Fairytales generally offer children a very limited choice of heroes and villains, and they cast men and women in stereotyped roles, because they are meant to socialize children according to the values of the society and according to their expected gender roles. Two feminine characters found in many fairytales are the wicked stepmother and the young and beautiful heroine, who is often a princess. In such fairytales as Grimm brothers’ “Snow White”, “Cinderella” and “Mother Holle”, the stepmother is an intruder who occupies the role of the good mother and persecutes the young, beautiful and kind heroine. She is generally illustrated as the most terrible villain that a folk storyteller could think about and therefore, she is punished at the end of the story. On the opposite side of the conflict, the innocent heroine is bestowed with all the qualities that embodied the feminine ideal of the time it was written. She is not only young and beautiful, but also kind, virginal, hard-working and submissive. Consequently, in all the fairytales, she is rewarded at the end, and in many of them, this reward comes in the form a marriage. This suggests that the message of such fairytales is shaped by the society’s pressure on girls to obey their assigned gender roles. Thus, while the opposition between the wicked stepmother and the innocent girl suggests the eternal conflict between good and evil, at a deeper level, it is a conflict between transgressive and submissive femininity.
In order to understand the role of the wicked stepmother in fairytales, one has to analyze why they are portrayed as evil in the first place. Apparently, in many versions of these fairytales, including “Snow White”, the villain in the story was in fact a biological mother. As Tatar (143) shows in her work, in the first edition of Grimm’s fairytales, published in 1812, Snow White’s mother does not die. She transforms into an ogre due to her own vanity and pride and tries to have her biological daughter murdered. However, in the second edition of the story, the mother is replaced by a stepmother. This change also took place in “Mother Holle”, because in the first edition, the widow had two biological daughters, while in the second version, she had only one biological daughter, and a stepdaughter, whom she abused (Tatar 13). As Tatar argues in this respect, “female villain – whether wearing the hat of cook, stepmother, witch, or mother –have repeatedly been labeled folkloristic projections of the “bad mother” (Tatar 144). However, the “bad mother” image is replaced from these stories in order to preserve the sanctity of motherhood, and replaced with the image of the stepmother, who was much more acceptable as a villain.
Children may have resented stepmothers in reality, because they took the place of their mothers. The reason why the stepmother was the best replacement for the ‘bad mother’ trope was because in the medieval age, women would often die of disease or in childbearing and they were replaced by stepmothers. As compared to these days, when women have full or shared the custody of their children in cases of divorce, in the time when the fairytales were written, women who wanted to desert their husbands needed to leave their children behind them. Therefore, more men were left with the responsibility of children than today. In addition, men could not take care of children, because of gender role segregation. Consequently, they possibly remarried rapidly in order to bring a woman into the household. In “Cinderella”, “Snow White” and “Mother Holle”, the biological mothers die, and fathers remarry other women, who turn out to be wicked. In two of these stories, the mothers have biological daughters of their own. After they bring women into the household again, men disappear from the story, leaving the good girl in the company of the wicked stepmother, only to be abused and mistreated. Only in “Cinderella”, the father is present throughout the daughter’s abuse, and it is not clear why he tolerates it. The three women’s comments against the girl, "Why should that stupid goose sit in the parlor with us?" they said. "If she wants to eat bread, then she will have to earn it. Out with this kitchen maid!" (Grimm and Grimm, “Cinderella”), suggest that the father may have been manipulated by the mother and her two daughters.
Typically, men do not have evil roles in fairytales. Fathers are noblemen or kings, and the masculine protagonists are princes, or simple men with great virtues. Either way, they are portrayed in favorable ways. Even in “Cinderella”, where the father assists to his daughter’s abuse and does nothing, his guilt in his own daughter’s mistreatment is not discussed in the fairytale. As Tatar explains in this respect, “even when they violate basic codes of morality, and decency, fathers remain noble figures who rarely commit premeditated acts of evil. Stepmothers however are unreconstructed villains, malicious by nature and disposition” (Tatar 151). This representation of the stepmother may be a reflection of how children may have perceived them.
The stepmother stereotype did not emerge in a void but rather, it was based upon the conflicts which could have emerged within the blended families. Tatar explains in this respect that:
Conflicts could have been natural because the stepmothers needed to impose their own will in front of children who did not recognize their authority. The role of the stepmother comes, to this day, with an expectation of a more distant and less involved relationship between stepmothers and the children. However, it is very difficult for stepmothers to fulfill the role of parents for the children, while preserving this relationship and this is why stepmothers have a very difficult time adjusting, which in time, may lead to frustration and anger (Rousseau 114). In studying the relationship between stepmothers and stepchildren in modern-day Quebec, Rousseau found that stepmothers may develop resentment for their children. She shows that, “Two of the stepmothers reported resentment and anger toward their stepchildren, who they feel rejects them on a regular basis. For these stepmothers, it appears that since their stepchildren already have a mother, there is no role left for them to play in their lives” (Rousseau112). Thus, anger is a typical feeling towards stepchildren, whom children in the 18th century did not trust.
Apart from the lack of social skills, women may have also wanted their own offspring to inherited the money and the property at the man’s Accordingly, Rousseau argues that “this type of role would not be related the type of “territorial issues” that appear at the base of the mother/stepmother dichotomy” (114). Thus, the conflict may have been in some contexts, a contest for resources. Thus, in “Cinderella”, the stepmother refuses to allow her to go to the ball because this would diminish her daughters’ chances to win the prince. In “Snow-White” however, the princess and her stepmother seem to be competing for the love of the king, since the queen is envious on the girl’s beauty: Thus, “the queen took fright and turned yellow and green with envy. From that hour on whenever she looked at Snow-White her heart turned over inside her body, so great was her hatred for the girl. The envy and pride grew ever greater, like a weed in her heart, until she had no peace day and night” (Grimm and Grimm “Snow White”). The rivalry between the two women may have reflected common situations where the younger woman was envied by the new wife, for her bond with the man of the family. However, both the desire to compete for resources and for the father’s love made the stepmother a model of feminine transgression, because it was an ambitious and assertive desire.
On the contrary, the young and innocent protagonist constitutes the feminine ideal of the time when the story was collected by the Grimm brothers. Their role is to teach girls that being submissive, gentle, kind and warm, paid off because it got them a marriage proposal. Da Conceição Tomé and Bastos explain that, “from a feminist approach, fairy tales have not only been considered to serve to acculturate women to traditional social roles, but also to form female attitudes towards the self, men, marriage and society” (2). Consequently, fairytales written in this period, and in the 19th century, tried to teach girls to become domesticated, respectable and attractive (Louie 74). The goodness and gentleness of the protagonist was associated with their beauty. For example, “Snow White” was the fairest of them all. Her beauty is the reason for which men, such as the huntsman, the dwarfs and the prince, are attracted to her, and admire her, but also the reason why her stepmother hates her (Da Conceição Tomé and Bastos 4). .
Apart from being beautiful and kind, girls also needed to be hard-working. In “Mother Holle”, the girl succeeds to return home with a fortune, because she works hard and submits to mother Holle. She “took care to do everything according to the old woman’s bidding and every time she made the bed she shook it with all her might, so that the feathers flew about like so many snowflakes” (Grimm and Grimm, “Mother Hole”). Her own qualities are contrasted with the flaws of her half-sisters, as in Cinderella and “Mother Holle”. In “Cinderella”, the two princesses are vain, because they ask their new father to bring dresses and jewels to them. In addition, they humiliate and behave horribly with their half-sister. In “Mother Holle”, the girl is lazy and unkind, this being the reason why she is punished by having pitch pour over her. This is a type of transgressive behavior, because these girls refuse to perform domestic chores.
Therefore, the good protagonists also represented models of perfect femininity which the other girls could learn. As Louie shows,” girls are taught to be sweet, naive, passive, and self-sacrificing, whereas boys are encouraged to be strong, adventurous, self-sufficient heroes and saviors” (Louie 75). Furthermore, girls are silenced in these stories, in that they do not get to take decisions for themselves, but allow destiny to carry them. In “Snow White”, the princess is unable to take her own decisions. She is silenced throughout the story, and generally accepts things as they are (Da Conceição Tomé & Bastos 4). In “Snow White”, “the dwarfs said, ‘If you will take care of our house, cook, make the beds, wash, sew, and knit, and if you will keep everything neat and clean, you can stay with us and you shall want for nothing.’ ‘Yes,’ said Snow-white, ‘with all my heart,’ and she stayed with them” (Grimm and Grimm, “Snow White”. Therefore, in these fairytales, the female protagonists are constantly silenced and not allowed to take their own decisions, this being an attribute of the male protagonists.
The reward for being good and submissive is always a happy ending. In “Snow White”, the princess marries the prince, simply because she is so beautiful, as she lies in her coffin, helpless. In “Mother Holle”, the protagonist is rewarded by her employer for her hard-work and dedication to domestic chores, while in “Cinderella”, her innocence, and her beauty finally triumph in front of aversion. Thus, “as seen in fairytales such as Cinderella and Snow White, physical beauty, grace, innocence are all rewarded, while aggressive, powerful and ugly villains are punished. The association of beauty with “good” and ugly with “bad” plays a significant role in shaping children’s perception of the importance of physical attractiveness” (Louie 76). In contrast, the stepmothers, or their ugly lazy daughters, are punished. In “Cinderella”, they are blinded “for their wickedness and falsehood” (Grimm and Grimm “Cinderella”), while in “Mother Holle”, the ugly girl is covered in pitch. In “Snow White”, the queen is made to wear red-hot iron shoes as punishment. Thus, in the first two stories, not adhering to domestic norms, or being outspoken and ambitious leads to punishment, while in “Snow White”, vanity and lack of maternal instincts leads to the same result. Even a queen is not able to defend herself in front of the will of the prince, because she is after all, a woman only. The moral in most fairytales is that girls who obey conventional female roles get are to live “happily ever after” (Louie 78).
Therefore, as shown throughout this paper, stepmothers and heroines represent the opposition between good and evil in Brothers Grimm’s fairytales, but on a deeper level, they are opposed by their willingness or unwillingness to adhere to their assigned gender roles. While good girls, who work hard and are kind and submissive, are rewarded by the end, women who transgress against gender norms, by being too assertive and ambitious, by lacking maternal instincts or by being lazy and unwilling to perform domestic chores are punished at the end of the story. While the stepmother image may reflect the conflicts that often emerged at the time in the family home, she is only a substitute for the ‘bad mother’, who deserted the family, abused the children, or did not comply with gender roles in one way or the other. She is opposed in these fairytales to the ideal of the good mother, who distinguished herself by being religious and kind, but also, absent.
Works Cited
Grimm, Jacob and Grimm, Wilhelm. “Cinderella”. Web. http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm021.html
Grimm, Jacob and Grimm, Wilhelm. “Mother Holle”. Web. http://www.authorama.com/grimms-fairy-tales-21.html
Grimm, Jacob and Grimm, Wilhelm. “Little Snow White”. Web. http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm053.html
Louie, Patricia. “Not So Happily Ever After: The Grimm Truth about Gender Representations in Fairytales”. Ignite 4.1(2012):74-82.
Rousseau, Julie Gosselin Katherine. “Gender Typing in Stepmothers: a Phenomenological Analysis. Qualitative Research Journal 12.1(2012):111-129.
Tatar, Maria. The Hard Facts of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales. New Jersey: Princeton University Press 2003.Print.
Da Conceição Tomé, Maria & Bastos, Glória. “Mirror, Mirror on the wall / Who Is the Freest of Them All?”: portrayals of Princesses in Grimms’ Fairy Tales and Contemporary Children’s Literature”. Alabe 8(2013):1-12.
