Fairy tales’ economic length and straightforward lessons provide gender-related developmental paradigms with not only the pervasive patriarchal view as noted by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, but also the limited yet empowering vision of females. The female protagonist in All-Kinds-of-Fur in Brothers Grimm 's collection displays what at first appears to be a passive, objectified female personality, which a prominent narratologist Peter Brooks points out in his book Reading for the Plot; however, his reading of All-Kinds-of-Fur attracted criticisms from feminist critics due to its gender-blind direction. His formalist interpretation of the fairy tale limits the scope of exploration of the text. Brooks employs All-Kinds-of-Fur to demonstrate
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Brooks’s reading of All-Kinds-of-Fur repeatedly introduces the term “object” to describe the king’s daughter, so that she can be returned in the right moment to resolve the issue of diverted desire. The princess’s ornamentation of herself with three magical dresses to maximize her display of beauty in front of another king and her deliberate insertion of golden objects inside his soup to indicate her wealth seem to support Brooks’s argument. He defines “female plot” of the tale merely as endurance by the woman until her desire “can be a permitted response to the expression of a man 's desire” (Lanser 61). Feminist interpretation reveals otherwise. Polishing her virtues of patience and cooking skills, the princess chooses when to reveal her true self. She does not objectify her as the prince’s desirable prize as Cinderella’s sisters would do, calculates a series of gestures to imply her presence. She exemplifies not passivity and endurance, but resourcefulness and tactfulness for her …show more content…
In place of letting misfortunes befall her by her father as in Girl with No Hands, the princess leaves her father and renounces her parents: “I am a poor child who no longer has a father or a mother” (Grimm 57). Charles Perrault’s version of introduces a fairy figure of a motherly nature; however, depriving the princess of such mentors in Grimm’s retelling of the story let her become independent, reflecting the words of Bruno Bettelheim: “fairy tales depict in imaginary and symbolic form the essential steps in growing up and achieving an independent existence” (73). In order to prove him worthy of the princess, the hero in Grimm’s fairy tales, such as The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs, embarks upon impossible quests created by the king who hopes for the hero’s failure; however, it is now the princess who assigns nearly impossible demands in hopes of escaping the marriage. We see the ways in which the heroine can adopt an active, however limited, role—“how, beyond total and obedient consent, she can control her fate” (Lanser
Brooks’s reading of All-Kinds-of-Fur repeatedly introduces the term “object” to describe the king’s daughter, so that she can be returned in the right moment to resolve the issue of diverted desire. The princess’s ornamentation of herself with three magical dresses to maximize her display of beauty in front of another king and her deliberate insertion of golden objects inside his soup to indicate her wealth seem to support Brooks’s argument. He defines “female plot” of the tale merely as endurance by the woman until her desire “can be a permitted response to the expression of a man 's desire” (Lanser 61). Feminist interpretation reveals otherwise. Polishing her virtues of patience and cooking skills, the princess chooses when to reveal her true self. She does not objectify her as the prince’s desirable prize as Cinderella’s sisters would do, calculates a series of gestures to imply her presence. She exemplifies not passivity and endurance, but resourcefulness and tactfulness for her …show more content…
In place of letting misfortunes befall her by her father as in Girl with No Hands, the princess leaves her father and renounces her parents: “I am a poor child who no longer has a father or a mother” (Grimm 57). Charles Perrault’s version of introduces a fairy figure of a motherly nature; however, depriving the princess of such mentors in Grimm’s retelling of the story let her become independent, reflecting the words of Bruno Bettelheim: “fairy tales depict in imaginary and symbolic form the essential steps in growing up and achieving an independent existence” (73). In order to prove him worthy of the princess, the hero in Grimm’s fairy tales, such as The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs, embarks upon impossible quests created by the king who hopes for the hero’s failure; however, it is now the princess who assigns nearly impossible demands in hopes of escaping the marriage. We see the ways in which the heroine can adopt an active, however limited, role—“how, beyond total and obedient consent, she can control her fate” (Lanser