Sleeping Beauty

The only woman with attractive bedhead.

Sleeping Beauty is another classic fairy tale with questionable morals. As with all of these tales, it was originally told for entertainment to a wide audience. There is a version where our main character gives birth to twins. Before she wakes up. We'll get to that version later. For now, we'll start with the one most people know, which you can find here.

Let's start with our main character, the Sleeping Beauty. We don't learn very much about her at all. We know she's beautiful, has the "temper of an angel" whatever that means (I'm assuming the avenging kind of angel), she's full of grace, sings like a bird, dances like a flower (which probably doesn't look like how people dance), and she plays music unlike any folks have ever heard. Other than those things that others put on her, we have no idea what she's like. She could be arrogant and have an over developed sense of vengeance. Did anyone else notice how her parents got old and died before she woke up? Maybe she decided to get revenge on the fairy who saved her. I would read that story. Either way, from what we know of her, Sleeping Beauty is not a real person. She's an idealized cut-out.

On that note, she's hardly a character in her own story. All she does is wander the castle at seventeen and find some deaf old woman so the princess can prick her finger on a spindle. Then she wakes up, talks to some stranger for hours, and marries him the night she meets him. I'm assuming he was the one who proposed. She is only a vehicle for this prince to find a bride and for the story to have a happy ending.

As far as morals go, this story doesn't have many that I've seen. If you're pretty, some guy you've never met will kiss you while you sleep and marry you that night. But only if he has to wander through a creepy castle to get to you. And only if you're not an actual person, but an idealized collection of attributes. Hopefully no one takes Sleeping Beauty as a role model.