Typical fairytales consist of a young princess who dreams of finding her perfect prince, but something or someone evil always gets in the way. However a prince always saves her, and gets married and lives "happily ever after". One could say that Charles Perrault's short story, "Sleeping Beauty in the Wood", is like the typical fairytale and very closely related to the Sleeping Beauty fairytale. However, Perrault's story has a bit of a twist unlike most fairytales, where the prince does not fully help save the day by some heroic act. Meanwhile Margaret Atwood's short story, "There Was Once", breaks all the fairytale "rules". One would say "There Was Once" is the modern and feminist fairytale of today. Both these stories are similar in their fairytale aspect but greatly differ in how they are told. In Perrault's short story, "Sleeping Beauty in the Wood", the female is depicted like any other female fairytale character; helpless, man-dependent, and only capable of being a wife and mother. However in Atwood's short story, "There Was Once", the female character is changed by the narrator to be quite the opposite; strong and independent, like the modern version of a multidimensional woman.

In almost every fairytale, the main character is a young woman who is usually a princess, whether she knows so or not. Take Cinderella, and Aurora, from Disney's Sleeping Beauty, they both believed at first that they were peasants with no money but later discover they are a princess or about to become one. However Ariel, from the little mermaid, already knows she is a princess because that is how she grew up. A princess is typically beautiful, intelligent, nice, and a talented singer and dancer. A princess is perfect. In Perrault's story the princess was gifted with these perfect qualities. Her seven Fairy God Mothers gave her these gifts of "be[ing] the most beautiful person... hav[ing] the wit of an angel...grace...dance perfectly well...sing like a nightingale...[and] play all kinds of music to the utmost perfection" (Perrault 296). This is the typical perfect princess; with this in mind, Atwood's princess is the complete opposite. So far from it in fact, that she may not even be a princess. Atwood's main female character is "average". She believes no one is perfect and that "women these days have to deal with too many intimidating physical role models as it is" (305). Therefore, she does not want those who read a fairytale to compare himself or herself to someone that cannot exist in real life because it can cause them to oppress themselves and their body.

In the best of fairytales, there is always someone who gets in the way of everything that is perfect. That person is the villain, who is usually a woman. The princess is almost always the victim. The villains tend to be stepmothers, stepsisters, witches, evil queens, and monsters etc. In most cases, the villain tends to be someone no one would suspect, usually very close to the victim. Therefore, it is a surprise to both the victim herself and the audience. The princess (now Queen) in Perrault's story is sweet and innocent and seems to have no enemies, but when her husband, the King, leaves for war with his mother in charge of looking after the Queen and their children, everything takes a turn for the worse. The person they thought they could trust the most betrayed them. The mother was of the Ogre race, which is known for eating children. When the mother sent the queen and her children away she turned on them. The mother turned from ex-queen to Ogress. She summoned her clerk for both children but he did not have to heart to do it, so he deceived the ogress mother and hid the children. When the ogress mother said, "I will eat the Queen with the same sauce I had with her children" (Perrault 301), the clerk was unsure of whether he could deceive her again, but was able to do so. In the end however, they were all caught. Atwood took notice as to how other women seemed to always be the villain, and was "so tired of negative female images!" Therefore, she decided to change it up from the stepmother being the villain to the stepfather. This expresses some of Atwood's feminism. When she thinks of middle-aged men, she attributes them with "bad-behavior...[and] are twisted [and] repressed..."(Atwood 306). In a way, she is treating men how fairytales tend to treat women. Atwood seems to be upset with the way women are portrayed in fairytales. With this story, she is able to rewrite it her way.

If a fairytale does not end with a happily ever after, was it really a fairytale at all? The ending is a key part of a fairytale. Everyone knows it is going to be happy, but they are never sure how. A story typically ends with the prince and the princess finding each other, getting married, having children, and living together happily ever after. Perrault's story however ends a bit differently. In a way, he tricks his readers with the suspense. While the King is away, the ogress mother is angry that she has been deceived. This causes the Ogress to order they all be taken captive. The Queen, her children, the clerk and his wife, are brought to the middle of the great court where there would be put in a large tub full of all kinds of serpents. At the end the Ogress is just about to throw them in and kill them when the King suddenly arrives early from war and saves the day. The King did nothing but show up, and because of this the Ogress throws herself into the tub, basically killing herself. It is not clear as to why the Ogress would do that herself, but unlike the usual prince saving the princess with his heroic acts, this just happens on its own. In the end however, "the King could not be but very sorry, for she was his mother; but he soon comforted himself with his beautiful wife and his pretty children" (Perrault 302). Atwood on the other hand, never gives the reader an ending because her story has not ended yet. Atwood has had "enough with the dead past" (306) because she wants to know about what is happening now.

Perrault's short story, "Sleeping Beauty in the Wood", provides a perfect princess just like any other female fairytale character. His villain is slightly different from the usual stepmother or witch, but still keeps to the woman villain theme. Although his ending was not the most usual one, it still contained the happily ever after that everyone expects from a fairytale. In Atwood's short story, "There Was Once", the female character is quite the opposite and breaks all the rules of the fairytale status quo. The main character is not perfect; she's average. The villain is switched from the typical stepmother to the not so typical stepfather, and unlike any other fairytale there is no ending because there is no once, was because it is happening now. Perrault abides by the fairytale rules within his story with some slight changes but Atwood twists every aspect she can. Perrault's story is in the past life of princes and princesses while Atwood's story is happening in the present with any young woman today who is on a new adventure in life, and although no one knows the ending yet it may not be perfect or a happily ever after but it will be real and that is what Atwood wants her readers to see.
