The Frog King and Cupid and Psyche

           The Frog King and Cupid and Psyche are similar in a few ways. The Frog King is about a princess who promises a frog that she will be his companion and playmate if he retrieves her gold ball out of the well. The frog retrieves the ball for her, but the princess runs off and leaves the frog at the well. The next day, the frog appears at her house. Once the princesses’ father found out about the promise that his daughter had made, he makes her keep it. Once in bed, the princess becomes infuriated with the frog and she throws him up against a wall. Upon hitting the ground the frog turns into a prince and they get married.

            In Cupid and Psyche Venus becomes jealous of a beautiful mortal girl and she sends her son Cupid to punish her. But Cupid falls in love with Psyche. At the end of the story, Psyche becomes immortal and she can now be with Cupid forever.

            The Frog King and Cupid and Psyche are similar in that in both stories the main character is the youngest daughter and also the most beautiful. In both stories the girl marries someone that no one else wants because their true identity is masked.

     The cartoon that I chose is a social one. It shows the wolf from “Little Red Riding Hood” or “Little Red Cap” lying on a chair in a psychiatrist’s office. The caption reads “I understand your motive for eating the grandmother, but why did you feel you needed to dress up in her clothes?” I chose this cartoon in particular, not only because it is funny, but also because it made me think of one of the presentations from class. The presentation talked about Perrault’s view of the wolf. In the presentation, I learned that the wolf actually wants to explore the feminine mysteries of fertility and that is why he eats Little Red and the grandmother. Because of what I learned in the presentation, I also think that the reason that the wolf dressed up in the grandmother’s clothes was because he wanted to explore the feminine mysteries. Because of this prior knowledge, I was able to answer the question of why the wolf dressed in the grandmother’s clothes in my head.

Snow White (Grimm vs. Anne Sexton)

            The Grimm version of Snow White and the Anne Sexton version are different in many ways. For one, the Grimm version is a lot less sexual than Anne Sexton’s version is.  Sexton includes a lot of sexual insinuations throughout her poem. When Snow White is wandering through the woods she implies her “sexual awakening” when she writes “At each turn there were twenty doorways and at each stood a hungry wolf, his tongue lolling out like a worm” (Sexton 97). Another sexual insinuation is when she refers to the dwarfs as “those little hot dogs” (Sexton 98). Another difference between the two versions is the way that Anne Sexton infuses pop culture into her poem. She mentions things like Ace bandages, daisies, and soda pop. Also, Anne gives a time when the prince comes. She writes that the price comes in June, which is not only a transitional month, but it also represents beauty. In the Grimm fairy tales the stories are usually timeless.

            Although different, there is one main similarity between the two versions that I would like to point out. In both versions, Snow White did not learn from her mistakes. Because of the Zeitgeist, Snow White has to be a passive character. She repeatedly let the Queen fool her with ribbons, combs, and finally with the apple that put her into a death like slumber.

            In my opinion, the Anne Sexton version is better. I like how she includes things that make you thing and how she refers to pop culture. I think the poem was a lot more interesting than the Grimm version.

Snow White (Disney vs. Grimm)

The Brothers Grimm version of Snow White is very different from the Disney version in many ways. The Grimm version was very graphic and less romantic than the Disney version. For example, the evil Queen asks the Huntsman to bring back Snow White’s lungs and liver when he kills her so she can eat them. In Disney’s version she just asks the Huntsman to kill Snow White. Another difference is the way that Snow White awakens. In the Grimm version the prince sees her for the first time asleep and falls in love with her and asks the dwarfs to give him the coffin as a gift because he “can’t go on without seeing her face. On the way to his castle one of his men carrying the coffin stumbles and the piece of poison apple in Snow White’s throat is released and she wakes up. It is much more romantic in Disney’s version. In the Disney version, the prince comes back and finds Snow White asleep. He awakens her with true love’s first kiss.

Even though the versions were very different, they still had many similarities. In both versions the evil Queen relied on her magic mirror to tell her who was the fairest of them all. Also, in both versions the Queen gives Snow White a poison apple. The dwarfs then place her in a coffin and stay by her side.

There are a few reasons that Disney made the changes he did. One was that since the movie is for younger audiences, so he needed to take out the graphic parts. Also, Snow White came out during the Great Depression, a time when people needed hope, not sadness in their lives. Disney added the romantic and hopeful ending because it was exactly what the people of the Great Depression needed.