Akraz Khan
Professor Orwig
FIQWS 10105
Date 10/14/24
Disconnect from sleeping people
The story of “Sleeping Beauty” was deeply talked about in class with a professor of mine,
and that played a significant role in how I viewed the story. When my professor pointed out
minuscule details such as the old vs. young and how the underlying messages in the story point
to not such good things as glorifying rape and sexual assault. It affected my view on stories and
the underlying messages by showing me how, in current era values, these stories are quite
morally questionable and downright disgusting. It evoked a feeling of disgust but also curiosity,
as I wanted to know more about what other messages the story had and how it compares to
modern-day values and how it played a role in the story’s progression. The conversation with
my professor further pushed me to look at these views that we encountered as we delved
deeper, such as writing structures, morality, and social views. We saw how the story progressed
in Sleeping Beauty and other fairy tales, and now looking at other literature, I’ve been able to
understand them on a deeper level.
“Sleeping Beauty” impacted me by highlighting common stereotypes in stories. The story
also reflected culture and morals that butted against my own. With its unique story, I can admit it
improved my literacy skills. Now when I read stories, comics, and fairy tales, I usually look for
the more hidden tones and themes that reflect the nature of the writer, the era they live in, and
what type of environment they’re surrounded by.
In “Sleeping Beauty,
” there’s an emphasis on the evil characters being ugly. When
inviting 12 fairies to a banquet, a 13th ugly fairy comes uninvited and casts a curse that will kill
the child by contact with flax or a flax spinner. This shows how villains are always portrayed as
old and ugly. This inflicts the view that only those who are ugly can’t be trusted and must be evil.
This is false in reality when we see that those who are evil are never based on looks but their
own personality and traits. This implies that evil characters are expected to be conventionally
unattractive. In “The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods” (Charles Perrault 93), the Queen is
described as someone who likes to pounce on children because of her ogre tendencies. On the
surface, this seems to be a simple way to introduce the Queen as evil, but later in the story,
when the Queen, who is the prince’s mother, dies, he is immediately okay. Family loss is
difficult, even when we aren’t close. How they looked never mattered to me when it came to
personal relationships, family, and friends-wise.
When it comes to morals and culture,
“Sleeping Beauty” would be controversial in its
story’s progress. The main conflict is with “Sleeping Beauty” finding true love while asleep.
Although the magic on her is what allows her to find true love, the writing hints towards how this
style of writing was unproblematic back then, but in today’s era this is controversial. This is
because sexual assault and rape are put in a more favorable tone and glorified. In another
version of sleeping beauty known as “Sun, Moon and Talia” (Gian Batista Basile),
“He lifted her
in his arms and carried her to a bed, where he gathered the first fruits of love.
” The story
glorifies the King of this version as someone acting out of love, but at face value, this is the King
raping an unconscious girl. If this happened to someone I knew, I would be appalled. From the
way the story was told, we determine that this type of culture was acceptable back then, from
where the author wrote the story. It gives me a perspective on how not many things seem what
they are, as what the King did isn’t what someone would call love but a crime, and I can see
from other perspectives that this might be the norm even though it’s a highly controversial thing
and topic to do and discuss.
Sleeping Beauty significantly improved my literacy skills.
“Sleeping Beauty” taught me
how to create a strong backstory with lasting conflict. The title connects with the backstory as it
jumps straight into the conditions of the curse and how her being a sleeping beauty is
problematic but her only way to grasp onto life. As stated in “Briar Rose” (Brothers Grimm 163),
“‘The girl will not die. She will fall into a deep sleep for one hundred years.
’” With a strong
backstory and conflict, it provides a good source to improve one’s own literacy skills. I
personally use strong impacts on backstory to set up conflicts that help build the story to what it
is, and Sleeping Beauty is a prime example of this.

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