In Charles Perrault's story "The Sleeping Beauty and the Wood" and Margaret Atwood's story "There was Once", they both tell the story of the Sleeping Beauty but in very different ways. In Perrault's story, he depicts the princess as a one-dimensional character with a sense of perfection and hopelessness, however in Atwood's story, she depicts the princess as more of a multi-dimensional character with a more realistic view. Often times people read fairytales as a means of escape from their less-perfect life, but Atwood's "There was Once", doesn't allow for an escape from reality, because it's based on reality. By looking at "The Sleeping Beauty in the wood" through "There was once", we see how far off traditional fairytales are from real life.

In Atwood's "There was Once", we never actually get past the first line of the fairytale because the speaker continually gets interrupted, but she brings up many points and descriptions that are involved in a typical fairytale. She spends her story criticizing the princess, setting, characters and the ending that are all involved in traditional fairytales. When speaker 1 says, "There was once a middle-class girl, as beautiful as she was good" speaker 2 says, "Stop right there. I think we can cut the beautiful, don't you? Women these days have to deal with too many intimidating physical role models as it is, what with those bimbos in the ads. Can't you make her, well, more average?" Atwood points out how in today's society too many women feel like they have to look like the models and women they see in ads and magazines everywhere. She tries to make the character more average looking so that women don't feel like they have to live up to the image of all these perfect looking people. Atwood's story consists of Speaker 2 criticizing the unrealistic aspects of a fairytale. She wants to change the details to create a more realistic and relatable fairytale. Since "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" was written in the 1600's, the details can be seen as more relevant to that time period, but "There was Once" was written in the 1980's, so the details of her story are much more relevant and relatable to society today.  Atwood's story can also be seen as a satire of The Sleeping Beauty and traditional fairytales since she criticizes so many of the details that are incorporated in fairytales.

One of the major differences between "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" and "There was Once" is the portrayal of the princess. In "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" the princess is portrayed as a typical perfect princess figure. She is given gifts by seven fairies in the kingdom and "By this means the Princess had all the perfections imaginable" these perfections included "..that she should have the wit of an angel; the third that she should have wonderful grace in everything she did; the fourth, that she should dance perfectly well; the fifth that she should sing like a nightingale.." an so on.  She is saved by her prince charming and they live happily ever after. She's a very one-dimensional character and doesn't possess many traits. While in "There was once", Atwood deviates from a traditional fairytale. Instead of portraying the princess as perfect, she aims for a more average character. Speaker 1 says "There once was a girl of indeterminate descent, as average-looking as she was good, who lived with her wicked.." Atwood makes her princess have realistic flaws and characteristics that everyone can relate too. She makes her an average person, so that it's not someone that women strive to look like, but makes them happy with the way they are.  She makes the princess more average looking, middle-class, a little overweight, and ethnic.

Another big difference between Perrault and Atwood's story are details of the setting and the plot. In Perrault's "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood", the setting follows the traditional fairytale setting. The Princess is held in a castle in the middle of the woods. The woods act as a shield for the Princess and are big influence on many of the characters. "Scarce had he advanced towards the wood when all the great trees, the bushes, and brambles gave way of themselves to let him pass through;" Meanwhile, in Atwood's "There was once" she goes for more of an urban setting. Speaker 1 says, "....who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the forest." And Speaker 2 says, "Forest? Forest is passe. I mean, I've had it with all this wilderness stuff. It's not a right image of our society, today. Let's have some urban for a change." She tries to create a setting that is more like the places that we live today, since castles in the middle of the woods don't really exist anymore.  Atwood also doesn't begin her story with "once upon a time", when Speaker 1 says "There was once-"Speaker 2 says "What's this was, once? Enough of the dead past. Tell me about now." Adding onto the element of a modern-day fairytale, Atwood tries to make the story about right now, not about back then and how life was in the past, but how life and society works now.

In Conclusion, we can see that by looking at "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" through "There was once", it makes us wonder why people get so tied up in fairytales and creating their own so called "fairytales" when they are so far off from reality.  Both of these stories tell the story of a fairytale, but "There was Once" has a message behind, whereas "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" is simply just a story. "There was Once" teaches us that women shouldn't be portrayed as these perfect princess with the perfect fairytale ending, because then we get an unrealistic idea of what we want our life to end up like. Atwood's use of realistic problems and characteristics creates a modern-day fairytale that's attainable.
