Female Antagonists Within Fairy Tales - 1540 Words

Whether Female antagonists within fairy tales are portrayed in a positive or negative light their roles within the stories are very important if not crucial to the development of the protagonists. Karen Rowe in â€Å"Feminist and fairy tales† explains the divide between different female antagonists. Female antagonist come in all forms, Faeries, ogresses, evil queens, and evil witches step mothers and or step sisters. For the most part these characters are often divided between good and evil, or light and dark, but what is often realized, is that there isn’t much of a combination between the two groups in which an antagonist falls in between both categories. In this essay I will lay out the thematic roles of these different types of female antagonist’s portrayed within fairy tales. Negative female antagonist play a very particular role within fairy tales. The female antagonists are often very dominant, they are not married and unable to bare children due to the fact that they are usually old. However there are times in which the antagonist is a beautiful women who’s jealously often overbears her physical appearance. In â€Å"Snow White† Snow’s Step mother is constantly looking for assurance about her physical appearance, so she confides in her magic mirror, â€Å"Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?† (Grimm 54). Snow white’s stepmother is taken aback and enraged after later being told that she is no longer the prettiest woman. â€Å"You my queen, are fair; it isShow MoreRelatedThere Was Once By Margaret Atwood Essay915 Words   |  4 Pagesto point out the societal problems within the genre of fairy tales. Charles Perrault, the author of the short story â€Å"The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood†, writes about fantastic creatures, magic, and love, following the generic conventions of fairy tales. 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