The Grimm Perspective
The Grimm Perspective
Everything we read constructs us, makes us who we are, by presenting our image of ourselves as girls and women, as boys and men. Besides being part of an important source for developing children’s language skills, books are an integral component in communicating society’s values and traditions. How women are portrayed in fairytales are good, unintelligent, content, attractive and sensitive, or they are jealous, aggressive and wicked. The Brothers Grimm oversimplification of the female character in fairytales communicates to young reader an inaccurate biased opinion of the gender while their minds are still developing.
Cinderella is the epitome of “pious and ...
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“good”. Specifically, Cinderella is good because she is beautiful, passive, innocent and beguiled.
Cinderella is victimized by her “wicked” stepmother and stepsisters, who are “beautiful and fail in the face, but treacherous and wicked at heart.” They force her to wear rags and act as a servant in order to break the spirit and undermine her beauty status. In making Cinderella submissive, these women are another tool of the Grimm’s to serve as a medium of patriarchy. Whenever a woman in a fairytale possesses or acts with power, they act in favor of patriarchy. Additionally, in Cinderella, the stepmother knows the only way to gain social status and succeed on the system’s terms is to marry her daughters into wealth. She believes a woman’s power directly correlates with a woman’s beauty. Due to the fact that woman can’t earn money due to society, the stepmother exploits her daughters. The stepmother even makes her daughters cut off parts of their fee for a chance to be with the ...
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different in Rapunzel, she is stolen from her mother, in a deal set by her father, and is eventually locked in a tower high above the ground by an evil enchantress. This imprisonment keeps Rapunzel away from world, until the handsome Prince is lured by her locks of gold and climbs her hair to reach Rapunzel. However, this fairytale lends itself to the notion that the female is incapable of managing herself; that to be saved, she must flaunt her assets. The minor act of Rapunzel letting down her hair to the prince suggests that the female is nothing more than a mere sexual object.
When it comes to the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales, one theme in these stories is not unfamiliar. This is ...
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"The Grimm Perspective." Essayworld.com. March 12, 2013. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Grimm-Perspective/102398.
"The Grimm Perspective." Essayworld.com. March 12, 2013. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Grimm-Perspective/102398.
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