By Linnea Rock
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Amidst the entirety of entertainment available and loved today, it is relieving to discover thought-provoking content occasionally exists. Using modern forms of entertainment is a great way to criticize social norms and to inform others about different ideas. This makes it possible for one’s ideas to reach a wide audience because of the popularity and accessibility of media to people of all class levels. Today’s popular media forms are full of societal critiques, but in the nineteenth century literature was the only popular medium. Hans Christian Andersen utilized his skills as a fairy tale author to write stories that contained commentary of nineteenth century Denmark and its social norms. He criticized everything from the monarchy, to women’s rights, and even the class system. Andersen carefully employed symbolism in order to elevate his superficially innocent children’s stories to be analyzed and contemplated by adults as well. This façade proved to be such a powerful and significant style that we still explore his stories today.
Since the beginning of human communication, folklore has been a popular way to entertain. Traditional folktales were well known and Scandinavia had a wealth of them. Andersen saw this infatuation with folklore as an opportunity to showcase his specific talents. By writing literary imitations of folktales, he could change the stories to have new suggestive or consequential meanings. He used techniques such as adding autobiographical information, elements of Christianity, Romantic ideas, and plot changes to give his stories new meanings.1 His writing gave him lasting fame as the stories are still enjoyed today. Some of his works have even been adapted into film versions further proving his timelessness. There are many examples of Andersen’s folktale imitations, yet one fabliau is especially riveting to consider. Andersen’s retelling of “Haaken Grizzlebeard” as “The Swineherd” is a powerful satire of traditional women’s roles as subordinate beings.
It is important to have an understanding of the expectations for men and women when analyzing a nineteenth century story that criticizes gender roles. There were, and often still are, stereotypes of what it means to be masculine or feminine. Men are supposed to acclimate to the public world in which they are “powerful, active, brave, worldly, logical, rational, individual, independent, able to resist temptation, tainted, ambitious, and sensual,”2 while women must acclimate to a private sphere and be “weak, passive, timid, domestic, illogical, emotional/susceptible to madness, social/familial, dependent, unable to resist temptation, pure, content, and not sensual.”3 The above mentioned traits are opposites for the sexes and force women into a submissive role while the men are impelled to be in a more dominant and oppressive role. Straying from these traits could cause one to be ostracized, especially when it comes to the rigid roles of sexual expectations.
Women’s sexuality was very scrutinized and therefore unfortunately misunderstood during the nineteenth century. Sexuality was frowned upon for men as well as women; the difference being that a man’s sexual desire was recognized, but it was thought that only abnormal women shared these desires. Even having sex too often was deemed to be evil, only moderate sex after marriage was accepted.4 Feminist authors Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar wrote about the difference between male and female sexuality compared to literary power in that, “if male sexuality is associated with the assertive presence of literary power, female sexuality is associated with the absence of such power, with the idea expressed by the nineteenth-century thinker Otto Weininger that ‘woman has no share in ontological reality.’”5 Gilbert and Gubar recognized that men held all the sexual power. It was unthinkable that women could hold any power, as it was believed that women could not even fathom existence. This power difference between genders can be seen through many cultural aspects, including folklore.
Women are portrayed as inactive, weak, and clueless characters who are secondary to men in many folktales. In Sandy Feinstein’s article examining folktales and ballads, she found many similarities between most of the women in the stories. One of the most relevant is that “men are the heroes, women secondary to them.”6 Women, however, “serve an important role in folktales … they make possible the achievements of men.”7 This analysis shows how the goal of the characters in a classic folktale is to get married and live happily ever after. Many folktales depict female characters who require a man in order to survive. The women do not, however, realize they are searching for a man, yet he is often aware of his quest. When he finds his femme fragile he “gains knowledge of who he is and thus fulfills his identity during the course of the tale.”8 Women in folktales are used as accessories by the male heroes to help obtain their reward. A woman who strays from this becomes a freak of nature, exhibiting how “assertiveness, aggressiveness, all characteristics of a male life of ‘significant action’ are ‘monstrous’ in women precisely because [they are] ‘unfeminine’ and therefore unsuited to a gentle life of ‘contemplative purity.’”9 Characters who do not obey the standard laws of female expectations were seen as monstrous, and therefore could not obtain a man who will supply them with a home and a life.
“Haaken Grizzlebeard” and “The Swineherd” are both tales that deal with courtship. The story is a fabliau – a story that is often tragic or carnivalesque. It is often more realistic than a magic tale but the distinctions between good and evil may not be very clear.10 It is classified under the AT tale type 90011, which has many variants about a prince who disguises himself as a beggar to teach a haughty princess her place in order to marry her. “The Swineherd” is Andersen’s literary imitation of “Haaken Grizzlebeard”. Between Andersen’s story and the tale, these same motifs can be seen: a beautiful, proud, arrogant princess, a disguised prince, the princess’s promiscuity, and an angry king.
One of the first variants of “Haaken Grizzlebeard” is a German poem written around the year 1260. The variant discussed here was collected by P. Chr. Asbjörnsen between 1837 and 1839 in Sörum, Romerike, Norway, yet has known variants all over Europe, India, Turkey, North America, and Central America.12 One thing to note in the tale is that the male figure has a name while the woman remains nameless, a peek into the implied unimportance of women. The folktale “Haaken Grizzlebeard” presents a reality that women faced throughout history when marriage was looming.
At the beginning of the story we are introduced to a king’s beautiful daughter and a separate king’s son, Haaken Grizzlebeard. This is a quintessential pairing of characters for this type of folktale. The two are expected to get married and live happily ever after, with the wife being a good queen and housewife and the husband is the moneymaker. The princess is not only beautiful, but she is proud and hotheaded as well. She behaves like a typical magic tale princess, yet when suitors came to woo her, “she made fun of them all and sent them packing one after the other. But even though she put on such airs, suitors always came to the manor, for she was very pretty – the hateful shrew!”13 From the beginning of the story, the audience learns that male characters only care about the woman’s appearance and not her attitude. Behavior is unimportant because once they are married, she will be his property and he could make her do whatever he wanted, or so it was believed. The princess at the beginning of the story embodies the idea of a monstrous woman who will never be married; a woman who thinks for herself and does not want a man to change her. Women like this would never be respected at a time in which she needs a man to escalate her social class. The princess was acting on her own accord by rejecting Haaken Grizzlebeard like all the other suitors, thus putting gender roles under inspection.
Haaken Grizzlebeard further plays into the story archetype by disguising himself as a beggar and tempting the princess with objects to teach the out-of-line girl a lesson. The princess wanted the things the beggar had, so she let him in at night. In this way, Haaken Grizzlebeard tricks her into letting him sleep closer and closer to her over the course of three nights until he finally shares her bed and has sex with her. When he made noise, she exclaimed, “if my father hears there’s a man in here, I’ll be most unhappy! I do believe he’d put an end to me on the spot!”14 She fears the anger of her father if he were to discover her promiscuity. This is a great example of the double standards for men and women. She was always expected to be pure and virginal; straying from that would cause outrage especially for the men who are in charge of her, i.e., father then husband.
When the princess gives birth nine months later, her father is so angry that she fears for her and her child’s lives. She leaves to go live with the beggar and exclaims about Haaken Grizzlebeard, “I could have taken him, then I would not have to be wandering about here like a ragamuffin”.15 She is beginning to acquiesce to the reality of life for a woman and how “women in patriarchal societies have historically been reduced to mere properties, to characters and images imprisoned in male texts.”16 She regrets rejecting the prince because now she is brought down to the social class of the beggar on whom she now depends. The prince remains disguised as the beggar because he is not satisfied with her yet, because “any heroine who departs from the norm, e.g. by rejecting suitors or breaking promises, will be suitably humiliated before achieving her happy ending – which is, naturally, to obtain a husband.”17 He must make sure that she is fully reduced to a traditional housewife before he can marry her.
The princess is now forced to learn the skills associated with being a wife – baking, cooking, and sewing – by getting a job in Haaken Grizzlebeard’s kingdom. The most important lesson, however, is that she learns to obey her husband figure, because “the anxiety implicit in such storytelling urgently needs… the reassurances of male superiority that patriarchal misogyny implies.”18 Women had to obey their male superiors at the time this story was told as it was crucial to their survival. When the beggar told her to steal things from the castle, she would do it despite the trouble she was risking. At one point she says to the beggar, “you’ll probably be the ruin of me in the end, for you only want me to do what’s wrong.”19 She does not realize that she is the ruin of herself because, as a female character, she is forbidden to be able to think and act for herself. It is only after this test of obedience that Haaken Grizzlebeard is finally content with his accomplishment in achieving marriageability in the girl. He then proceeds to reveal his true self and, “only then was there real merriment and joy.”20 The two are then married and they live as a family in the kingdom. This happily-ever-after ending is achieved through marriage, but instead of feeling cheery, the reader should sympathize with the woman who was forced to lose her independence and pride in order to receive this so-called happy ending.
Hans Christian Andersen’s imitation of “Haaken Grizzlebeard” entitled, “The Swineherd,” was published in 1842, in the collection Fairy Tales, Told for Children.21 Unlike the folktale, both the main characters in “The Swineherd” are unnamed, a change that puts them on a more level plane in the story. The details about the princess are also used to cause alarm, as Andersen depicts her as just a girl, too young for marriage. There are many subtle differences in the story, but the starkest is that Andersen discarded the second half of the folktale and ended it in such a way that causes the audience to contemplate his intention. Through the literary changes to the folktale in “The Swineherd,” Andersen criticizes the typical nineteenth century roles for women.
At the beginning of the “The Swineherd,” a poor prince and an emperor’s beautiful daughter are introduced. The prince is poor but kind and famous while the princess is pompous and proud. The change in class difference is interesting here, as now the woman is of a higher class than the man. Marrying him would result in the princess losing some of her status, but “there were at least a hundred princesses who would have said thank you very much to his proposal.”22 The prince felt entitled to having this girl’s acceptance as well. He sent his two best possessions, a rose and a nightingale, to the princess in order try to woo her. When she received them, “she almost wept with disappointment” and “the emperor cried like a baby,”23 for they were real gifts and not luxurious artificial imitations of the bird and flower. In this way, she is described as a very selfish and materialistic girl of poor upbringing. The court is also criticized here, because they all are happy to see the beauty of the gifts, but quickly change their points of view when the princess and emperor are upset. In return, the princess proceeds to send a messenger to the prince rejecting his proposal.
Just like Haaken Grizzlebeard, this poor prince decided to disguise himself in order to get closer to the princess and perhaps teach her a lesson about her fate as a nineteenth century woman. He disguised himself as a swineherd to work in the kingdom. He tricked the princess into kissing him in exchange for the lovely gifts he was making. Because of her greed, she gave into his request of kisses, even after trying to give him her ladies in waiting instead. The fear of her father’s wrath if he were to see her kissing a swineherd, prompts her to instruct her ladies in waiting to, “stand around me so no one can see it.”24 She should, of course, fear her angry father, for when he saw that she was behaving promiscuously, “both the swineherd and the princess were thrown out of his empire.”25 Just like the folktale, the woman is now outside of her home and looks to the swineherd for help as he is the only man that she now knows. Of the prince that proposed earlier, she said, “if only I had married the prince, oh, I am so unhappy!”26 Just like in “Haaken Grizzlebeard,” this princess realized her mistake in being unmarriageable, for she went from emperor’s daughter to a poor beggar in a matter of moments. Alas, she finally realized her existence as a woman of the nineteenth century. The swineherd revealed himself as the prince, but would not marry her because of her actions had made her impure. Her greed and selfishness that compelled her to kiss the swineherd were unattractive to the prince. He said to her, “you do not want an honest prince. You did not appreciate the rose or the nightingale, but you could kiss a swineherd for the sake of a toy. Farewell!”27 Her beauty was not enough reason for the prince to invest in making her his wife.
Along with the beauty and haughtiness of the princess in “The Swineherd,” Andersen also gives details of her age. This is another change from “Haaken Grizzlebeard.” The first problem can be seen by her actions at the beginning of the story. They show that she is very young; too young, in fact, for marriage. When the prince’s gifts arrived to her kingdom, she was “playing house with her ladies in waiting [because] that was their favorite game and they never played any other.”28 When the gifts were brought to her she “clapped her hands and jumped for joy.”29 These actions, playing house and jumping for joy, are not things that a woman usually does, but rather the actions of a young girl. Then when she found the gifts to be a real rose and a real bird, she was not happy because they were not toys. This is a great criticism of women in Andersen’s society who are mainly young girls and often forced into marriage before they were mentally and physically ready.
Along with being too young, the princess was also portrayed as being very cruel, selfish, and greedy. At one point when her ladies in waiting were celebrating her new gifts, she exclaimed, “keep your mouth shut. Remember, I am the princess.”30 She was cruel to her friends and her rejection was harsh to the prince. In this way, Andersen carefully brings the audience’s sympathy to the prince because, “the ideal woman that male authors dream of generating is always an angel,”31 yet this girl was certainly not depicted as being angelic. This is ironic because the prince apparently had “at least a hundred princesses”32 who he could have chased instead of this child. Andersen’s portrayal of the princess as a child and as a cruel woman was able to draw attention and raise questions to the roles of women during the nineteenth century.
Andersen’s imitation of the well-known folktale “Haaken Grizzlebeard” was an effective way to influence his audience into questioning the norms imposed onto women during the nineteenth century. By leaving off the ending of the folktale in “The Swineherd,” he denies the commonality of men demoting women to achieve marriageability. Through the subtle language of a folktale he cleverly showed his audience how the typical father’s house to husband’s house routine did not allow women to be themselves and live full lives. Andersen’s influential way of changing folktales into modern literary works opened up a world of creativity and allowed him to critique many social norms that were present during his lifetime, not just women’s rights.
When Anderson adapted stories with which people were familiar, he forced them to inspect the implications of his differences. He took well-known stories that portrayed social norms and made changes, sometimes small, such as suggesting the age of the princess, and sometimes large, such as eliminating the entire ending. All of his alternations have one thing in -common – they make an impact. When we read an Andersen story versus a folktale, his story raises discussions about right and wrong, urging the reader to question the existence of social norms. His criticisms in “The Swineherd” may still be pondered today as women and many other minorities continue to fight for sexual and economic equality.
Bibliography
Andersen, Hans Christian. “Notes for My Fairy Tales and Stories.” In Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, trans. Erik Christian Haugaard, 1073. New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1974.
Andersen, Hans Christian. “The Swineherd.” Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, trans. Erik Christian Haugaard, 193-97. New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1974.
Feinstein, Sandy. “Whatever Happened to the Women in Folktale?” Women’s Studies International Forum, 9.3 (1986): 251-56, doi: 10.1016/0277-5395(86)90060-9.
Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar. “The Queen’s Looking Glass: Female Creativity, Male Images of Women, and the Metaphor of Literary Paternity.” In The Madwoman in the Attic: The Nineteenth-century Literary Imagination, 3-14. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.
“Haaken Grizzlebeard.” In Folktales of Norway, ed. Reidar Christiansen, trans. Pat Shaw Iverson, 186-93. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
Mellor, Scott, “Scandinavian Tale and Ballad.” Lecture at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Van Hise Hall, Madison, WI. 10 February 2015.
Mellor, Scott, “Scandinavian Tale and Ballad.” Lecture at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Van Hise Hall, Madison, WI. 09 April 2015.
“Notes for “Haaken Grizzlebeard.” In Folktales of Norway, ed. Reidar Christiansen, trans. Pat Shaw Iverson, 186. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
Radek, Kimberly M. “Women in the Nineteenth Century.” Women in Literature. Last modified 2001. Accessed 13 March 2015. http://www2.ivcc.edu/gen2002/women_in_the_nineteenth_century.htm.
Simpson, Jacqueline. “‘Be Bold, But Not Too Bold’: Female Courage in Some British and Scandinavian Legends.” Folklore 102.1 (1991): 16-30, doi: 10.1080/0015587X.1991.9715802.
Endnotes
1 Scott Mellor, “Scandinavian Tale and Ballad” (Lecture, University of Wisconsin, April 9 2015).
2 Kimberly Radek, “Women in the Nineteenth Century,” Women in Literature, last modified 2001, http://www2.ivcc.edu/gen2002/women_in_the_nineteenth_century.htm.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, “The Queen’s Looking Glass: Female Creativity, Male Images of Women, and the Metaphor of Literary Paternity,” in Madwoman in the Attic: The Nineteenth-century Literary Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 8.
6 Sandy Feinstein, “Whatever Happened to the Women in Folktale,?” Women’s Studies International Forum 9, no. 3 (1986): 251.
7 Ibid., 256.
8 Ibid., 251.
9 Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, “The Queen’s Looking Glass: Female Creativity, Male Images of Women, and the Metaphor of Literary Paternity,” 28.
10 Scott Mellor, “Scandinavian Tale and Ballad” (Lecture, University of Wisconsin, Feb. 10 2015).
11 “Notes for “Haaken Grizzlebeard,”” in Folktales of Norway, ed. Reidar Christiansen, trans. Pat Shaw Iverson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 186.
12 Ibid.
13 “Haaken Grizzlebeard,” Folktales of Norway, ed. Reidar Christiansen, trans. Pat Shaw Iverson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 186.
14 Ibid., 188.
15 “Haaken Grizzlebeard,” in Folktales of Norway, 189.
16 Gilbert and Gubar, “The Queen’s Looking Glass: Female Creativity, Male Images of Women, and the Metaphor of Literary Paternity,” 12.
17 Jacqueline Simpson, “’Be Bold, but not too bold’: Female Courage in Some British and Scandinavian Legends,” Folklore 102, no. 1 (1991): 16.
18 Gilbert and Gubar, “The Queen’s Looking Glass: Female Creativity, Male Images of Women, and the Metaphor of Literary Paternity,” 5.
19 “Haaken Grizzlebeard,” in Folktales of Norway, 192.
20 “Haaken Grizzlebeard,” in Folktales of Norway, 193.
21 Hans Christian Andersen, “Notes for My Fairy Tales and Stories,” Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories trans. Erik Christian Haugaard (New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1974), 1073.
22 Hans Christian Andersen, “The Swineherd,” Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, trans. Erik Christian Haugaard (New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1974), 193.
23 Ibid., 194.
24 Ibid., 195.
25 Ibid., 197.
26 Ibid.
27 Hans Christian Andersen, “The Swineherd,” Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, trans. Erik Christian Haugaard (New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1974), 197.
28 Ibid., 193.
29 Ibid., 193.
30 Ibid., 196.
31 Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, “The Queen’s Looking Glass: Female Creativity, Male Images of Women, and the Metaphor of Literary Paternity,” 20.
32 Andersen, “The Swineherd,” in The Complete Fairly Tales and Stories, 193.