Introduction to Rapunzel + Commentary by Stephanie from Chasm of Books!

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Hey everyone, it's Stephanie from Chasm of Books! Thank you, Bonnie for inviting me to guest post! I'm super excited to be participating this week with all of the Rapunzelly things. Today I have a brief introduction to the original Grimm's fairy tale with some commentary and fun gifs to prepare you for the mass of other Rapunzel posts you'll be reading this week.

Let's briefly go over the tale, shall we? Mommy gets a craving for a plant within an enchantresses' garden.

She gets desperate for it and literally declares she will die without it. So naturally, Daddy climbs over the garden wall and collects the plant. All is well until he attempts this a second time when he is (of course) caught.

Daddy begs and begs and the enchantress (Gothel) agrees to be "merciful." Her idea of mercy? Give me your unborn child right after birth. So what does he do? He agrees, of course. If any parents want to know what not to do, they should be paying attention.

First of all,  Dad gave up his own child so he wouldn't suffer some terrible fate.

Secondly, if Dad was worried about what was going to happen to him, why wouldn't he worry about what was going to happen to his own child? I don't care if Gothel promised to "treat the child as her own," he shouldn't have agreed to it.

Thirdly, what is wrong with Mom here? She lives next to a freakin' enchantress; she should know that stealing from her isn't a good idea. But her antics got her the plant in the end, just, you know, at the cost of her own child.

So, the child is born and named Rapunzel. At one point in Rapunzel's childhood Gothel decides to imprison her in a tower without a door or stairs. The enchantress enters the tower by climbing up Rapunzel's hair. 

Eventually, the prince hears her singing and basically falls in love with her voice. When he comes back to meet her one day he sees Gothel using Rapunzel's hair to gain entrance to the tower.

He comes back and Rapunzel does her thing.

Between the prince and the enchantress, she must've head a massive headache all of the time. The enchantress climbs it by day and the prince climbed it by night. Either way you cut it.... ouch. That has to be some strong hair. You'd think that her neck would kill her too. All of the time.

Also, I'd like to note that she let a complete stranger into her tower. He declared his love for her and she's like okay, he's handsome, very well then. I do give her props for her initial wariness but it didn't last long, just a few minutes really. Then bang, they start talking and he asks her to marry him.

The Prince and Rapunzel come up with a plan to get her out - he's going to bring pieces of silk to her until she has enough to make a ladder. But Rapunzel in her great ignorance gives them away (just so you know, she was the one who came up with the plan). 

Gothel then throws her out into the wilderness (after she cuts Rapunzel's hair). The prince comes back and is lured into the tower, believing Rapunzel is still there. Upon learning that he will never see her again, he jumps from the tower and lands in the thorn bushes. Thorns pierce his eyes and he becomes blind.

The prince wanders for years (blind) until one day he hears Rapunzel singing. They find each other and he discovers that he fathered twins. She cries and her tears bring back his sight. And here's the thing, the live happily ever after.

An interesting tale over all. Honestly, the happy ending was quite unexpected. But my question still remains: why did Gothel want a kid in the first place? Perhaps she was lonely. There are issues with basically all of the Grimm's fairy tales, but I honestly think rewriting this tale would be fun.

There you have it though! The original tale of Rapunzel has been told (excluding Mommy's theatrics) and anyone out there who didn't know it before, is now ready for all of the retellings.

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About Stephanie: 

Hey, it's Stephanie here. So I've decided, you already know what this YA book blog is for so I'm not even going to summarize it. Suffice it to say that I started it because I love books and blogging. 

Now, about me? Let's see.... 
My toes are almost always cold. I don't know why, they just are. 
I love shoes and music almost as much as I love books. 
I prefer a physical book over an ebook. 
I'm a mood reader. I work with kids. 
There should be more reasons for me to wear pretty clothes, specifically skirts. I love skirts but they're all too fancy to wear on a normal day and I don't have that many fancy occasions so I only get to wear them on special days. 
I hate it when we have to change the clocks. Daylight savings sucks. 
There is no such thing as a favorite book. I have many favorites. 
And, yeah, that's about all I can think of. 

Check out Stephanie's blog Chasm of Books , her writing blog Create and Improve, and follow her on Twitter!

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