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Gary Gee
Dr. Lynda Haas
Writing 37
3 November 2015
Sleeping Beauty Rhetorical Essay
Fairies tales have gone back centuries, many stories have been created, altered, and some
even re-imagined all across the world. Whether the tale came from China in the 11th century,
Germany in the 19th century or even Switzerland in the 15st century, fairy tales move and redefine
themselves in different places at different times. They could have been made to pass the time or
adapted for scholastic purposes. The time period, the culture, the purpose of the tale, and the
audience of the tale, these are the aspects that effect a fairy tale. One can imagine all the different
variations of fairy tales there are.
One of the tales that have been reformed over time is what is commonly referred to as
Sleeping Beauty. Back in the 1812, the famous German fairy tale collectors and academic
scholars, the Brothers Grimm, published Little Brier Rose, one of the earliest versions of
Sleeping Beauty. Little Brier Rose is about a princess who falls into a deep sleep due to a curse
placed by a fairy, and is later saved by courageous prince who fearlessly cut through deadly
thorns and kisses the princess to wake her up; they live happily ever after. In 2014, Neil Gaiman,
a feminist author of many notable novels, turned Little Brier Rose on its head, and into a 72-page
story called Sleeper and the Spindle. In this story, a distressed Queen who doesnt want to get
married hears of the sleeping kingdom across the mountains, she decides to call off the wedding
for the moment and goes on a journey to save the other kingdom. She cuts through bushes of

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thorns and fights off hordes of walking zombies to reach the castle and kisses the evil sleeping
girl who later gets killed by the real princess of the kingdom, then the Queen rides off to the East
away from her own kingdom to avoid marriage. Sleeper and the Spindle is a 21st century reimagining of Little Brier Rose, a story by the Brothers Grimm in 1812; due to changes mainly in
historical context and purpose, Gaiman reinvents classic genre conventions such as the
passiveness of the female role and the happy ending of the story.
A common fairy tale convention is the passiveness of the female role. The female in a
traditional fairytale rarely does anything. In a book by Marcia R. Lieberman and published by
the National Council of Teachers of English, there is a part where it talks about the generic role
of the female, This is a principal factor contributing to the passivity of most of the females in
these stories. Since the heroines are chosen for their beauty, not for anything they do, they seem
to exist passively until they are seen by the hero, or described by him. They wait, are chosen, and
are rewarded (386). The female heroine usually has traits of beauty and goodness, but thats all
they have. They win in the end, but not due to their own work, its usually due to how they look
or how kind they are. As the quote says, they wait for their prince to pick them up. They play a
very passive role in fairy tales. In the 19th century Grimms version, Little Brier Rose, the most
active thing the princess does is get pricked by the spindle. She falls asleep for a hundred years
waiting for a heroic prince to come save her and then they live together happily because he sees
how beautiful she is. In the 21st century Neil Gaimans version, The Sleeper and the Spindle, the
hero is the brave Queen. She is the one that goes on the journey to save the sleeping girl. She is
the one that puts on the armor and sword, gets on the horse, stabs herself to stay awake, and cuts
the thorns to get to the castle. There is no male hero in Gaimans version, but there is an active

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female heroine. The reason for this is due to the historical context. The gender values of the 21st
century have changed from those of the 19th century.
The 19th century outlook of women were a soft one, one with mothers not workers. In an
article by Kathryn Hughes, a professor in Lifewriting at the University of East Anglia, she
confirms that the role of the 19th century woman was more of a passive one. As the 19th century
progressed men increasingly commuted to their place of work the factory, shop or office.
Wives, daughters and sisters were left at home all day to oversee the domestic duties that were
increasingly carried out by servants. The men were the ones who were proactive, they went out
to work and make money, while the women stayed home taking care of the household. She goes
on to say, Women were considered physically weaker yet morally superior to men, which
meant that at the time women werent viewed as people who would go out and save the world
with their strength, they were viewed as honest and good. This could have been a factor in
determining the characteristics of the fairy tale female role in the 19th century considering how
most fairy tale heroines at the time were portrayed as weak but were kind and pure.
Things changed during the 20th century, an era of social movements had arrived. One of
those movements was the feminist movement. There have actually been three waves of feminism
movements during the 20th century and onward. During the 1960s, the second wave popped up
and continued well onto the next decades. In a book authored by Myra Marx Ferree and Beth
Hess, both professors of sociology, they state Growth in number and size of movement
organizations was only one way in which feminism expanded rapidly in the late 1960s and early
1970s. Public awareness and public opinion about feminist issues changed especially
dramatically in those early years and have continued to move in a more feminist direction (196).
The view on females have changed through the 20th century aided in part by the feminist

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movement during that time. Women are no longer just housewives, they have become more equal
with men. One of the most significant and startling trends of the past half-century is the
increased participation of women in work outside the home. In 1920, women composed of 20
percent of the civilian labor force, compared to over 45 percent today (Ferree and Hess 2).
Woman make up almost half of the work force today, compare that with the 19th century views
where women could not even participate in work. That is a very significant number in the trend
that women are becoming more equal in society. Women are starting to play more active roles.
That is one reason why in Gaimans Sleeper and the Spindle, there is a female protagonist that
becomes the knight in shining armor. It isnt uncommon for a 21st century woman to be an active
character anymore. It is even starting to become the norm, considering the trends toward gender
equality. The 19th century and the 21st century have very different gender standards.
Another fairy tale convention is the happy ending. Fairy tales almost always end with the
words happily ever after or something of that sort. In Little Brier Rose, the story ends with
everybody in the kingdom breaking free from the curse, the prince marrying Brier Rose, and then
living happy till the end of their days. In Sleeper and the Spindle, there is no happy ending.
There is an ending where the kingdom is revived from their sleep with their princess on her death
bed, while the Queen never returns to marry, she just rides off into the sunset. The two stories
have very different endings and that is due in part to the differences in the authors purpose for
their tale.
The Brothers Grimm, a fixture of fairytales in 19th century Germany, had the purpose of
creating a national identity, while at the same time pleasing and entertaining the people with their
fairy tale collection. In a book by Maria Tatar, an American academic and Chair of the
Committee on Degrees in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University, she states The main

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purpose of the proposed volume was not so much to earn royalties as to salvage what was left of
the priceless national resources still in the hands of the German folk. The Grimms therefore
were willing to forgo royalties for the benefit of appearing in print. Still, the brothers expressed
the hope that the volume in the offing would find friends everywhere and that it would entertain
them as well (11). When the Brothers Grimm collected their stories, they had the main purpose
of preserving German culture. At first, they cared more about getting to the heart of Germany
rather than make a profit for their work. They were willing to give up the money to get the gritty
truth of German culture. But, they also wanted to make stories that were well-liked by the
public. They actually were later overcome by the amount of critics on their stories and changed
them into more well-liked stories. According to Jack Zipes, a well-known fairy tale scholar, the
brothers remade many of the stories revised the prefaces and introductions, added
illustrations in a separate small edition directed more at children and families, and embellished
the tales so that they became polished artistic "gems (1). Their new purpose was to create
stories that were happier, less dark, and more liked by the majority. The fact that the 1812
version of Little Brier-Rose did not change means that the story was already popular enough.
The happy endings are a key part of stories being liked, people want to see the good guys
winning in the end. If it ended with all the people that tried to save Aurora dying and the
kingdom staying asleep, it would not be a popular fairy tale. A fairy tale, like all books, is a
journey to read, people want that journey to end on a satisfying note. If the ending was
depressing, people would feel depressed. The feeling of the protagonist winning is subtly
transferred to peoples real lives. So that happy ending was needed for the purpose of gaining
better reviews on their tales.

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Neil Gaiman, on the other hand, had a different purpose in mind. He is a feminist writer.
A book written by Tara Prescott, a writing lecturer for the University of California, Los Angeles,
states Neil Gaimans reputation of strong, independent female characters is common knowledge
in our circles (1). Gaiman wants to impose upon the literary world more female leads, more
feminine characters with power. Following the tenets of the fairy tale genre, Gaimans
rearticulation reveals that not all princesses are beautiful virgins, not all stepmothers are wicked,
and not all princes are charming and handsome. Instead, Gaiman illuminates the valorization of
dehumanized women and the gendered nature of power (Prescott and Drucker 178). Gaiman
turns away from the normal conventions of fairy tales and puts his own spin on it, a feminist
spin. The purpose of Sleeper and the Spindle is to empower women. In the story, the main thing
is that the queen made her own choices, she decides to step away from the locks of wedding, and
chooses to journey freely. The story gives off the idea that woman should follow their own
choices. If women dont want to get married, dont get married. If women want to go off and
save kingdoms, go save kingdoms. The story also illustrates how strong women can be, how they
can live on their own. Gaiman breaks the classic convention of a happy fairy tale ending with the
two getting married to show that women have power to do what they want.
The fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty has many different versions written in different time
periods for different purposes. Two versions of that story are Little Brier Rose and Sleeper and
the Spindle. They are completely different due to the fact that they were made in different time
periods and for different purposes. Little Brier Rose was a 19th century fairy tale made to
preserve German culture and entertain people, while Sleeper and the Spindle was a 21st century
re-imagining of it made to empower women. Different circumstances lead to different versions
of the same thing being made.

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Works Cited
1. Ferree, Myra Marx, and Beth B. Hess. Controversy and Coalition: The New Feminist
Movement across Three Decades of Change. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.
2. Hughes, Kathryn. "Gender Roles in the 19th Century." The British Library. Web. 4 Nov.
2015.
3. Lieberman, Marcia R.. Some Day My Prince Will Come": Female Acculturation
Through the Fairy Tale. College English 34.3 (1972): 383395. Web.
4. Prescott, Tara, and Aaron Drucker, eds. Feminism in the Worlds of Neil Gaiman.
Jefferson: McFarland &,, 2012. Web.
5. Tatar, Maria. The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2003.
Print.
6. Zipes, Jack. "Introduction: Rediscovering the Original Tales of the Brothers Grimm." The

Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Trans. Jack Zipes. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton UP, 2014. Print.