Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams
25
about making critical evaluations solely through contemporary mores.
We also need to consider the diversity of responses
that have been made
to such tales and the impact feminist criticism has had in generating
alternatives.
In some respects there seems to be a vested critical interest in
not
seeking alternatives, largely in order to repeat the same negative asser-
tions. The inordinate degree of attention given to a handful of fairy
tale heroines – namely Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty – is
attributable to one main factor: they are consistently targeted by critics
for the same reasons that they were initially selected and shaped by col-
lectors and editors – because they
fit a particular stereotype, or, rather,
they have been made to fit one. In each tale the central female character
is said to typify the ‘innocent persecuted heroine’ (ATU 510), relying on
a heroic male to transform her life, yet these tales were subject to quite
radical transformations prior to reaching their ‘canonical’ status, and
have been imbued with renewed significance ever since.
9
As a number
of critics have noted, stories underwent a considerable process of altera-
tion and refinement prior to being published.
10
A male bias is apparent
in the gender of those most closely affiliated
to the burgeoning fairy
tale industry – such as Charles Perrault and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm –
who may have been inspired by a variety of influences yet filtered ideas
through their own particular values and concerns, including what was
perceived to be appropriate conduct for females. The result was not
only a tendency to endorse monogamous relations via the institution
of marriage, but a number of accompanying narrative interventions. As
well as alienating women from one another through an emphasis on
female rivalry, negative male characters were conspicuously replaced by
the heroic prince that ‘saves’ the heroine. From
unnatural fathers intent
on ‘marrying’ their daughters to male intruders who take advantage of
incumbent women, fairy tales once included a host of unsavoury male
figures and their erasure is not solely attributable to having a newly
conceived child audience in mind, particularly given the way in which
female villainy was not only retained, but distinctly amplified.
11
Maria
Tatar argues that a primary intention behind fairy tales includes female
socialisation, affirming that they set out ‘models of successful accultura-
tion while supplying women with what conventional
wisdom perceived
as the correct program for making and preserving a good marriage’
(1992: 96), yet she also points out that many contrary examples exist
around the world, including tales where female curiosity and resource-
fulness are championed rather than censured, while male versions of
‘Cinderella’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ further warn us against applying too