Breaking the Enchantment

Abstract

Fairy tales have a profound impact on little girls. They shape and often constrict girls' identities, gender constructs, sexuality, and futures. Additionally, the narrative content and history of fairy tales can be used as a tool to explore and understand the ways in which women have been marginalized, silenced, and objectified in Western culture. An introductory chapter explores through research the ways in which fairy tales shape and harm girls and women in these tales and how they embody the oppression of women, focusing particularly on "Little Red Riding Hood," "Rapunzel," "Snow White," and "Beauty and the Beast." The four creative chapters that follow feature a female main character derived from the original tales' heroines and explore the ways in which the themes of victim-blaming, the cult of virginity, patriarchal fostered female competition, and female submissiveness in the original tales are still culturally relevant today.