Wednesday, October 4th, 2006...11:53 pm
An Alternate Ending
This made me chuckle. I’m not sure who the original author is.
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Once upon a time in a land far away, a beautiful, independent, self-assured princess happened upon a frog as she sat down to contemplate ecological issues on the shores of an unpolluted pond in a verdant meadow near her castle.
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The frog hopped into the princess’ lap and said: “Elegant Lady, I was once a handsome prince, until an evil witch cast a spell upon me.”
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“One kiss from you, however, and I will turn back into the dapper, young prince that I am. Given my charm and handsome looks, I am sure you will fall instantly in love with me.”
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“Then, my sweet, we can marry and set up housekeeping in your castle with my mother, where you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, and bear my children. I am sure that you will forever feel grateful and happy doing this, for this is all that you need from life and it will give you purpose. You will find the company of my mother enjoyable, for I will be too busy pursuing my dreams to provide you with companionship and attention.”
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That night, as the princess dined sumptuously on lightly sauteed frog legs seasoned in a white wine and onion cream sauce, she chuckled and thought to herself: I don’t think so.
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[ On a more serious note, a while back I read a collection of essays concerning the myths and fantasies we embed in our children, particularly our daughters, through common childhood fairy tales. While I think these stories can be a fun, imaginative part of childhood, I’ve found many of them impart subtle messages I’m uncomfortable with.
I want my children to have strength, self respect, perseverance, and the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality. I want them to understand that they must be thoughtful of the choices they make in life and that it is up to them to create their own happiness, because it will not be handed to them with the swish of a magic wand. I also think it’s important they know not everything in real life turns out happily ever after, although that is certainly a goal worth striving for. ]
10 Comments
October 5th, 2006 at 4:56 am
Gotta love that! I have been dabbling a bit with those very concepts this year as we are studying the mythology of the Middle Ages. I had read “The Once and Future King” by T.H. White, which presents the stories (Sword and the Stone, Excalibur, and the stories of King Arthur and the Round table) from a male perspective, where all the women are either evil and wicked, or weak and frivilous. I then read “Mists of Avalon” by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and get the same legends , but from a female perspective. Here, the players were more balanced and real. There were strong women, even strong women put in unfortunately situations and having to make difficult choices without the guidance of men. It has really made me rethink much of the tales that I offer my daughter and son, as I want her to be strong and independent, and I want him to respect those traits in women.
October 5th, 2006 at 6:05 am
You’ve got it! That’s the same thing I want for my children. It was really interesting to see how weak and wishy-washy and co-dependent heroines have become in the watered down version of fairy tales and legends. For instance, take Cinderella. There are hundreds of slightly different versions of this mythical tale. A Cinderella-type tale exists in practically every culture, and some of the oldest date back at least a thousand years.
In most of the original tales and even those told in recent centuries, the Cinderella character had attitude and wit and a fierce streak of independence. She was a strong, capable girl who could think for herself. That is very different from the tale that Walt Disney handed us, the one most of our children are familiar with.
October 5th, 2006 at 6:17 am
Have you ever read “The Paper Bag Princess”?
October 9th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Ah, Andrea, the Paper Bag Princess is great! I think our bookshelves must look very similar. Another by Munsch that we loved is “Stephanie’s Ponytail”. Awhile ago I had a compilation of books with strong female characters, but I can’t find it. I do remember a few titles-
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
and
The Enchanted Forest Series by Patricia C. Wrede (Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons & Talking to Dragons) This series is about a princess who doesn’t want to do the usual princess stuff so runs away to live with the dragons. One of my BOYS’ favorites as a read aloud when they were a little younger.
October 10th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Babette Cole has a series of picture books which are reversals of some of those disneyfied tales. Prince Cinders. Princess Smartypants. I suspect there are others but they are good and worth looking at.
October 11th, 2006 at 6:28 am
You have made a point here I’ve struggled with some, what I’ve found is that there are actually a fair number of really great fairy tales for children with strong, interesting female characters. I’ve been looking into this as I have girls to raise myself and some I recomend are:
East o’the sun West o’the moon
Tatterhood (I particularly like the version by Mills beautiful illustrations available at some libraries)
Princess furball (though it’s pretty close to Cinderella_)
Gwinna (by Barbara Berger)
The Quiltmaker’s gift and the Quiltmaker’s journey are not quite fairy tales but fairy tale like with an interesting female protagonist
A child’s book of faeries (collected by Tanya Robyn Batt has several interesting tales)
More modernized and humorous children’s books might include:
The princess and the pea by Alain Vaes
The paper bag princes (mentioned by someone else is nice)
and
Cinderedna
and lots more I can’t list now.
I have a little book called “Let’s hear it for the girls” that lists a large number of books for girls (3-14 or so) with female protagonists who do interesting things. Some are fairy tales and some aren’t, some have additional messages and I haven’t choosen to use them with my girls but they provide one paragraph capsules of lots and lots of books and many of the recomendations have been wonderful so I often just see which ones I can get from the library and keep a stock on hand.
November 8th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Hey… everything okay? I visit from time to time, had only just discovered you and then met with deafening silence. Hope you’re well…
November 8th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
Yes, everything is well here, thanks for asking! I took a break for a fall family vacation and then came back to find myself fully engaged in dealing with contractors and planning for a major house remodel we’re about to undertake. But I should be back to normal blogging soon. Perhaps I should post an update…
November 8th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Good to know! Can’t allow the Internet to eat random people just for the sake of… oh, please don’t let me make a cheesy joke involving the word “byte”… you get the idea.
November 11th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
You made me think of a CD that my daughter has memorized that was a favorite when I was growing up. I believe it was created in the early to mid 70’s called “Free to be You and Me” a collection of short stories and songs. Tales of girls and boys who break the mold and lessons in not judging others by the way you think they should be especially in reguard to gender roles.
My favorite is about a princess who’s father demands that she marry but can’t decide who deserves such a smart, talented, beautiful woman as his daughter so he holds a race in the face of her protest that she doesn’t want to marry. She gets him to agree to let her race along with the men and if she wins she won’t have to marry. A young man has watched this princess for years and wants the chance to talk to her so decides to join the race. They tie, “crossing the finish line side by side.” The King gives the right to marry is daughter to the man. He refuses stating that he couldn’t possibly marry her if she doesn’t wish it. They become friends and he sets sail to discover new lands and she takes off traveling across country seeking adventure. Perhaps one day they will marry and perhaps they will not, either way they will both live happily ever after.
A current princess collection is - Princess Power
Just my 2 cents worth . . .
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