The Firstborn’s latest passion is castles (and knights and crowns and kings and all those sorts of castle accessories). Yesterday, the Husband dropped by the library and picked up a castle-themed tote bag (I love our library!) filled with books, puppets and activity ideas.
One of those books was a retelling of The Princess and the Pea.
I’ve always been puzzled by that story. True nobility is measured by how a coddled woman who has (obviously) never done a good day’s honest work is unable to sleep well at night? (She’s probably not an accomplished rider, either, huh?). What makes a princess is that she has never been exposed to physical discomfort (and we are supposed to applaud that?)?
I’m sorry, but she seems like a useless ninny to me.
And why was she wandering around at night in the middle of the storm, anyway? Where were her legions of guards and maids to protect her from the harsh realities of life? I suspect some kind of sinister plot here (yeah, she’s stupid AND evil! *grin*).
Am I missing the deeper meaning of this story? Or is it really as superficial and shallow as I think it is?
What say you, gentle readers?
I’ve never liked that fairytale either. Very silly, and like you said, did they really mean to give that message?!? O.o
There’s got to be some kind if story behind her mysterious appearance. Pampered princesses don’t just wander out on a dark and stormy night without a retinue.
I’m going to throw the story to the subconscious and see how I can fracture it. 😀
What, you’re not going to let your husband take a crack at it?
How about: Prince falls in love with a commoner. One parent (I forget which; it’s been a long time since I read the story; let’s say the king) is adamant that prince must marry royalty. Prince confides in the other (ie., queen), who agrees to help him. The “princess” shows up in mysterious circumstances, and immediately (before the king can question her origins) has her claim to nobility challenged by the queen (wink, wink), who presents her with random, seemingly extreme/impossible tasks to prove her nobility. “Princess” passes each one, amazingly enough. Once the “skeptical” queen is convinced, the king has to accept her judgment for fear of cold shoulders/browbeating/what have you, clearing the way for the prince to “meet” the “princess”, fall in love, and get married before the king has a chance to regain control of circumstances.
Ok, that feels like a fairly simple/obvious fracturing; I’m sure I could do better if I took more time, but hey. 🙂
Incidentally, the tests the queen poses the “princess” just happen to coincide with her silly husband’s chauvinistic prejudices, of course. 😀
Hee, and by the time the king has figured out the ruse, the happy couple is already married?
I’ve always hated this story as well. What has always puzzled me is that all the rejected princesses were extremes: too tall, too short, too morose, too happy, too fat, too thin. This objectification of women, to my feminist sensibilities, is offensive. There is no similar description of the prince. And the princess he chose was the “too spoilt” one. The test seems like a proxy for a virginity test that princes tend to be paranoid about.
~The test seems like a proxy for a virginity test that princes tend to be paranoid about.~
A-ha! I think you’re on to something there.