Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein

Why such leniency? perhaps because she is not, in the end, really evil- she simply loves too much.

Her limbs are not lashed to four horses who speed off in different directions. No red-hot shoes are welded to the witch`s feet. `Rapunzel` then, wins the prize for the most egalitarian romance, but that its not its only distinction: it is the only well-known tale in which the villain is neither maimed nor killed. She weeps into his sightless eyes, restoring his vision, and - voila!- they rescue each other. He wanders the countryside for an unspecified time, living on roots and berries, until he accidentally stumbles upon his love.

When he sees the witch at the top of the now-severed braids, he jumps back in surprise and is blinded by the bramble that breaks his fall. Interestingly the prince cant save Rapuzel from her foster mothers wrath. He shinnies up her hair to say hello and, depending on the version you read, they have a chaste little chat or get busy conceiving twins.Įither way, when their tryst is discovered, Old Mother Gothel cries, `you wicked child! i thought i had separated you from the world, and yet you deceived me!` There you have it : the Grimm`s warning to parents, centuries before psychologists would come along with their studies and measurements, against undue restriction. One day, a prince passes by and, on overhearing Rapunzel singing, falls immediately in love (that makes Rapunzel the inverse of Ariel- she is loved sight unseen because of her voice). leads her into the woods, locking her in a high tower which offers no escape and no entry except by scaling the girls flowing tresses. Rapunzel grows up, her hair grows down, and when she is twelve-note that age-Old Mother Gothel, as she calls the witch. Then again, who would you rather have as a mom: the woman who would do anything for you or the one who would swap you in a New York minute for a bowl of lettuce?

`i will take care for it like a mother,` the sorceress croons (as if that makes it all right). The two eventually strike a bargain: the mans wife can have as much of the plant as she wants- if she turns over her baby to the witch upon its birth. So he steals into the baby's yard, wraps his hands around a plant, and, just as he pulls. The womans craving becomes so intense, she tells her husband that if he doesn't fetch her some, she and their unborn baby will die. The tale, you may recall, begins with a mother-to-bes yearning for the taste of rapunzel, a salad green she spies growing in the garden of the sorceress who happens to live next door. And thats too bad, because rapunzel is an specially layered and relevant fairytale, less about the love between a man and a woman than the misguided attempts of a mother trying to protect her daughter from (what she perceives ) as the worlds evils. But one thing is for sure: tangled will not be rapunzel. “Maybe tangled will be a spectacular rump.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein