Bootstraps versus Apron Strings: Gender and Greed in Fairy Tales
By Morgan Philley
No fairy tale ever mentions the mortgage on the castle, the servants’ wage strike, or what impact spinning straw into gold will have on the market. Long lasting financial security is simply implied in the ubiquitous story ending “happily ever after,” and the rags-to-riches ideal is not an uncommon theme in folklore. The readers long to see their protagonist face and conquer hardships, and have the hero rewarded with happiness, marriage, and a fine home. These rewards, however, are often only possible through the gain of previously lacking riches. Assisted by a fairy godmother, marriage to nobility, or some other work of magic, protagonists frequently long for a better life that is generally secured through a rise in economic standing. The tales do not take the opportunity to criticize the economic systems that initially disadvantage their main characters, but rather chronicle the hero’s journey from a “have-not” to a “have.” While the protagonists are rarely faulted for their desire for and acquisition of wealth, there is a caveat to the usual acceptance of a character’s greed: it is acceptable for a character to desire more money and possessions if they are male. In examining Joseph Jacobs’ “Jack and the Beanstalk” and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s “The Fisherman and His Wife,” a clear pattern of misogynistic double standards is established in regard to who is allowed to want more for himself and who must make do with what she already has.
Financial gain and the idea of the “self-made man” go hand in hand in the Western cultural consciousness, but the concept is neither localized nor new. From Basile’s “Cagliuso” to Straparola’s “The Three Brothers” to Ispirescu’s “The Hunter’s Son,” male social climbing and financial gain are portrayed as admirable goals, and the heroes who possess the traits necessary to achieving them are to be admired. According to Daniel Gicu in “Gender Roles and Stereotypes in Petre Ispirescu’s Tales,” Fairy tale heroes “have remarkable minds, courage” and are “ambitious and work their way up the social ladder” (114). A true man knows the worth of money and will gain it as evidence of his masculinity. In “Jack and the Beanstalk,” a lack of money is established as the primary catalyst for the story in the tale’s first paragraph, and Jack’s transition to proper status as man and provider is the true goal of his adventures.
Jack and his mother, “a poor widow,” struggle to survive as “all they had to live on was the milk the cow gave every morning, which they carried to the market and sold” (Jacobs). When the cow stops producing milk, however, the mother and son are thrown into imminent financial danger, and Jack’s mother instructs him to take the cow to market and sell her. When he returns home having exchanged the cow for beans rather than pounds, Jack’s mother is livid: “have you been such a fool, such a dolt, such an idiot, as to give away my Milky-white…for a set of paltry beans?” (Jacobs) She then strikes Jack, with cries of “Take that! Take that! Take that!” and then scornfully throws the beans out the window (Jacobs). This is an emotional, but reasonable, response for the woman to have, as she has just discovered that her only hope of restoring her livelihood was given away for less than a mouthful of food. As the story eventually reveals these beans to truly be magic and the ultimate source of wealth for Jack and his mother, however, this dismissal of the beans portrays the mother as unwise and a detriment to her own success within the context of the story, casting a negative light upon her as a foolish woman.
Financial gain and the idea of the “self-made man” go hand in hand in the Western cultural consciousness, but the concept is neither localized nor new. From Basile’s “Cagliuso” to Straparola’s “The Three Brothers” to Ispirescu’s “The Hunter’s Son,” male social climbing and financial gain are portrayed as admirable goals, and the heroes who possess the traits necessary to achieving them are to be admired. According to Daniel Gicu in “Gender Roles and Stereotypes in Petre Ispirescu’s Tales,” Fairy tale heroes “have remarkable minds, courage” and are “ambitious and work their way up the social ladder” (114). A true man knows the worth of money and will gain it as evidence of his masculinity. In “Jack and the Beanstalk,” a lack of money is established as the primary catalyst for the story in the tale’s first paragraph, and Jack’s transition to proper status as man and provider is the true goal of his adventures.
Jack and his mother, “a poor widow,” struggle to survive as “all they had to live on was the milk the cow gave every morning, which they carried to the market and sold” (Jacobs). When the cow stops producing milk, however, the mother and son are thrown into imminent financial danger, and Jack’s mother instructs him to take the cow to market and sell her. When he returns home having exchanged the cow for beans rather than pounds, Jack’s mother is livid: “have you been such a fool, such a dolt, such an idiot, as to give away my Milky-white…for a set of paltry beans?” (Jacobs) She then strikes Jack, with cries of “Take that! Take that! Take that!” and then scornfully throws the beans out the window (Jacobs). This is an emotional, but reasonable, response for the woman to have, as she has just discovered that her only hope of restoring her livelihood was given away for less than a mouthful of food. As the story eventually reveals these beans to truly be magic and the ultimate source of wealth for Jack and his mother, however, this dismissal of the beans portrays the mother as unwise and a detriment to her own success within the context of the story, casting a negative light upon her as a foolish woman.
When Jack climbs the beanstalk and discovers the home of the wealthy ogre, Jack decides to steal some gold for himself and his mother. After the ogre has fallen asleep, Jack “took one of the bags of gold under his arm, and off he pelters till he came to the beanstalk, and then he threw down the bag of gold” (Jacobs). Jack’s actions are seen as heroic, as the ogre clearly has more money than he could need, and now Jack and his mother are out of their financial danger. Jack, as the man of the house for his widowed mother, is fulfilling his patriarchal role in providing the wealth that they need. This follows a trend posited by Jack Zipes in his book Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, that “tales…placed great emphasis…on activity, competition, and accumulation of wealth for boys” (45). Jack is the breadwinner in the tale, securing a means of living that his mother is unable to provide and subscribing to the male position in family hierarchies advocated by this and other fairy tales.
Jack makes another trip up the beanstalk to steal from the ogre and provide for his mother, this time stealing “the hen that lays the golden eggs” (Jacobs). With such a valuable commodity that will continually produce golden eggs on command, Jack and his mother now have a source of limitless wealth and should live comfortably for the rest of their lives. It is at this point in the tale that Jack’s actions pass unequivocally into the realm of greed. While Jack’s second trip up the beanstalk was prompted by the depletion of the first bag of gold, Jack’s third trip has no justification: “Well, Jack was not content, and it wasn’t long before he determined to have another try at his luck up there at the top of the beanstalk” (Jacobs). The story explicitly states that Jack’s third sojourn up to the ogre’s home is completely unprompted. He and his mother now want for nothing, but Jack’s greed and slaying of the ogre by chopping down the beanstalk are not portrayed as negative. These impulsive acts are even lauded in the story’s conclusion: “Then Jack showed his mother his golden harp, and what with showing that and selling the golden eggs, Jack and his mother became very rich, and he married a great princess, and they lived happy ever after” (Jacobs). Jack’s avarice and violence are rewarded, his princess wife equivalent to his other possessions and his unnecessary thievery depicted as male entrepreneurship.
Jack makes another trip up the beanstalk to steal from the ogre and provide for his mother, this time stealing “the hen that lays the golden eggs” (Jacobs). With such a valuable commodity that will continually produce golden eggs on command, Jack and his mother now have a source of limitless wealth and should live comfortably for the rest of their lives. It is at this point in the tale that Jack’s actions pass unequivocally into the realm of greed. While Jack’s second trip up the beanstalk was prompted by the depletion of the first bag of gold, Jack’s third trip has no justification: “Well, Jack was not content, and it wasn’t long before he determined to have another try at his luck up there at the top of the beanstalk” (Jacobs). The story explicitly states that Jack’s third sojourn up to the ogre’s home is completely unprompted. He and his mother now want for nothing, but Jack’s greed and slaying of the ogre by chopping down the beanstalk are not portrayed as negative. These impulsive acts are even lauded in the story’s conclusion: “Then Jack showed his mother his golden harp, and what with showing that and selling the golden eggs, Jack and his mother became very rich, and he married a great princess, and they lived happy ever after” (Jacobs). Jack’s avarice and violence are rewarded, his princess wife equivalent to his other possessions and his unnecessary thievery depicted as male entrepreneurship.
For the titular spouse in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s “The Fisherman and His Wife,” a taste for the finer things is not so extolled, nor indeed is it even forgiven. Gicu explains that “in folktales, the submissiveness, kindness and gentleness of the woman are rewarded, while the lazy and unkind woman is punished” (109). The women in Perrault’s “Diamonds and Toads,” Beaumont’s “Beauty and the Beast” and countless other tales are punished when they do not live up to the patriarchal idea of womanhood’s silence and gentle subservience, be it with toads and vipers falling from their mouths, the much more lenient punishment of petrification, or some other retribution. The Brothers Grimm are equally harsh on the wife of the fisherman, and as her search for material gain removes her from the realm of proper femininity, she cannot go unpunished by the tale’s end.
The unnamed fisherman and his wife live “in a miserable hovel close by the sea,” and the fisherman sustains them with his catches (Grimm). When the fisherman catches a magical, speaking fish who claims to be “no Flounder really, but an enchanted prince,” the fisherman releases him and returns home empty handed to his wife (Grimm). The wife is displeased and, upon learning of the release of the bewitched flounder, asks incredulously, “Did you not with for anything first?” (Grimm) The wife then instructs her husband to find the fish again and wish for a small cottage in exchange for sparing his life. In the economy of fairy tales and in terms of her modest request, this is not an inherently unreasonable thing for the wife to ask, but her husband balks. Eventually, however, he relents, even though he “still did not quite like to go, but did not like to oppose his wife, and went to the sea” (Grimm). Jack Zipes states in The Irresistible Fairy Tale that fairy tales often stereotype women “because of a…general patriarchal view of women as domestics and breeders, born to serve the interests of men” (80). That the husband capitulates to his wife’s request against his will is therefore a depiction of him as a weak head of household who does not bend his wife to his command, simultaneously denigrating the fisherman as passive and the woman as stepping out of her societally approved place. In their article “We Said Feminist Fairy Tales, Not Fractured Fairy Tales!” Leslee Kuykendal and Brian Sturm assert that “fairy tale men are powerful agents of their own destiny,” and the fisherman’s wife seizing of power challenges her own femininity and her husband’s masculinity simultaneously (39).
When the fisherman returns to the sea, he summons the flounder with a cry placing all the blame upon his wife: “Flounder, flounder in the sea, / Come, I pray thee, here to me; / For my wife, good Ilsabil, / Wills not as I’d have her will” (Grimm). (It is also worth noting that even though the wife’s name is given in the fisherman’s cry, it is never used in the narration of the tale.) The flounder and fisherman both recognize that this wish is entirely from and for the wife, as the fish asks brusquely, “Well what does she want, then?” and, upon magically creating the cottage, says, “Go then…she has it already” (Grimm). The fisherman then returns to his home and finds his wife “sitting on a bench before the door” of “a small cottage…and there was a small porch, and a pretty little parlor and bedroom, and a kitchen and pantry, with the best of furniture, and fitted up with the most beautiful things made of tin and brass, whatsoever was wanted” (Grimm). Trouble is clearly brewing, however, when the husband says that the pair of them “now…will live quite contented,” but the wife slyly replies, “We will think about that” (Grimm). Though the cottage is clearly both sufficient and lovely for the couple, the wife’s greed is established in her discontent with this first gift. When the wife demands her husband return to the flounder to ask for a castle, the fisherman’s “heart grew heavy, and he would not go. He said to himself, ‘It is not right,’ and yet he went. And when he came to the sea the water was quite purple and dark-blue, and grey and thick” (Grimm). This reestablishes the idea of the contemptibly submissive and compliant husband while the ever darkening sea serves as a physical manifestation of the troubling nature of the wife’s demands.
The unnamed fisherman and his wife live “in a miserable hovel close by the sea,” and the fisherman sustains them with his catches (Grimm). When the fisherman catches a magical, speaking fish who claims to be “no Flounder really, but an enchanted prince,” the fisherman releases him and returns home empty handed to his wife (Grimm). The wife is displeased and, upon learning of the release of the bewitched flounder, asks incredulously, “Did you not with for anything first?” (Grimm) The wife then instructs her husband to find the fish again and wish for a small cottage in exchange for sparing his life. In the economy of fairy tales and in terms of her modest request, this is not an inherently unreasonable thing for the wife to ask, but her husband balks. Eventually, however, he relents, even though he “still did not quite like to go, but did not like to oppose his wife, and went to the sea” (Grimm). Jack Zipes states in The Irresistible Fairy Tale that fairy tales often stereotype women “because of a…general patriarchal view of women as domestics and breeders, born to serve the interests of men” (80). That the husband capitulates to his wife’s request against his will is therefore a depiction of him as a weak head of household who does not bend his wife to his command, simultaneously denigrating the fisherman as passive and the woman as stepping out of her societally approved place. In their article “We Said Feminist Fairy Tales, Not Fractured Fairy Tales!” Leslee Kuykendal and Brian Sturm assert that “fairy tale men are powerful agents of their own destiny,” and the fisherman’s wife seizing of power challenges her own femininity and her husband’s masculinity simultaneously (39).
When the fisherman returns to the sea, he summons the flounder with a cry placing all the blame upon his wife: “Flounder, flounder in the sea, / Come, I pray thee, here to me; / For my wife, good Ilsabil, / Wills not as I’d have her will” (Grimm). (It is also worth noting that even though the wife’s name is given in the fisherman’s cry, it is never used in the narration of the tale.) The flounder and fisherman both recognize that this wish is entirely from and for the wife, as the fish asks brusquely, “Well what does she want, then?” and, upon magically creating the cottage, says, “Go then…she has it already” (Grimm). The fisherman then returns to his home and finds his wife “sitting on a bench before the door” of “a small cottage…and there was a small porch, and a pretty little parlor and bedroom, and a kitchen and pantry, with the best of furniture, and fitted up with the most beautiful things made of tin and brass, whatsoever was wanted” (Grimm). Trouble is clearly brewing, however, when the husband says that the pair of them “now…will live quite contented,” but the wife slyly replies, “We will think about that” (Grimm). Though the cottage is clearly both sufficient and lovely for the couple, the wife’s greed is established in her discontent with this first gift. When the wife demands her husband return to the flounder to ask for a castle, the fisherman’s “heart grew heavy, and he would not go. He said to himself, ‘It is not right,’ and yet he went. And when he came to the sea the water was quite purple and dark-blue, and grey and thick” (Grimm). This reestablishes the idea of the contemptibly submissive and compliant husband while the ever darkening sea serves as a physical manifestation of the troubling nature of the wife’s demands.
As is common in fairy tales, with the initial pattern established, the main body of the story is simply an escalation of the rising stakes. After the wife asks for a cottage, she is not contented with it and then makes her husband ask the flounder to make them rulers of a kingdom. The fisherman hesitates, saying “[w]hy should we be King? I do not want to be King,” to which the wife replies, “Well…if you won’t be King, I will; go to the Flounder, for I will be King” (Grimm). The fisherman’s rejection of kingship allows his wife a platform to truly emasculate him, taking the male power role for herself. This request goes against the patriarchal understanding of women, and as these tales “served a socialization process which placed great emphasis on passivity, industry, and self-sacrifice for girls,” the wife’s actions are clearly to be read as inappropriate (Zipes, Art of Subversion 45). This view is rather explicitly symbolized in the state of the sea, which is “quite dark-grey, and the water heaved up from below, and smelt putrid” upon the fisherman’s subsequent and rather reluctant return (Grimm).
Upon being granted her kingdom, the wife’s demands only grow in stature, next requesting to be emperor, then Pope. The husband warns her each time that her requests are growing too extravagant, but to further condemn the idea of female greed, the wife does not know when to stop and continues to demand her husband seek the flounder to fulfill her wishes. The sea likewise continues to grow more dark and violent to reflect the implicit disapproval of the fisherman’s wife. The final request that becomes the wife’s downfall arrives when, upon observing the sunrise, she asks, “Cannot I, too, order the sun and moon to rise? Husband…wake up! Go to the Flounder, for I wish to be even as God is” (Grimm). This sacrilegious request leaves the husband “so horrified that he fell out of bed,” but after his wife sends him to the sea in a rage, “he put on his trouser and ran away like a madman” (Grimm). The sea has grown so violent that the man can hardly stand as he calls his now familiar refrain to the fish. The flounder, upon hearing this latest request, tells the fisherman, “Go to her, and you will find her back again in the dirty hovel” (Grimm). This final request is seen as simply too much, bucking not only patriarchal society, but the patriarchal institution of Christianity itself. The woman’s delivery back into poverty is seen as a just reward for her greed, and the reader feels a sense of satisfaction at seeing her comeuppance. Even though the fisherman’s wife does not commit murder in the pursuit of her greed as Jack does, there is something so repulsive about this greedy woman’s quest for wealth and power that the reader must be cathartically relieved by the woman’s return to her former state of poverty and misery.
It is in the bucking of masculine authority that the root of this treacherous beanstalk lies, not with an ogre at the top, but with an equally dangerous set of patriarchal values and rigid gender roles. In conquering the ogre and providing for his mother, Jack rises to his proper position as head of the house. The fisherman’s wife, however, insinuates that her husband’s status as breadwinner and true man are both insufficient, and in claiming the role for herself, she usurps his masculine authority in a way that is so threatening she must be punished at the story’s end. Jack is allowed to want for more, as he only increases his own masculinity in his quest for wealth. The true problem with the fisherman’s wife is not that she is a woman who wants to be God, but a woman who wants.
Upon being granted her kingdom, the wife’s demands only grow in stature, next requesting to be emperor, then Pope. The husband warns her each time that her requests are growing too extravagant, but to further condemn the idea of female greed, the wife does not know when to stop and continues to demand her husband seek the flounder to fulfill her wishes. The sea likewise continues to grow more dark and violent to reflect the implicit disapproval of the fisherman’s wife. The final request that becomes the wife’s downfall arrives when, upon observing the sunrise, she asks, “Cannot I, too, order the sun and moon to rise? Husband…wake up! Go to the Flounder, for I wish to be even as God is” (Grimm). This sacrilegious request leaves the husband “so horrified that he fell out of bed,” but after his wife sends him to the sea in a rage, “he put on his trouser and ran away like a madman” (Grimm). The sea has grown so violent that the man can hardly stand as he calls his now familiar refrain to the fish. The flounder, upon hearing this latest request, tells the fisherman, “Go to her, and you will find her back again in the dirty hovel” (Grimm). This final request is seen as simply too much, bucking not only patriarchal society, but the patriarchal institution of Christianity itself. The woman’s delivery back into poverty is seen as a just reward for her greed, and the reader feels a sense of satisfaction at seeing her comeuppance. Even though the fisherman’s wife does not commit murder in the pursuit of her greed as Jack does, there is something so repulsive about this greedy woman’s quest for wealth and power that the reader must be cathartically relieved by the woman’s return to her former state of poverty and misery.
It is in the bucking of masculine authority that the root of this treacherous beanstalk lies, not with an ogre at the top, but with an equally dangerous set of patriarchal values and rigid gender roles. In conquering the ogre and providing for his mother, Jack rises to his proper position as head of the house. The fisherman’s wife, however, insinuates that her husband’s status as breadwinner and true man are both insufficient, and in claiming the role for herself, she usurps his masculine authority in a way that is so threatening she must be punished at the story’s end. Jack is allowed to want for more, as he only increases his own masculinity in his quest for wealth. The true problem with the fisherman’s wife is not that she is a woman who wants to be God, but a woman who wants.
References
Gicu, Daniel. "Gender Roles and Stereotypes in Petre Ispirescu's Tales." Analele Universitatii Bucuresti: Istorie (2010): 108-123. Humanities International Complete. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. “The Fisherman and His Wife.” Household Tales. Trans. Margaret Hunt. London: George Bell, 1884. SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.
Jacobs, Joseph. “Jack and the Beanstalk.” English Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt, 1890. SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.
Kuykendall, Leslee Farish, and Brian W. Sturn. "We Said Feminist Fairy Tales, Not Fractured Fairy Tales!." Children & Libraries: The Journal of The Association for Library Service to Children 5.3 (2007): 38-41. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Apr. 2015.
Zipes, Jack. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion: The Classical Genre for Children and the Process of Civilization. 1985. London: Routledge, 2012. Print.
---. The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Print.
Gicu, Daniel. "Gender Roles and Stereotypes in Petre Ispirescu's Tales." Analele Universitatii Bucuresti: Istorie (2010): 108-123. Humanities International Complete. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. “The Fisherman and His Wife.” Household Tales. Trans. Margaret Hunt. London: George Bell, 1884. SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.
Jacobs, Joseph. “Jack and the Beanstalk.” English Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt, 1890. SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.
Kuykendall, Leslee Farish, and Brian W. Sturn. "We Said Feminist Fairy Tales, Not Fractured Fairy Tales!." Children & Libraries: The Journal of The Association for Library Service to Children 5.3 (2007): 38-41. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Apr. 2015.
Zipes, Jack. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion: The Classical Genre for Children and the Process of Civilization. 1985. London: Routledge, 2012. Print.
---. The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Print.