Beauty in sleep : necessary sleep in sleeping beauty

This essay examines several versions of the classic fairytale Sleeping Beauty, beginning with the Italian translation by Giambattista Basile, Charles Perrault’s The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood and finishing with contemporary retellings of the tale. These include Rabih Alameddine's A Kiss to Wake the Sleeper, in which there is a return to the original version by Basile with an enacted rape, and Angela Carter’s The Lady of the House of Love which subverts the tale such that it defies traditional feminist criticism of the original Sleeping Beauty, and magnifies the element of enchantment, taking it to an astral plane. The different versions showcase the shifting treatment and views of sleep according to each generation of readers and writers, spanning psychological, medical and literary standpoints. In examining the trope of sleep in these fairytales, along with how the sleeping female figure aids the development of the story, this essay will show how Sleeping Beauty has evolved from being concerned with the notion of sleep as passive in the earlier versions, where the females are viewed by critics as merely motionless in order to propel the narrative, to a confirmation that sleep is necessary and effective both physically and mentally, the physical and mental improvement of the protagonists in the retellings of Sleeping Beauty mirroring contemporary scientific research that prove the quintessential nature of sleep. In this formula, time also plays a crucial role in providing a backdrop in which its linearity is broken, in order to emphasize the centrality of sleep to the sleeper and the tale.Bachelor of Art