Sleeping Beauty Archetypes

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It is common in today's world for media and advertisements to display outrageous stereotypes and unrealistic ideals for the people. However, such stereotypes can date back hundreds of years. In older stories, particularly fairytales and their original roots, many characters follow something similar with repetitive archetypes. One well known example of this is the story of Sleeping Beauty. As many may know, the plot follows a young princess who has been living with the good fairies outside of royalty to stay protected from the curses of the bad fairy—and in other versions, remains living with the king and queen—until her sixteenth birthday. Her life takes a turn when she ventures off and pricks her finger on a spindle. She is put into …show more content…
Surprisingly, this storyline is extremely similar to other old tales and happens to fit nearly majority of the archetypes that show up in all these stories. Princess Briar Rose, as she is called in some versions, plays the role of the damsel in distress that needs to be woken by Prince Philip, this tale’s Prince Charming. The good fairies in the story also play a major part in the care for the growing princess, taking place of multiple fairy godmothers living as the counterparts of the villain, the witch or “bad” fairy. In fact, the old tale of Sleeping Beauty is such a prime example of these stories exhibiting certain stereotypes. Through years of storytelling, descriptive literature, and cliched visual displays, it becomes clear that these are the standards. Traditionally, Sleeping Beauty is the story of a princess who gets raped and …show more content…
Like some others, the “damsel in distress” is a victim of rape and relies on a strong, handsome man to come to her rescue. But her materialistic representation was shown much sooner, rather than later, in the story. At the celebration of the princess’ birth, the fairies granted her with traits that apply to the long-standing expectations of naïve women: “one gave her virtue, another beauty, a third riches, and so on, with everything in the world that she could wish for” (Cole 137). These are not just any random terms added to the plot; they are terms depicting feminine qualities that the young Briar Rose does not need to obtain independently. For young women who would watch Disney and others’ rendition as a child, an unhealthy idea of the female gender was taught. Not only was the story portraying several archetypes, but it exhibited a female archetype that set standards among the youth. Women must be youthful, beautiful, and granted an amazing voice to be considered worth a man’s time. Their goal is to become attractive across various characteristics, marry a man, and innocently follow their
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