Gould's book is a praiseworthy contribution to the manner in which fairy tales provide us with an understanding of women from both an existential and a developmental perspective. In addition to a discussion on fairy tales and myths, the book presents a wide variety of characters—heroines from modern literature, movies, and television programs, as well as real women, both famous and anonymous. All of these come together to form a corpus of rich and diverse narratives through which Gould presents the transformative nature of women. The in-depth treatment of women's daily experiences is integrated with an expansive knowledge of the fairy-tale genre.
One of the book's central arguments maintains that women's developmental path is essentially different from that of men's. Therefore, fairy tales with female protagonists differ from those that focus on the hero's narrative. For example, the discussion of "Snow White" emphasizes separation from the mother. Whereas heroes leave home for adventure's sake, when the heroine leaves home one central developmental challenge is related to attachment issues. In these cases, it is the evil mother who serves as a trigger that encourages the heroine to achieve the next stage of sexual development.
In the discussion of "Sleeping Beauty" Gould presents the different functions of sleep. While for men, being asleep represents a potential danger, for women, sleep, like pregnancy, represents quality time, which replenishes the heroine and allows her to go on. Regarding continuous sleep, Gould rejects feminist claims that it symbolizes passivity and rather describes it as part of women's multifaceted existence. This claim is a connecting thread, which runs through the entire book. Moreover, Gould rejects the idea that marriage, as the ultimate solution, is a purely masculine claim. She suggests viewing marriage the way one views heaven: we cannot be sure that it truly exists, and yet we must believe that it can.
By presenting examples from daily life and related to women's experiences, Gould maps out the complex process of the development of the feminine consciousness. She avoids the trap of perceiving fairy-tale characters as if they were simply characters. Instead, she invites us to perceive them as also representing different aspects of the heroine's psyche, thereby accurately conveying the symbolic nature of fairy tales.
Gould's work effectively integrates literary, gender-oriented, and psychological as well as historical approaches to fairy tales, taking into account the existence of stepmothers during a time when women were married off at a young age to older, widowed men. This results in a compelling integration that touches upon the great relevance of fairy tales in the real lives of actual women.
Certain feminists see Cinderella, like Snow White, as being a passive heroine who fails to take charge of her own life and expects to be saved by a prince. According to Gould, quite the opposite is true—Cinderella is much more independent than her stepsisters. It is not the prince who saves her, but rather the way in which she becomes aware of her own femininity, with the help of her fairy godmother.
Gould incorporates the approaches of prominent psychoanalysts, such as Bruno Bettelheim and Erich Neumann, takes them one step further, and refers to insights that arise from the stories within the framework of modern reality by relating the stories to the personal narratives of various women, both fictional and real. For example, in the discussion of "Sleeping Beauty," Gould presents variations of sleep in modern society—addictions, eating disorders, and depression—and discusses them through the lens of the real-life stories of different women. This blend of old stories, ancient myths, and modern daily experiences emphasizes the validity of messages hidden in fairy tales and creates a living bond between women's experiences, past and present. Although some of these ideas are not new, the way they are interwoven with concrete reality provides us with an illuminating and refreshing reading.
An especially important part of the book is the one that addresses motherhood. In the discussion of "The White Bride and the Black Bride" Gould relates to the feminine aspects undermining a woman's role as wife and mother and...