When one thinks of the story Rapunzel, medieval romance is not something which comes to mind. Rapunzel represents more of a modern love story, but has characteristics which can be compared to those of medieval romances. Medieval romances often include a near-flawless hero who pursues a quest. Medieval romances also often include maidens in despair, bent laws of nature, good vs. evil, and supernatural elements. These characteristics can be found in the story of Rapunzel. The basic story-line of Rapunzel includes a hero, the prince, who finds a maiden in distress, uses her hair to climb up to her, and fights an evil witch and dragon to save the maiden. The hero’s quest in Rapunzel is to defeat the evil witch and dragon in order to win save the maiden in distress. This is an occurrence of the medieval romance characteristics good vs. evil, a maiden in despair, and a hero’s quest. A hero’s quest in medieval romances creates an emotional test concerning chivalry or honor for the hero. Although this type of test does not occur for the hero in Rapunzel, his quest does concern a battle of good vs. evil.…show more content… This is not the case in Rapunzel, where the supernatural elements are unrealistic characters. The prince’s battle of good vs. evil against the witch and dragon can be seen as supernatural. The prince must first defeat a fire-breathing dragon in order to meet and fight the evil witch.
The story of Rapunzel also includes a maiden in despair, just like a medieval romance. Rapunzel, herself, is the maiden in despair within the story. She is “locked” or confined to a tall tower. From this tower, she must use her wildly long hair in order to allow the prince to enter. This can be seen as a bent law of nature. Not only does having such a large amount of hair seem unlikely, but being able to climb hair into a tower window seems unreasonable as
