Women's Roles In Fairy Tales

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Happy endings and fairy tales have become disney’s forte, but how they accomplish this is what matters. Over the years fairytales have evolved making women play many roles throughout the years, some submissive others assertive; the females in Little Snow-White and Beauty and The Beast portray these roles as reflections of the times in which they were created.
Written in the 1800’s Little Snow-White personifies the submissive roles women played at the time. In this time period being a housewife was typical and expected such as it was in the story "If you will keep house for us, and cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit, and keep everything clean and orderly, then you can stay with us, and you shall have everything that you want."(grimms) Nevertheless
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Belle is an educated, smart woman whose aspirations in life are much more than anyone else's in her village as show in her song “I Want” where she says “I want much more than this provincial life! I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell”(woolverton) this showing her independence and hunger for the unknown defines a big change in women's roles. On Belle’s path she chooses to stay with the Beast in exchange of her father's freedom creating a hero perspective of her, although brave she does feel discouraged “But I've lost my father, my dreams, everything.”(woolverton) with this loss comes the loss of hope. Alternate to being locked in the castle, Belle can’t hold herself back for long “Oh, I couldn't possibly go to bed now. It's my first time in an enchanted castle.”(woolverton) despite everything that’s happened to her, her curiosity and big imagination are never at rest constantly evolving and learning. As her curiosity takes her to the forbidden wing angering the beast so much Belle runs away, as she's attacked by a pack of wolves the beast is able to save her, after he risked his life for her Belle couldn’t leave him to die there so they went back to the castle. This scene is important because just like the beast sacrificed himself for her, Belle sacrificed her freedom to save him showing both of their morals and equality

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