Myth Themes
Some folklorists have analyzed Sleeping Beauty as indicating the replacement of the lunar year (with its thirteen months, symbolically depicted by the full thirteen fairies) by the solar year (which has twelve, symbolically the invited fairies). This, however, founders on the issue that only in the Grimms' tale is the wicked fairy the thirteenth fairy; in Perrault's, she is the eighth. The basic elements of the story can also be interpreted as a nature allegory: the Princess represents Nature, the Wicked Fairy is Winter, who puts the Court to sleep with pricks of frost until the Prince (Spring) cuts away the brambles with his sword (a sunbeam) to allow the sun to awaken sleeping Nature.
Among familiar themes and elements in Perrault's tale:
- the Wished-for Child Further information: Saint Anne and Rapunzel
- the Accursed Gift Further information: Nessus and Deianira
- the Inevitable Fate
- the Spinner Further information: Moirai and Norn
- the Heroic Quest
- the Ogre Stepmother
- the Salvation through a Redemptor. Slumber as metaphor for sleeping death as though by sin
- the Substituted Victim Further information: Isaac, Jesus, Zeus, Cronos and Iphigeneia
Read more about this topic: Sleeping Beauty
Famous quotes containing the words myth and/or themes:
“The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)