I have been collecting old ladybird Fairytale books that I loved in my childhood.
They are all retold by Vera Southgate and most are illustrated by Eric Winter. I must say it’s the illustrations that are really evocative of childhood for me.
So, what do the heroines of these books have in common? They are all beautiful; young (15 in the case of Sleeping Beauty! Although you could argue she was 115 by the time the prince came along); good and kind (with the exception of the princess with the frog, who is a little bitch to be honest); and inordinately fond of housework. They all spend at least some of the time weeping. No ugly crying though.
The time between meeting their prince and being proposed to varies from hours (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty) to days (Cinderella) to longer for the really prolonged courtship (Beauty and the Beast – although I guess the beast disguise slowed things down a bit). What is it that caused their princes to fall in love with them? Let’s be charitable and say ‘love at first sight’. Two of them were unconscious at the time so its hardly going to be personality.
In the end, of course, in spite of the best efforts of a number of evil women mostly (witches, queens, stepmothers), the prince marries our heroine and they all live happily ever after. As soon as the wedding is over the story ceases to be interesting enough to follow.
Horrifying! To think of all the poor girls over hundreds of years being subjected to this kind of propaganda. Very disheartening. My mum asked me once when I was younger what I wanted to do when I grew up and when I said “marry a rich man!” she was appalled. But what did she expect, having raised me on this sort of drivel? Mind you, I was 25 at the time…