Grimm’s ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’ – A Critical Perspective.

Grimm’s ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’ – A Critical Perspective. By Virginia Kenyon (B.Arts/MTeach)

The thoroughly disenchanting volksmärchen, The Twelve Dancing Princesses is an appropriated fairy-tale taken from oral and literary sources (Zipes, 2002, p. 140) by the Brothers Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm who were writing during the dominant period of German Romanticism (18th to early 19th century). Thus, this tale contains numerous fairy-tale archetypes including the dominance of emotion, various ‘marvellous’ aspects, and the exaltation or ‘rise’ of the commoner. Grimm’s appropriation provides the modern reader with an insight into the socio-cultural landscape of the time, edited to incorporate the ‘aesthetic standards and norms of civility and morality’ (Zipes, 2002, p. 140). This critical response endeavours to illustrate how The Twelve Dancing Princesses can be interpreted as a reflection of male and female gender roles, exaggerated in line with fairy-tale tradition. In addition, this critique exposes in the Freudian sense, a subtext rife with sexual connotations which has been treated from a feminist critical perspective. In the prologue, the narrative is driven by the challenge to the male hegemony by the twelve princesses who defy the oppressive expectations of their gender by way of keeping the secret of their nightly activities. The king locks up his daughters (a popular plot device) at night in a desperate bid to regain patriarchal authority. The king seems unable to accept that his daughters have grown to sexual maturity which can been seen in the ageing or ‘wearing out’ of the shoes. Whilst the princesses are actively seeking independence and freedom, the King perceives their behaviour as childish, which is later revisited at the end of the tale where the princesses stand ‘listening behind

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the door’ (Grimm & Grimm, 2001, p. 32) like naughty children. Whilst Benson rightly states that the tale is about ‘patriarchal control and the duplicity of women’ (2008, p. 171), it is also about the ‘punishing of independence’ (Thomas, 1999, p. 172) and the fear of female sexuality. By characterising women as children, their power both as decision makers and sexual beings is effectively minimised. The tale is filled with Freudian symbols pertaining to female sexuality and other images that link to the demonising of that sexuality. Firstly, the activities are connected directly to the bedroom and are nocturnal. This links the princesses as ‘women of the night’ in the sense of prostitutes engaging in illicit activities and as witches able to make magic, such as the clapping of the hands by the eldest to open the trapdoor. The trap door is underneath a bed which is reminiscent of the idea of ‘hell’ as underground and also hearkens to the concept of ‘falling into purgatory’ (Sexton, 1971, p. 92) and the more modern sexual connotation of ‘going down.’ Secondly, Freud considered the rhythmic activity of dancing as a metaphor for sex (1935, p. 20), and in this sense the evidence is found by the state of the princesses’ shoes. Both Baughman & Ashliman (1989, p. 196) and Freud treat shoes as a symbol of the female genitalia as they ‘enclose a space capable of being filled by something’ (1935, p. 18). With this in mind, a close reading shows how obvious this is from the outset. Grimm sets the scene for us with this line ‘...every morning their shoes were found to be quite worn through as if they had been danced in all night.’ (Grimm & Grimm, 2001, p. 30). The sexual appetite of the princesses is clear from their behaviour before they leave for the trapdoor (another ‘hole and passage’ image) as they ‘skipped about…eager to begin dancing.’ (Grimm & Grimm, 2001, p. 31). Further references are made to their voracious sexual appetite as the princesses ‘…danced on until three

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o’clock in the morning’ (Grimm & Grimm, 2001, p. 31) until they were ‘obliged to leave’ (Grimm & Grimm, 2001, p. 31) because their shoes were ‘all worn out’ (Grimm & Grimm, 2001, p. 31). It is this ‘intensity and duration of their dancing’ (Thomas, 1999, p. 176) which infuriates and frightens the male hegemony and symbolises the princesses’ desire to be independent and free of control. There are further sexual connotations in the tale that relate to the soldier who was said to have ‘danced with them too’ (Grimm & Grimm, 2001, p. 31) despite his invisibility. Through a Freudian lens, this could be viewed as rape, especially as the youngest princess is ‘terribly frightened’ (Grimm & Grimm, 2001, p. 31) by the invisible soldier’s actions. It is significant that the youngest, and least sexually mature, is concerned with what she hears, especially as according to Freud, the breaking of branches is a direct symbol of onanism (1935, p. 38). Considering that the branches are bedecked with jewels (another Freudian symbol of female genitalia) and are offered along with another item ‘capable of being filled with something’ (the golden cup) as evidence to the King, it is clear that what is being punished are the sexual transgressions as symbols for the breaking free of male authority. Furthermore, the fact that the soldier’s indecency is symbolically covered up by a cloak and never revealed, adds weight to the argument that the tale is about patriarchal control. Many of the typical fairy-tale motifs found within this tale centre around the soldier who represents the ‘idealised peasant’ (Zipes, 2002, p. xxvii) of the middle-class who enjoyed the typical ‘pauper to prince’ rise to fame, found within another motif - the test for heir quality. The ‘failed attempts’ by other suitors is also found in the tale. The soldier meets the ‘wise old crone’ and (surprisingly), follows the instructions given. He also comes into contact with sentient trees, and plays the ‘disguised’ figure. In terms of

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the cloak that he is given, Thomas points out that it is significant that in order to enter the trapdoor with the princesses he must wear an old woman’s cloak, because whilst on the ‘surface’ as a male he is heard ‘snoring in his bed’ (Grimm & Grimm, 2001, p. 32), but once in female garb he must become ‘silent’ (1999, p. 174). In the realm, the women are free to choose their own princes – the eldest advising that the princes are ‘ours’ (Grimm & Grimm, 2001, p. 31). The princesses’ love of dancing can be viewed as a symbol of weightlessness freed from gender expectations (Benson, 2008, p. 170). However, the ideological imperatives of the tale are painfully clear. Bottigheimer detects an ‘…apparent inner drive to incriminate females’ (1987, p. 94) within Grimm’s writings, and this is can be seen in the way that the princesses are set up as rebellious for the purposes of disciplining them to become appropriate commodities for marriage (Thomas, 1999, p. 178). The message is that patriarchal control will always be re-gained, and women who do not behave in line with the ‘normative’ behaviour of their sex will eventually be caught and humiliated into passivity and acceptance of their pre-arranged fate. Conversely, the males in the tale do not detract from ‘normative’ behaviour attributed to their gender role – unless they are in the realm controlled by the princesses. In this way, the second misogynistic message of the tale is that women with power are duplicitous and can ‘enchant’ men to behave outside of the norm. The princes behave decidedly against the German male archetype ‘crying for joy’ (Grimm & Grimm, 2001, p. 31) at the princesses’ return and one prince displays a lack of strength when rowing the youngest princess across the lake. It seems as if all male improprieties are excusable due to the fact that they occur within an enchanted realm controlled by females, whilst

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on the ‘surface’ in the ‘real world’ men are once again in control of the women (and themselves). In conclusion, The Twelve Dancing Princesses is a typical example of German Romanticism rampant with fairy-tale archetypes and entirely suitable as a teaching text for basic literary analysis. A closer reading however, reveals that the ideological imperatives of the text are to warn women of the futility of escaping the confines of their gender role (as per the socio-cultural expectations of the time), to promote male superiority, and to provide a satisfactory conclusion as per the moral standards of the 19th century. These imperatives, whilst historically relevant, no longer serve to ‘enchant’ modern critics, particularly those of the female sex!

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References

Baughman, E., & Ashliman, D. (1989). A Guide to Folktales in the English Language Based on the Aarne-Thompson Classification System. The Journal of American Folklore, 102 (403), 102.

Benson, S. (2008). Contemporary fiction and the fairy tale. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Bottigheimer, R. (1987). Grimms' bad girls & bold boys. New Haven: Yale University Press

Freud, S., & Riviere, J. (1935). A general introduction to psycho-analysis. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Grimm, W., & Grimm, J. (2001). Grimm's Fairy Tales (pp. 30-33). Unknown: Project Gutenberg E-Book. Retrieved 18th August from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2591?msg=welcome_stranger#link2H_4_0010

Sexton, A. (1971). The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Transformations. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 87-92.

Thomas, H. (1999). Undermining a Grimm Tale: A Feminist Reading of "The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes". Marvels & Tales, 13 (2), 170-183.

Zipes, J. (2002). The Brothers Grimm. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

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