Wesley Dominguez

Professor Hoehne

FIQWS 10105

November 12, 2019

Deceiving Happiness

 

Once upon a time fairy tales told lies about happy kings and queens. Many fairytales start of with the common and popular phrase, “Once upon a time” to introduce an exciting adventure that ends in “Happily Ever After,” another common phrase used by fairytales. These phrases and fairytale story lines hide the truth about the evil some fairytale plots actually hold. Fairytales use happy and positive words to sugarcoat evil actions done by the characters in the story. They also use gold and riches to make the character’s life seem better and more important. It is also common of fairytales to turn around an evil plot to end happily when in reality there is wrong underneath the storyline.

Just like sprinkles on ice cream to make it prettier and sweeter, fairytales tend to sprinkle in words to make the story seem nicer. In a version of The Sleeping Beauty called Sun, Moon, and Talia by Giambattista Basile, it’s twisted and wicked plot is sugar coated with words that hold positive meanings to make the character’s action seem less evil. For example, “He lifted her in his arms, and carried her to a bed, where he gathered the first fruits of love” (Basile). In order to disguise that the king of the storyline raped the main character the words “fruits of love” are used. By using these words the king’s actions sound like something less negative and more accepting when in reality it is rape, something that no reader should bypass as normal. Kay Stone states about Disney in Things Walt Disney Never Told Us that, “He must also be criticized for his portrayal of a cloying fantasy world filled with cute little beings existing among pretty flowers and singing animals” (Stone, p.44). Disney tends to add pretty princesses and describe things as cute and singing in order to distract people from the actual storyline and make a story seem better.

“All that glitters is not gold” this popular phrase means that something that appears to be valuable does not mean it truly is. This saying applies to fairy tales because in fairytales what seems to be great actually ends up being twisted or wrong. In Sun, Moon, and Talia, Talia gives birth to children that awaken her from her sleep. “He returned to the palace, and found her awake, and with two cupids of beauty. He was overjoyed, and he told Talia who he was, and how he had seen her, and what had taken place” (Basile). This fairytale has made it seem acceptable for someone to be raped because they overlook it since Talia is no longer in deep sleep. The king did not save her, her children are a product of rape. Anthony Arthur agrees that not everything in fairytales is right and positive. In his journal article reviewing Bettelheim’s book Arthur states that Bettleheim thinks children “See that good characters are rewarded and evil character are punished. Sensibly enough, they decide they will be good” however this is not always the case. Anthony proceeds to agree with my point that things in fairytales are morally wrong by saying, “Admittedly this is true of many stories, but at the same time they are clearly amoral as well” (Arthur, p.459). Although the evil queen in the Sun, Moon, and Talia, was burnt alive it is still wrong to burn people alive, and it is still wrong what the king did to Talia. 

A fairytale ending is not always what it seems. Many people use “A fairytale ending” to describe something happy or full of love, never putting mind to the fact that fairytales are full of evil actions before things turn out okay. In Sun, Moon, and Talia, the king left the queen and married Talia to live with her and their two children. After he raped her, gave her two children to have to support, left her abandoned for days, and never told her he was married to the queen (Basile). Talia was almost burnt alive by the queen, but “happily ever after” because she’s not dead right? Wrong! Fairytales have a twisted way of deceiving tragedy into something positive. Another example of a fairytale turning a tragedy into a happy ending is in the story of Rapunzel. A prince loses his sight when escaping Rapunzel’s mother to then find Rapunzel who was left to live abandoned on a deserted place. The Grimm Brothers’ tale is summarized as,“Two of her tears touched his eyes and in a moment they became quite clear again, and he saw as well as he had ever done. Then he led her to his kingdom, where they were received and welcomed with great joy, and they lived happily ever after” (Grimm). After all the tragedy of Rapunzel abandoned in loneliness and the prince going blind somehow this plot turned into a happily ever after with magical healing tears. Fairytales try to deceive the wrong with happy endings.

Happily never after, is a better way of ending a fairytale. Fairy Tales deceive their readers to make them think the character’s story is not so bad when in reality they have suffered so much tragedy no ending will make up for it. By adding cute little words like jewels and gold, fairytales think they will be able to hide what the true meaning is. Characters may seem to be heroes when they are truly malicious, and a happy ending does not cover up all the horrible things the main character went through. So do not be deceived when reading a fairytale, put aside the idea of happy ever after and look for underlying truths.

 

Works Cited

 

Arthur, Anthony. “The Uses of Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment.” Language Arts, vol. 55,

533. 4, 1978, pp. 455–533. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41404648.

 

Basile, Giambattista. “Sun, Moon and Talia.” 1636.

 

Grimm, Brothers. “Rapunzel.” SurLaLune Fairy Tales: Annotated Fairy Tales, Fairy Tale Books 

and Illustrations, www.surlalunefairytales.com/rapunzel/index.html.

 

Stone, Kay. “Things Walt Disney Never Told Us.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 88, 

50. 347, 1975, pp. 42–50. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/539184.