"The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" by Charles Perrault and "There was Once" by Mar-garet Atwood are both short stories that begin with some form of "once upon a time". In this re-gard, they follow the typical narrative of fairytales that most readers are familiar with. However, as we read further into the story, we see that they are actually polar opposites. Perrault follows the formal, and verbose writing style that often accompanies a fairytale, whereas Atwood challenges this otherworldliness aura, and many other attributes of a fairytale outright. Replacing it instead, with mundaneness. In the retelling of their fairytales, Perrault and Atwood are reinforcing and critiquing society's social norms respectively.

Perrault follows every 'rule' of a fairytale. His main character is a princess, who is cursed, and threatened but finds a prince to live happily with. Perrault's other main characters include the princess' royal parents, fairies, and an ogress mother. These characters set the stage for a perfect children's fairytale; a beautiful princess, a love interest, and villains. Perrault feeds into the stereotype by encouraging the quest for perfection sought by the main character. He introduces fairies who endow the princess with various gifts such as beauty, talent, and grace. All so that she may have "all the perfections imaginable" (296, Perrault). The descriptions of these characters' lives, namely the royal family's include "fine christenings... great feasts... and pure gold utensils set with diamonds and rubies" (296, Perrault). All to enhance the romantic and regal picture that a typical fairytale paints for its reader. Later in the story, the Prince makes mention of the young girl's out dated clothes, remarking that she was "dressed like his great grandmother" (300, Perrault). However, her ill-styled wardrobe doesn't detract from her perfection. As the prince states, "she looked not a bit the less charming and beautiful for all that" (300, Perrault). Here, Perrault makes reference to a modern era, but remains true to the structure of commonly known fairytales nonetheless. In this telling of a perfect young girl and her carefree life, readers are drawn into this imaginary world that is far from reality. That is possibly just what people want to do; escape from reality. However, some argue that these tales are warping the minds of our youth into thinking they need to be perfect, just like these characters.

Atwood doesn't allow her story to succumb to the stereotypical telling of a beautiful prin-cess, her knight and shining armor, and their happily ever after. Right off the bat, Atwood disrupts the narrative, turning it into a conversation about the political correctness of some of the aspects of the original story. She argues "It's not a right image of our society, today" (305, Atwood). She consistently demands normalcy for the main character throughout the conversation using the voice of the second narrator. The second narrator rebukes each line of the story read by narrator one. "Stop right there. I think we can cut the beautiful, don't you?... Can't you make her, well, more average?" (305, Atwood). Here, the second narrator is defending the feminist argument that there are far too many pressures on women to be perfect and beautiful all the time. The narrator turns the princess character into the most ordinarily plain human possible. She goes out of her way to be politically correct; even changing the girl's ethnicity to "indeterminate decent" (305, Atwood). From the use of a conversation rather than a story, Atwood is able to freely comment on, and challenge the aspects of a 'normal' fairytale. Atwood changes every word she can to ensure this is the farthest thing from a typical fairytale.

Atwood never got to the point of the story where a plot develops. She briefly makes mention of a potential villain, the evil stepmother, but quickly refocuses attention on the gender of this character rather than their actions. She also spoils the ending of the tale, saying the girl, or rather the woman, was to be married by the end. However, we never hear anything besides a brief introduction about the girl's appearance and circumstance, which is drastically different compared to the extensive detail used by Perrault to explain the Princess' beauty. In this untra-ditional story, Atwood is again challenging society's expectations of a fairytale. Without a plot or conflict anywhere in her writing, there really isn't a story at all. All the reader is presented with, is a harsh critique of a fairytale.

Perrault, on the other hand, takes the time to develop the fairytale from initial conflict to resolution. He discusses the King and Queen's struggle to get pregnant, then progresses towards a plot where the baby is cursed with the 'gift' of death by an evil fairy. He goes on to detail how the Princess evades this death by going into a deep sleep, thanks to another fairy. The story, if left here, closely mirrors the tale of sleeping beauty, albeit with more explicit details. However, Perrault does not leave the story with her awakening from a deep sleep, but creates an extension of his initial story with an entirely new conflict that begins after the princess is 'saved' by her brave prince. When the Princess awakens, the focus of the narrative shifts to the Prince. The Princess is brought into his world, where she and her children reside under the care of the Prince's mother while he is away at war. The princess and her children now face new threats from the Queen, who can't suppress her ogress urges to devour human children. With two different conflicts within his story, Perrault is somewhat straying from a typical fairytale. However, that's where the progressiveness ends. When you look at the content, you see that he remains true to traditional narratives with all the elements he uses. For example, the ogre demanding to eat children, or the fairy casting a spell on the Princess. He includes things that most would associate with these legends such as fairies, dwarfs, dragons, royal families, castles in the woods, valiant and brave princes, and evil ogres. Every part of his fairytale is consistent with a stereotypical plot and attributes.

Both authors add something to our understanding of a fairytale. Perrault maintains most of the conventions of a fairytale, while Atwood challenges everything we know to be true about a fairytale. By stripping the story down word by word, she paints a picture of how detrimental this ideation of perfection can be to our children. Perrault, while somewhat straying from a fairytale narrative with the use of two plots, still retains the image of a beautiful princess, and a wicked mother.
