Feminism in Fairy Tales: Jeannine Hall Gailey’s Poetic Take on the Metamorphoses and the Brothers Grimm

by Claire Sbardella

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Jeannine Hall Gailey, in her book of poetry Becoming the Villainess, casts a modern perspective on woman’s role in the Grimm’s fairy tales and in the Metamorphoses. In most fairy tales, women are evil stepmothers, witches, or rivals. If they do not fill these roles, then they act as beautiful, virginal princesses waiting for husbands. In her book, Jeannine investigates how the adversity endured by the women in fairy tales damages their psyches and forces them into roles that disavow their true natures. This retelling allows these stories to remain fresh to modern female audiences, such as myself, by providing a commentary on gender roles that remains culturally relevant today.

The social pressure for women to dress and act in ways that please men, rather than focusing on their own potential, is the theme of “Little Cinder.” In this poem, the Cinderella tries to act in a way that would please her dead mother and the prince. In doing so she ignores “the flames [she] ignite[s] around [her],” which represent her own burning personality and potential. (l 22). She does not even notice her own power, even when “the kettle and the broom sear in [her] grasp, / snap into fragments,” so consumed she is with thoughts of “the makeover,” of wearing a “size-six heel” and wiping the “grime” off her face so that she can be noticed by the prince (ll 11, 12). The original fairy story only considers Cinderella’s beauty relevant, and this beauty of hers only gets revealed when she dons the ball gown. Her dirty rags and ashy face must go if she wishes to attract the Prince. However, there is a fine line between dressing up for men and appearing vain: too little and she goes unnoticed, too much and she risks becoming like her step-sisters, whose dogged vanity and pursuit of the prince lead them to have their eyes scratched out and their heels cut off. A woman must be virtuous and gorgeous, modest and desirable, in order to win the safety and status that marrying a man provides without suffering repercussions.

The need to appear appealing to men feeds off of another problem: violence against women. The poem “Allerleirauh Reveals Her True Self To The Prince” displays this succinctly. This poem relates the story of a girl who chose to be seen as a lunatic child because her father wanted to marry her. This story has many variants, including “Cap O’ Rushes,” and “The King Who Wished to Marry His Daughter.” In these stories, the princess flees her incestuous father and disguises herself, while attempting to reveal herself to the prince she loves. The story interprets as one of a girl seeking to gain healthy, socially accepted union while avoiding unnatural union. Jeannine’s further analysis does not deny this theme, rather it highlights the violence of the girl’s father. The poem mentions that in older versions of the story, the father finds out her disguise and “cuts off [her] hands; / other times, he cuts out [her] tongue” (20, 21). Indeed the girl’s desire is protection from the prince, which the poem shows in her lament that sometimes “I never even get to the safety of you,” (18).

The poem “Becoming the Villainess” wraps up both the need to look attractive and the violence towards young women by exploring how both of these pressures turn young, innocent women into villainesses. The poem alludes to many fairy tale stories and myths, such as the princess who turned into a white cat and Ovid’s Philomena and mythologies all share a common theme. Young women endure endless perils for the ultimate goal – attaining a husband of high rank to care for and protect them. This goal provides them the best life that feudal Europe and ancient Greece can provide – a wealthy man that can protect them from the world. However, as illustrated by the story of Philomena, whose sister’s husband rapes her and tears out her tongue so that she cannot tell, not even this provides protection from men who see them as objects. To gain safety, she must forgo humanity and become a bird. The poem explores the warping that traumas such as these do to a young girl’s psyche; to protect herself, “her heart…become[s] a stone” (l 32). Gailey argues that the constant care and attention women place on placating men fails to work, drains their resources, and leads them to seek agency in morally bankrupt ways.

INSIDE-RESEARCH-FAIRYTALE-aschen_rackenham-1909-featureInstead of the comfort and warnings that fairy tales once gave audiences hundreds of years ago, Jeannine Hall Gailey’s modern retellings of these ancient fairy tales ring with uncomfortable truths,. The violence and cruelty of the originals remain; they are merely couched in modern perspectives of feminism and human rights. For me, a woman living in the twentieth century, the way Gailey tells these stories makes them lose none of their power – rather, the modern twist of the content makes them more appealing and personally relevant.