By Xitlali Garcia
Fairy Tales, which are meant to educate children about real life, often occur in worlds with a clearly imbalanced economic and class system. Most of these adventures and journeys thus take place within the constraints of those systems. Fairy Tales like Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rumpelstiltskin end up teaching children about climbing social ladders and escaping their peasant status rather than focusing on systematic change. Rumpelstiltskin shows how reanalyzing the way fairytale characters interact with their socioeconomic systems creates a useful tool for educating all kinds on economic injustice because of its multiple interpretations.
First it is important to understand the current economic structure by looking at some of the most common fairy tales. Stories like Cinderella and Rumpelstiltskin show obvious social classes through the use of monarchies. Cinderella is born in a lower-class family and is often treated poorly until she marries the prince and lives happily ever after. The same structure can be seen in the tale of Rumpelstiltskin as the miller and his daughter are considered peasant status until the daughter moves up when she marries the King. People in fairytales are born into their classes and are meant to stay there unless they marry a monarch. There is no doubt that these fairy tales have distinct social classes, but the more important detail is the different living conditions each class experiences. For example, while Cinderella and the miller’s daughter are escaping their difficult lives, there are characters like Hansel and Gretel who do not get the chance to climb the social ladder. Hansel and Gretel is a prime example of the impoverished conditions that the lower classes are trying to survive. Due to the lack of resources and food, Hansel and Gretel are forced out of their homes because their parents cannot afford to feed them anymore. As children read these various stories, they are constantly seeing the disproportionate distribution of wealth and power. The most impactful part, however, is the character’s passivity to the system that these tales exemplify.
The characters in these fairytales never examine or place any blame on the systems themselves. In the tale of Rumpelstiltskin, the miller does not seem to hate the King for his high status even though his status was not earned. Instead of questioning how unfair his role in society is, he commits to winning the attention of the King by offering his daughter. The miller’s daughter takes every advantage to change her own position and fails to consider everyone else in the class she has left behind. In the article Breaking the Magic Spell: Politics and the Fairytale by Jack Zipes, he describes fairytale stories as “direct, clear, paratactical and one-dimensional in its narrative perspective, and this narrative position reflects the limitations of feudal life where alternatives to one’s situation were extremely curtailed. So, it is in the folk tale. There is no mention of another world. Only one side of characters and living conditions is described. Everything is confined to a realm without morals, where class and power determine social relations,” (Jack Zipes, 125). Because Rumpelstiltskin is presented to us with a single point of view narrative, we fail to realize that everyone else in the lower classes are equally suffering and thus do not see it as a systemic issue. The success story of the miller’s daughter serves to distract from the unequal disparity of wealth and power by providing hope. The hope comes from the story’s ability to give a more than average miller’s daughter the status of a Queen. The miller’s daughter is meant to be the most average, neutral character so people who are in the working class who have no wealth or status can see themselves in the daughter. The fairytale does not even give our protagonist a name which further solidifies her purpose of being a relatable character.
Even through this one-dimensional narrative, it is still easy to point out all the ways in which the economic system is corrupt on a systemic level. For example, the King abuses the miller’s daughter’s “gift” of turning straw into gold by stealing it all for himself. His taking of the gold is a blatant example of labor exploitation by not letting her see the fruits of her labor. The King continues to make the labor more demanding by increasing the amount of hay she must spin and threatening her with death. Horrifyingly enough, through all these hardships, the relatability of the miller’s daughter and the working-class increases. The use of the magical helper of Rumpelstiltskin creates a realistically unattainable allusion of hope. The fairytale allows the poor nobody to become a member of the elite. At the end of the day this is a far better dream for the working class to believe in than say a revolution that has the potential to disrupt the current social order. Thus, the sense of hope in these tales must be false and they must not be replicable in real life. In other words, these stories do more harm than good for the working class.
Throughout history there has been one notable author of fairy tales written to inspire the working class. Ethel Carnie Holdsworth was born and raised as a factory worker in the early 1900s. She wrote her own version of fairy tales that empowered and uplifted her own class to find meaning. In Ethel Carnie Holdsworth New Fairytales for the Working Class by Patrcia E. Johnson, she explains how “On the one hand, she harshly criticizes the ways in which societies are structured to make one class the slaves of another; on the other hand, work for the community is seen not just as a necessity but as a positive good. It is work that demonstrates personal integrity, and it is work that transforms the world, bringing light into darkness.” (Johnson, 256). Ethel Carnie Holdsworth understood the impact fairytales had on the people that read them and recognized the damage of the messages that the current fairytales were sending. She took this into her own hands by writing fairy tales that give recognition and purpose to her own kind. For example, her fairytale “The Lamp Girl” describes the number of fairies that celebrate and honor the ones who complete the manual labor needed to keep the world running. The fairies place these often-forgotten workers on a pedestal for all the blessings they provide. Although this recognition does not serve as a replacement for the monetary value that these exploited workers deserve, it is still an important step in the right direction. Ethel Carnie Holdsworth stories are a direct opposition of fairy tales like Rumpelstiltskin that showcase the miller’s distaste for his own class. Instead of inspiring people to do everything they can to move upwards in the social hierarchy, Holdsworth inspires people to acknowledge their own capabilities and self-worth. The issue of popularity still remains as many people never heard of or read any of Holdsworth stories. People still most commonly refer to the problematic fairytales as a means to teach their children about society, which only assists in conformity within the current systems.
Reanalyzing these common fairy tales and teaching them to children in a similar lens that Holdsworth uses, holds the power to disrupt the current systems. There is no secret that fairytales are tools in understanding economic concepts. “Huffing and Puffing through Economics” by Cynthia A. Weldon-Lassiter equates a fairytale to a basic economic principle that it adequately explains. Some examples include scarcity seen through the Little Red Riding Hood, opportunity cost seen through Jack and the Beanstalk, and Trade seen through the Three Little Pigs. Rumpelstiltskin can be analyzed in the same way as an example of classism or economic injustice. Rumpelstiltskin is symbolic of the proletariat working class who are taken advantage of constantly, and the miller’s daughter is symbolic of the proletariat who capitalizes on others to get ahead. The story highlights the damage labor exploitation causes to reveal the unsustainable nature of Capitalism. Teaching this fairytale in this manner builds the skill in people to view issues in a more systematic way.
Fairytales show the clear influence of a class system in our society. The characters in these stories have no choice but to interact within the constraints of their society. These stories show the power imbalance between the classes and how people will do whatever it takes to move up in the world. However, stories like Rumpelstiltskin can be used to teach children about economic injustice and systemic change. With the influence of authors like Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, these fairytales can be used to encourage the working class to rise up and fight for the respect they deserve. Fairytales can be used to learn about these economic issues in a meaningful way and can be used to create a more equitable future.
