Let down your Ridiculously Long Hair!
Seriously though, imagine the split ends! the Horror!!!
Rapunzel was chosen for this original story post because her story is scandalous! Picture this, you are a loving husband to a pregnant wife and she gets crazy cravings: she MUST have that Rapunzel plant growing in the neighbors for her dinner or she will just die! Melodramatic much? So you dutifully hop the fence and grab some for her salad, neighbor is none the wiser, or so you think...
The next night, the loving husband is caught by the woman next door and she claims to be a witch. He pleads his case saying his pregnant wife will die if she doesn't eat these plants. So the witch says "She can have as much as she wants in exchange for the child she is carrying," the husband says "sure!" and no one has a problem with this??? ARE CHILDREN JUST BELONGINGS YOU CAN GIVE AWAY IN THESE STORIES?!?!
Fast forward: Rapunzel is all grown up (and named after what her parents basically sold her for) and has never in her entire life had a hair cut. Why? Because the witch needs a way to get back into the tower Rapunzel is locked into of course! One day a prince rides by and watches the witch call for Rapunzel's hair and climb up. He copies the move and ends up in Rapunzel's bedroom. Alone with her, he instantly falls in love of course, so does she (he is the first guy she has ever met ever so why not?) and he returns more.
This is where it gets scandalous. So in the older version, the prince visits Rapunzel so much that she falls pregnant! GASP The witch catches on because Rapunzel's dress becomes too tight over her swelling stomach. The witch then cuts her hair off and banishes her. When the prince visits next, it is the witch who lets the hair down and pushes him off the tower when he reaches the window. He lands in some very convenient rose bushes that blind him with their thorns and he then spends years wandering blind until Rapunzel and the twins (I think) find him. So overwhelmed with love and sorrow, she cries into his eyes which magically restores them. Witch dies alone. The end.
Not only does the story involve selling children, but also out-of-marriage pregnancy (not that this is a problem for a lot of people in modern times, I personally have nothing against it.), attempted murder, and theft! This is NOT a children's story. It's a good story, but it has way too many unbelievable parts.
The version I read as a child was mostly the same, except instead of falling pregnant, Rapunzel was dumb and asked the witch, "Why does it take you so long to climb up the tower when the Prince can do it in hardly any time at all?" FACE PALM
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