The Betrayl of Parents

When one thinks of parents, one thinks of parents as the source of protection and love. However, in many fairytales, parents are portrayed as unreliable, and sometimes the biological mother or father is the actual culprits of their children’s ill fate. For example, why would Little Red Riding Hood’s mother actually let her young daughter travel in the woods, in winter, by herself? The mother knows there’s a chance that her daughter could get raped, beaten, or killed. In “The Tiger’s Bride”, the father of Beauty loses her to the Beast in a game of cards! How reliable is that for a father? In Cinderella’s case, the parents are even more responsible for the hardship she goes through. We often think that the step-parents are the malevolent force in the plot such as Cinderella’s step-mother causes her grief and torment. While this might be seemly true, if one looks deeper into the plot, the realization that the real mother and father are responsible begins to surface...