Fairy Tale Goals - Essay Example

If she is old enough to take food to her grandmother, Little Red Riding Hood is also old enough to know better than to fraternize with wolves.
An alternate goal of this story might be a classic set-up job. The wolf refuses to attack children in the village where the men can easily attack him and thus rid the village of the danger he poses. At the same time, it is known that the wolf prefers young children and he is likely to go after Little Red Riding Hood if she is sent off to her grandmother’s house. If the little girl is instructed by the hunter to first tell the wolf where she’s going, the hunter can be sure to find him, making it possible to kill him. If the hunter was obliged to follow a discreet distance behind Little Red Riding Hood to be sure the wolf didn’t attack her on the way to her grandmother’s house, not knowing the wolf would run ahead and await the girl at the cottage, this would explain his late arrival and his failure to warn the old woman.

In the fairy tale Rapunzel, there is no clear goal as to why the witch might demand an unborn child in exchange for the theft of some vegetables out of her garden or why she might lock the girl up in a tower once she becomes of marrying age. Associations of her as the overprotective mother are refuted by her complete refusal of Rapunzel once she learns of the prince, which should have meant a happy match for her ‘daughter’. Instead, I see the witch as obsessively consumed with ensuring she is provided with company until the end of her days. If the witch was growing the rapunzel plant as a needed ingredient for a cure for a loved one who is lost as a result of the stolen plants, this would explain her demand for the child. By locking the girl in the tower, the witch ensures that she will always know where to find her and will always have someone to talk with, regardless of what the outside world has to say about the witch’s profession. However, when Rapunzel talks of contact with the outside world, the witch is overcome with grief, knowing that she has lost the lifetime companion she’d thought she’d raised, and flown into a rage in response.

In The Princess and the Pea, the girl who shows up at the prince’s door claims to be a princess so delicate that she is capable of feeling a pea embedded underneath 20 soft mattresses. This is a ridiculous claim that only grows more fantastic as one begins to think about the princess’s arrival – without servants, coaches, and begging for shelter. Instead, it seems more appropriate to consider that the ‘princess’ is actually a clever girl from the village. Upon hearing of the prince’s return without having found his ‘real’ princess, and with a best friend working as a maid at the castle, the girl arrives at the castle door with the express goal of marrying the prince and living ‘happily ever after’, although she cleverly allows the royal family to conceive of this plan on their own. Meanwhile, her friend alerts her to the test of the pea, enabling her to accomplish her goal. Read More