Mothers and Daughters in Fairy Tales and Feminism

Fairy tales are ancient forms of narrative. To survive, these fairy tales had to be told over and over and they also migrate well because of their basic structure, the essential elements of the psychological behavior which belong to the human species in general and others which are culturally divergent. We can recognize not only most basic human behavior mirrored in tales, but at the same time to see the possible developments and solutions. That is why fairy tales are powerful magnets for feminist critique of misogynist order and retelling the tales in new transformative ways. The aim of this essay is to look at certain parts of the history of fairy tales in context of the psychological element of feminine principle and archetypes, and in similar vein to analyze some of the feminist revisions to find what is at the same time intrinsic and transformative. These are fluidity of archetypal feminine figures, and behavior between them which can be summarized as mother daughter bond or older and younger woman relationship. The second wave of feminism also brought forward consciousness-raising sessions and the famous slogan “The personal is political”. What binds all of it together is that complex relationships are mirrored by sites of fissures in women’s political movements of the 70s and the 90s. To verify the premises and to deduce the conclusions it was necessary to sieve relevant observations from a huge volume of fairy tales itself and literature about fairy tales, feminist fairy tales as well. The points discussed here are: evolution of fairy tales and feminine principle; feminism, femininity and fairy tales; female characters in fairy tales; the mother-daughter relationship and mirrors or mirroring issue in revisions. The technique used to derive an explanation and understanding of pattern and nature of human experiences, as well as cultural and social phenomena is the interpretive qualitative method by employing narrative analysis and orientational approach to interpret a feminist perspective.