A Picture of Sleeping Beauty
Born in Scotland in 1874, Anne Anderson was a famous British writer and illustrator for children’s books. As a child, Anne grew up in Argentina but spent her adult years in England. Anne Anderson married a painter, Alan Wright, in 1912. Together they worked on numerous books and illustrations. Anne Anderson has a unique sense of style that uses line drawings and watercolors. Her works are usually delicate and lightly drawn in either black and white or color. Although the date of Anne Anderson’s death is unknown, it is thought to be around the year 1936.
Anne Anderson is famous for illustrations that accompany the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty, also known as Briar Rose. There are many variations, but the gist of the story remains the same. The king and queen invite all but one wise woman to celebrate the birth of the new princess. The last fairy was so distraught at this, that she curses the child, Briar Rose. When Briar Rose will turn 15, she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall asleep. A prince’s kiss is the only thing that will awaken the sleeping beauty. The prince is the rescuer in the end of each version of Sleeping Beauty.
“The Sleeping Beauty “ or “Briar Rose” illustration produced by Anne Anderson appeared in “Anne Anderson’s Old, Old, Fairy Tales” printed by the Whitman Publishing Company in 1935. It is a portrait oriented, color illustration centered on the page. It is framed in a simple pen and ink drawing of a castle intertwined with a forest of thorns and roses and the name “BRIAR ROSE” printed in a marquee at the top right.
The setting for the illustration is essentially the interior of a structure with a few distinct objects. More specifically, a...
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...le. Briar Rose is the young female propagandistic character that often appears in most fairy tales. The classic antagonistic character is the old lady behind Briar Rose. You can tell she is wicked by the colors associated with her.
Works Cited
Adrienne E. Gavin "Anderson, Anne" The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. Ed. Jack Zipes. © Oxford University Press 2006. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature: (e-reference edition). Oxford University Press. 21 October 2010
Vanessa Joosen "Sleeping Beauty" The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. Ed. Jack Zipes. © Oxford University Press 2006. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature: (e-reference edition). Oxford University Press. 21 October 2010
"Spinning." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition (2009): 1. Vocational and Career Collection. EBSCO. Web. 21 Oct. 2010.
...lms. She includes several other references besides the long narration of the fairy tale. Soon after Lene and Hans get married, Lene pricks her finger on a curtain needle. This is symbolic of Sleeping Beauty and her loss of innocence by pricking her finger on a spinningwheel spindle. Anna also speaks of herself and her mother as witches on several occasions; which furthers the fairy tale motif.
Let’s begin with Little Briar Rose. In this story we are introduced to our cultural hero, the Prince. In this tale he shows bravery. The Prince willingly goes to the thorn hedge, that covered the castle. The prince showed no fear and was
Senick, Gerard J., and Hedblad, Alan. Children’s Literature Review: Excerpts from Reviews, and Commentary on Books for Children and Young People (Volumes 14, 34, 35). Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research, 1995..
In “Escape from Wonderland” by Deborah Ross, the writer explains how the fictional characters are admired. Although they seem to be sending a bigger message to young girls. The writer talks about drawing a line between fantasy and reality. In the end Ross’s objective is to show how some Disney characters break the femininity and imagination tradition. Which can have an effect in children and how they value their own ability to have unique visions. By comparing Alice in Wonderland (1951), The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991) to heroines like Arabella from The female Quixote. “Charlotte Lennox’s (The Female Quixote illustrates both these conservative and progressive plot patterns, for it both draws upon and criticizes earlier romances, which themselves often both celebrate and punished female imagination and expressiveness. Therefore, like Disney’s movies today, which also use material from romance and fairy-tale tradition”, (pg. 473, Escape from Wonderland). Young women may not only begin to fantasize about a grandeur life more exciting than reality but to be disappointed with society in the workplace and relationships. For example, Meredith from Brave she is a princess that wishes to have a different life than what her mother has planned for her. She refuses to get married and have the duties of a princess. She wants to have adventures and be
While Catherine Breillat’s “Sleeping Beauty” does stay true to the original Brother’s Grimm tale in its archetype, she does stray from the original version in many ways in order to convey a message. In comparison to her film “Bluebeard”, “Sleeping Beauty” was much more explicit, with graphic sexual scenes. Additionally, this tale is different in that the main character is not the dainty frail princess we usually see in classic fairytales, but a tomboy who wants to referred to as “Vladmir” and has sexual encounters with another woman. Breillat contrasts the lesbian sex scene where Anastasia is laughing and enjoying herself with her having sex with Peter where she cries throughout it and puts her face down in a pillow after it is done.
Whalley, J. (2009) ‘Texts and Pictures: A History’ in Montgomery H and Watson N (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University, pp.299-310
The story was created by Charles Perrault in 1696, Brothers Grimm later in the 19th century and renewed by Disney in 1959. The story is about a young girl who was cursed as a baby born to grow in beauty and grace but on her sixteenth birthday, she’ll prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die. The fairies alter the curse so that instead of dying, Princess Aurora will fall into a deathlike sleep and only a truelove’s kiss will wake her up. Eventually, the plan works and she is later woken up by Prince Phillip. The Princess is portrayed as a beautiful young girl with long golden blonde hair, violet eyes, rose red lips and fair skin. We can recognize that, like Cinderella, beauty is associated with goodness since Aurora is also described as a kind, gentle sweet, graceful and charming Princess. Moreover, her beauty is what saves her from the curse since the Prince fell in love instantly when they were
...cardinal virtues.” This cannon is exemplified in multiple fairy tales, especially Charles Perrault’s “ The Little Glass Slipper” and the Brothers Grimm’s “ Snow White”. Throughout these two fairy tales the main characters are perfect embodiments of these ideal female virtues. Cinderella is passive and forgiving even though she is mistreated. Snow White is passive and her life is completely dependent on the males present in the tale. In both instances the opposing women in the narratives are characterized as villains because they are strong and dominant. In the case of “Snow White” only the queen is looked down upon when she tries to kill Snow White, while the huntsman is proclaimed a hero even though he was intent on killing her. These cannons and ideals, demonstrate why our society is full of double standards and set ideals that women are suppose to live up to.
The story “Royal Beatings” is a beautiful representation of a young girl’s view of the world around her. Munro uses vivid details to create a story and characters that feel real. She draws the reader in and allows the reader to understand Rose through her poignant words about her life. Then, in the end, enables the reader to make the connections that Rose perhaps misses. “Royal Beatings” is not about any particular moment in Rose’s life or any certain action related to the reader. The story is, in fact, not about plot at all. It is instead about creating characters with a sense of verisimilitude and humanity while revealing “all their helplessness and rage and rancor.”
Presently, many books and fairytales are converted movies and often, producers alters the original tales to grasp the attention of a large audience. However, some of these interpretations hide the primary interpretation. The original interpretations of the Disney classics Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are greatly reinvented from the original fairytales Sun, Moon, and Talia and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs because of the brutal nature of the treatment women in these original forms. Although there are differences in certain aspects from the original tales to the movies, there are many issues that are influential to the young girls who are still watching the Disney version. I realize this when my youngest niece, Anella asks me, “Why can’t I be beautiful and fall asleep and suddenly wake up to finally find my prince?” This is true in all cases of the four different translations of the fairytales. Every single girl in these stories are in a “beautiful” state of half-death who wake to find a prince who if eager to carry them off. This can lead to negative psychological effects on young girls as they are growing up, creating a large amount of pressure and low self-esteem due to the beauty that these stories portray and maintaining restrictions that these women experience in the stories. While it is true that Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves are considered Disney classics that entertain children and provide meaningful role models, it is evident that the true, vulgar nature of these tales are hidden; these stories are about women who are thrown away.
The tale of Sleeping Beauty is influenced by oral folklore and various written versions. Today fairytales are told as a domain for the entertainment and teachings of children. In traditional storytelling, peasants transmitted folklore orally around campfires to audiences of mixed ages. However, during the 17th century, peasant tales, such as Sleeping Beauty, were altered by writers like Charles Perrault’s, to appeal to the courts of aristocracy. Thus the characters of Sleeping Beauty adorned a courtly air to appeal to the crown, such as Louis XIV of France. Throughout history, various cultural influences transformed the tale of Sleeping Beauty through the manipulation of various social forces to achieve better entertainment purposes and reflect Christian beliefs and customs. In addition, the moral of the tale conveys a message that women remain passive in hope to marry her true lov...
Overall, I didn’t enjoy this story, even though I tend to like modern adaptations. For one thing, I liked the adaptation in Folk & Fairy Tales called Sleeping Beauty and the Airplane, it had a cute vibe to it. Anyway, there are a few reasons why I didn’t care for A Kiss to Wake the Sleeper. In short, the story was strange especially towards the end. In the beginning, I didn’t have any problems except for the fact I didn’t realize it was an adaptation until I saw ‘sleeper’ on page 413. To be honest, I didn’t see the title that would have clued me in that this was a Sleeping Beauty adaptation, but that’s not the point. However, one of my points is that the transition between talking about SCID to nuns and castles felt strange - it caught me off guard.
Beauty and the Beast is probably one of the most well known fairy tales that the Grimms’ reproduced. In it’s original form it was a long, drawn out story that was catered to adults. The Grimms’ changed the story to be more understood by children and made it short and to the point. Unlike many of the other fairy tales that they reproduced, Beauty and the Beast contains many subtle symbols in its purest form. It shows a girl and how she transfers to a woman; it also shows that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The one major thing that separates this story from all the rest is that Beauty gets to know the Beast before marrying him.
In the first poem in The Rose, "The Rose upon the Rood of Time", the rose symbolizes a nationalist vision of Ireland and Maud Gonne, a female Irish nationalist whom Yeats loved. Maud Gonne 's "nationalist politics, coupled with her dark beauty, resonate with the wile, beautiful symbol of Ireland" ("Poems of W.B. Yeats: The Rose The Rose upon the Rood of Time Summary and Analysis"). In the poem, Yeats says he will sing about ancient figures from Irish legends:
... Beauty that the main characters are raped, Little Red by the wolf, and Sleeping Beauty by the man who ends up being her husband. That’s not what I understood from the versions I have analyzed, but some people interpret it that way. That is another great thing about narratives, everyone can have a slightly different interpretation of the same story.