The famous fairy tale The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood is the revised version of the original tale. In original version of the story that will be compared in this essay has behind story after the happy ending of prince and princess. "There Was Once" is one of the stories from Good Bone evoking stereotypical opening of fairy tales. These two texts were written by different authors and different time period. The stories of the same period are written with similar social issues of contemporary time period to point out the problems. However, by looking at some similarities and differences of these two texts, the similar types of social issues can be treated in different time period as the literary works.

The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood is one of the famous typical French fairy tales. It highlighted the aristocratic elite of seventeenth and eighteenth century. French tales are talking about class struggles in the discourses of that time. Also they were the outcome of violent civilized struggles, and aristocrats' struggles for hegemony. In France, fairy tales were entertainment and education for ruling class. It was written in a standard high language which made difficult for the folk to read it (Zipes). The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood is a fairy tale which contains many different characters and has very clear introduction, development and conclusion to show tragic ending. 

 "There Was Once" is one of the story collections of Margaret Atwood. It is a very short story which is unfolded in dialogue form of two people. Author used very effective language to clearly convey the meaning to the audience within a short story. Hence, it has more meanings in it than superficially described (Evie, Patrick, Mako and Millie). In this story she tries to point out that the world of today is very different and not as fictional as the opening of fairy tale that a character in this story talks about. 

By analyzing some similarities and differences, it becomes clearer that two literary pieces have same social issues of different time period. The authors are trying to talk about two main things in each of their stories. First thing is unfair treatment of women and the other thing is insecure state of the society. The time period of The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood was the time before the French enlightenment due to the spread of commoners' dissatisfaction. There was the advent of the bourgeoisie and they had all wealth of France (Furet). Also at the time that There Was Once was written, dissatisfaction of Canadian people against the government was prevalent and movement for women's practical right was keep proceeded (Outshoorn).

There are some similarities to support the theme. Bad figures of both texts are all women. In The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, king's mother Ogress was described as very cruel and bad person. The author generalized negative women figure by applying the concept to one fixed villain character. A stepmother in the story of "There Was Once" stood out as the negative female image too. Also Creepy and thickly wooded forest in the story of The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood symbolizes corrupted and unorganized society. In the story of "There Was Once", the term forest is described as old fashioned which symbolizes old way of governing unlike the figure of developed urban areas and society. Both stories have negative flow which is another evidence to support the fact that both have same issues. The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood has tragic ending. Tragic ending symbolizes that those two social issues are the perennial problems in these days. "There Was Once" has critical and stereotypical opening of fairy tale which the author points out the reality of the world. Finally, as likely as most of the other fairy tales, both texts are written to satirize the contemporary social problems.

Also some of the differences of two texts help to understand the theme. The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood indirectly belittled the women character to point out the gender discrimination. On the contrary, There Was Once criticized men by changing the term of stepmother to stepfather to point out the discrimination. Also the number of characters in the story changed the ways of expressing the issues. Sleeping Beauty in the Wood used many characters to express the problems and one of them are Day and Morning who are the king's children. Day was the youngest son and Morning was eldest daughter. King gave him a name of Day because he was handsomer and more beautiful than his sister Morning. This is a way to show unfair social statue of men and women by applying the concept to the kids who really do not have any bias or power to influence to gender discrimination yet. In There Was Once, discrimination was shortly and directly expressed by the close conversation between two people. Hence, they need to use direct terms like stepfather, and forest to give a message to the readers. Another superficial difference that easy to find is the length of the two texts. The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood has long story compare to "There Was once" so that the author can create diverse characters and situations to deliver his message to the audience. In contrast, "There Was Once" is a short dialogue form story which made the author to use great literacy technique to contain critical points in short essay.

In conclusion, the comparison between The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood and "There Was Once" shows that the authors of different time period could talk about the same social issues. Similarities such as negative women figures, the imagery usage, and negative flow of two stories and differences such as way of pointing out gender discrimination, the number of characters, and the length of story clarify the fact that two texts treat similar issues. Even though two authors in a different time period used their own method, comparison shows that the final goal of giving same type of social messages to the readers coincides and was very successful for both of the stories.
