daughter thought that was hilarious. I, as a mom, did not.
Sara — both of those books sound interesting. But speaking buttocks? That’s not in any fairy tale I know. I guess I need to read more…
Mrs. B — thanks! :) I agree that protagonists of fairy tales should possess those qualities but my question is why do they have to be princesses? I mean, it completely leaves out the possibility that I myself (for example) could star in a fairy tale. ;)
Ravenous Reader — I think we enjoy it too. But at the same time we are always rooting for the underdog and loving rags-to-riches stories, which is kind of contradictory. And I imagine fairy tales fare equally well in monarchies.
That IS classist! I think my main problem with that story would be that the protagonist sounds annoying, not the princess thing - although I’d be much happier with a punk rock princess who didn’t care about peas. I guess because it’s the things we associate with class that are the problem…. Having him marry a hypersensitive commoner is a way of sending up the idea that princesses (and only princesses) are sooo refined and superhuman in their senses, but who thinks that way anymore?
For a minute I thought you were talking about The Princess Academy, which is a totally different book that just happens to have a similar name… if you haven’t read it already, I think you would enjoy it a lot. It’s well-written and empowering, and it totally attacks all these classist ideas head-on.
Thanks for the recommendation, Danica. I just thought of another one — The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. It’s a picture book, also empowering.