Fairy Tales Gender Roles

Words: 1637
Pages: 7
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Victoria Allen
Professor Delgado
Children's Literature Eng. 334
November 7, 2015 Gender Roles in Fairy Tales In well-known fairy tales versions of Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, the males and females characters are often portrayed in the same light. The male characters are often described as the hero with strong masculine traits while the female characters are portrayed as the damsel in distress. Throughout the years fairytales have been casting the same stereotypes for their characters. Fairy Tales were created as a form of entertainment for adults which soon became entertainment for children. According to an article “fairytales have a deep impact on the development of a child. Fairy tales were told to very young children …show more content…
If not for the father demanding his daughter-the princess- the frogs curse would have never been broken. This female character role is different compare to the others because she is not described as someone who is dependent on the frog. In fact she takes on this deviant role by the way she treats the frog and her father. In the book Folk and Fairy Tales, Marina Warner talks about the different versions of Beauty and the beast. She says that “Beauty stands in need of Beast, rather than vice versa, and the beast beastliness is good and even adorable”. This version actually allowed the characters to switch roles, it was indeed the beast that stood in need of the …show more content…
In the fairy tales The Frog Princess and The Swan Maiden, the female characters takes on the “beast” creature. Like most versions of Beauty and the Beast there is the jealousy roles but in this version they are taken on by male characters. These male characters are two brothers who are jealous of their youngest brother Prince Ivan. Prince Ivan is the beauty in this version and the beast is represented as female frog. In this version it is the male character that has to be patient and compliant with the female beast. The frog princess still takes on the role of being caring, compliant towards the prince like the other female roles. The same switch in gender role takes place in The Swan Maiden. The female character was this beautiful swan and the male character, the peasant, was in love and wanted to be with her. Unlike traditional Beauty and the Beast versions, the female character didn’t love the male character. She only married him in hopes of her swan feathers returning to her after the peasant took them. The peasant was selfish and only cared about his feelings but in the end when shown her swan feathers, the swan maiden took her feathers and flew away. This showed how the swan was independent and was only there until she could get her feathers back. Gender roles in fairy tales were set out to marginalize gender
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