The Evolution of Sleeping Beauty

Once upon a time, there was a mother, sitting at her child's bedside desperate to get her child to sleep. After loosing patience, the young mother decides to tell her child a somewhat frightening story about princes, princesses, kings and ogres; a story of abandonment and imprisonment; death and fear. The child, afraid to hear more, then surrenders to her heavy eyes, falls into a deep sleep not to wake again until morning and the mother lives happily ever after.

Perhaps that's not exactly how it went, but in all simplicity, the trauma of quieting a child created the need for fairy tales. Now used as tales of enchantment, magic, and romance; fairy tales were once used to frighten a child with starvation, abandonment, rape, adultery, and cannibalism and many other horrid depictions of such atrocities. "Sleeping Beauty", a classic still told to children today, is a magnificent example of such a fairy tale.

The Basic Plot

The story always begins with either a collection of wise women or fairies attending the christening of a baby princess, and in every version one woman is not invited or forgotten. As the women all bestow gifts of beauty and grace upon the babe, the vindictive woman (or witch) casts a spell on the child vowing that on her sixteenth birthday she shall prick her finger on a spindle and die. The last woman, not having blessed the child yet, provides a clause to the witches spell promising that at the prick of a spindle (or a rose thorn) the princess will not be in death, but in sleep for either one hundred years or until she receives a kiss of true love depending on the version. Some stories end with the kiss, others proceed to show a marriage, and many of the older transformations write that the princess gives birth to twins and is almost eaten by someone in her true loves family. All of them, however, end with some level of a happy ending.

The Transformation

"Sleeping Beauty" and "Briar Rose", the two most common titles of this story, have all but changed dramatically since the times that they were first told. Marina Warner traced story to an Authurian romance, "Perceforest," first printed in 1528. An English translation of "Perceforest" was not found to be available in public display or accessible through the Library of Congress as of March 2000. The next transformation was written by Gaimbattista entitled "Sun, Moon and Talia." In this transformation the hero is no longer a prince, but a King. Gaimbattista chose a man of higher prestige and station to lead off the story and our sleeping princess is named Talia. As this fairy tale is most widely known for it's ending of the princess awakening to the kiss of her true love, Gaimbattista neither awakens her with a kiss nor ends at her awakening. Since Talia was not affected by the princes shouting, he rapes her instead impregnating her and returns home to his wife. Still unconscious, Talia give birth to twins named Sun and Moon who awaken her by sucking a splinter out of her finger while trying to feed. This fairy tale may not seem like Disney material, but it still must go a long way before happily ever after.

As mentioned earlier, "Sun, Moon and Talia" does not end with a sweet kiss from her King. After being awakened, the King finds himself by her cottage once again and discovers that Talia and her two children are alive and well. Upon hearing the news, his bitter barren wife tricks the twins into coming to the court and orders the chef to cook the children. He cleverly tricks her by replacing the children with goats in her meal, and so she calls Talia to the court to be burned at the stake for adultery. The King arrives just on schedule to throw his wife into the fire in replace of Talia, and so they are married. Perrault drew on this version, and yet rang his own changes to the story. In Perrault's telling, the Prince does not even kiss the sleeping beauty. Instead he kneels before her and she coincidentally regains consciousness. Instead of abandoning her he is afraid to show his mother his children, Aurora and Day, because he is afraid that she will eat them.

In succeeding versions, such as Andrew Lang's "The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods," the barren cannibal wife in replaced with an Ogress mother in Law who plans on eating her son's wife and two children, Morning and Day, incorporating aspects of both tellings by Perrault and Gaimbattista. In this version, our hero returns to a Prince. The princess did not awaken by the kiss of her prince in this tale. He saw her beauty, kneeled before her and she just happened to awaken at that time. They marry and have two children, but the prince conceals his marriage from his part ogre mother in fear that she might eat the children. After the death of his father, he publicly announces his marriage and the ogress mother in law and tries to eat his family. She is unsuccessful in her attempts and dies in a vat of vipers, toads and serpents that she had prepared for the princess.

The Brother's Grimm tastefully and morally chose to cut out certain elements of the cannibalistic wife and/or mother in law altogether. In their version "Briar Rose," the Grimms focus more on her enchantment, ending with her waking. The Grimms were thought to have dramatically watered down the story until even calmer versions such as Disney's version of the sleeping beauty came into play in the 1950s. Walt Disney saw the story in a modern view and gave more life to the characters and more focus on the love aspect of the fairy tale. Six million dollars and 25 new technological advancements later, he produced a detailed depiction of princess Aurora, her father King Florestan, her mother the Queen, the three gift giving fairies (Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather), the vindictive bitch Malefiscent, and of course her beloved prince Phillip.

Walt's humorous and suspenseful story begins once again with the christening. The two good fairies, once known as the seven wise women, give their gifts to the child, when Malefiscent (the uninvited witch) enters the picture damning the child to die at the prick of a spindle before her sixteenth birthday. Merryweather, who hadn't yet given something to Aurora, gave the princess the hope to be awakened by the kiss of her true

love. In an attempt to prevent the calamity from occurring, the king orders the destruction of every spindle in the land. For further insurance that Malefiscent would not intervene, the three fairies denounced their powers becoming mortal women and sneaked the baby into the woods where they could hide her from her past and fate until she could be safe at home.

The three fairies named the girl Briar Rose to protect her true identity. For the next sixteen years her parents and her betrothed, Prince Phillip, waited patiently for her return and the three fairies kept Aurora isolated from all people. On the day of her sixteenth birthday, while Aurora's family prepared for her arrival and the fairies prepared to tell the girl of her past, Aurora (or Briar Rose) met a young fellow that had wandered into the woods. Little did they know that the young fellow (Prince Phillip) and Briar Rose (Aurora) were betrothed to each other and so they postponed there love until Briar could speak to the fairies.

When Briar Rose told the fairies of her new found love, they told her who she was and that she had to return to the palace immediately. She wept the whole way home and locked herself in her room when she arrived. Malefiscent hypnotized Aurora, leading her to a hidden tower where a spindle lay and forced her to prick it falling asleep. The transformation continues to tell how Phillips bravery and devotion are challenged at the discovery of his engagement to the girl he met in the woods, when he must confront the overwhelming forces of evil conjured up by the wicked and terrifying Malefiscent. He defeats the witch, kisses the girl, and they live happily ever after.

The Damsel in Distress

Fairy tales are often noted for their "damsels in distress," relying on them to build the plot upon. The sleeping princess, in most translations, carried out the witches prophecy as expected through curiosity, disobedience, and inexcusable stupidity. After falling carelessly into the trap laid out for her, the feeble princess waited for her prince, a man, to come and rescue her from the clutches of her black sleep. Bravo! Yet another woman made out to be part of a weak and oblivious species. Walt Disney's translation, however, was quite surprising in the fact that sleeping beauty was hypnotized into pricking her finger instead of pricking it consciously. Even the end of the story ends with the witch, a female, putting up a damn good fight against the prince.

Earlier versions discredit the prince by describing his true actions, but he is forgiven of his crimes less than half way through the story. For example: in the original tale the married prince raped the comatose lady and then abandoned her, pregnant, to return home to his unsuspecting wife. Although castration without the luxury of an anesthetic may not have been the most appropriate ending to the fairy tale, some retribution on his wife's part should have been included in the story as an vengeful act, not as an evil deed. Instead of being strong and leaving her husband for his extramarital affair, she stays with him, and when she hears news of his bastard children she becomes vindictive and spiteful targeting the princess and not her husband.

Please pardon the term, but "vindictive bitch" seems to be the theme of each and every version of "Sleeping Beauty". In the almost all accessible versions, the princess is cursed by a bitter woman who had not been invited to the christening of the princess. Never once was it said to be a revengeful man condemning a young babe to eternal sleep. In the ogress modification, the prince's stepmother (or wife in some cases) tried to devour the prince's new found family. In Walt Disney's version, as well as in most modern renditions, Malefiscent casts the spell on Aurora and tries for the remainder of the story to make sure her prophecy is fulfilled.

Only a few versions of this fairy tale even appear to favor women in its approach and references. Walt Disney's "Sleeping Beauty", of course, was not as discriminatory in its detour from the more commonly used ignorance of the princess in the scene where she pricks her finger. In the illustration, favoritism is shown as well, as Walt deliberately made prince Phillip's father about half the height of any woman in the movie. He is portrayed as a short, clumsy and hasty old man with little or no power over his wife or his son. Aurora's father is scrawny, as opposed to the beefy or strong looking depictions in other books. Another transformation of text written by Edmund Dulac surprisingly enough does not mention any male figures other than the prince. The only reference made to the princess' parents is the dialogue of the queen, and the rest of the characters consist of the sleeping princess and the final fairy.

Mamma's Boy

...And so, prince charming rode up on his brilliant white horse, gazed into his lady's eyes and said "Oh man! I forgot I have to get my mother some chips!" When was the last time a fairy tale included a line like that? Well, they might as well have added the embarrassing mamma's boy dialogue because that's exactly what the prince in the sleeping beauty was.

"The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" and "Sun, Moon and Talia" dedicated many pages to describing the prince's ogress mother. Why so important? Because in his heart and in his character that prince would have dropped his maiden off of his horse and into the mud to turn around when his mother called. A competition for his love and attention then existed between his wife/lover and his mother. This type of competition is more widely known in the case of the "in-laws" whereas a married couple is stereotypically expected to despise their spouses mother. In my opinion, the prince was eternally whipped by his mother and his closure rested in the fact that she acted upon her ogress instincts and not her human nature. Freud, however, would have had a field day with this. Believing strongly that all boys, at some point in their lives, have a crush on their mother, Freud would have noticed a deep rooted commitment that the prince had to his mother and probably would be curious about why the prince would have chosen the princess over his own mother.

The Royal Treatment

Since most fairy tales take place in the sixteenth century, economics and station seem to be prominent in all classic versions. For example, in most older transformations describe the christening very eloquently, presenting the wise women with pates of gold with precious stones around the edges. The forgotten witch is given a tin set if any place setting at all in these stories. The idea of the arranged marriage in the Disney film is a characteristic of mid millennium feudalism. Arranged marriages were usually organized according to treaties and economic benefit. Aurora was most likely matched with the prince to merge kingdoms promoting trade and an increase of land for both kingdoms.

The Marxist aspects of this story lay not only in the times but in the plot as well. If a pauper was to be cursed by a witch she would most likely have been either isolated from others as to not spread her bad luck or reputation, but would also be left to deal with the predicament herself with only the help of her family. Since the princess was of such high station, she was given help by the wisest (and in some cases the most magically) women in the kingdom, she was accompanied by her adoring statesmen and servants who put their lives on hold while she slept, and had her daddy the king ban all spinning wheels from the province. Only a woman of royal blood and good money could have received such support at such a time.

Her money not only bought her companionship and protection, but it also placed her in the deep sleep to begin with. If she had not been a baby of extreme wealth, the christening would not have been a big deal in the first place, and the entire conflict could have been avoided. Then, of course, there would not have been a story -- now would there.

Happily Ever After

Throughout history, a colossal game of telephone has been played. this game of telephone is also known as a transformation of text. That means that as the story has been passed from one person to another, it has changed in several aspects. One factor that greatly affects the transformation is the point of view of the storyteller. An author who bears a feminist point of view may tell the tale differently that someone looking at the story through Freudian colored glasses. As one reader notices the love aspect of a fairy tale, another might see the princess as a rich bitch who always gets her way. Sleeping Beauty has been through many eyes and minds, and yet one aspect has remained the same through all of these centuries. That common fact is that the princess and her prince live...
Happily Ever After.