The Power of Love

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The Power of Love

The book the golden age of folk and fairy tales contains several collections of fairy tales covering several aspects of oral story telling in the nineteenth century. The second chapter is The Power of Love. This chapter mostly focuses on the theme of love in the traditional setting. The maidens had to maintain their chastity until they were officially married. For this reason, they end up placed in seclusion. Most of them were put in towers or isolated palaces once they reached puberty.

This second chapter of the book has eight stories. The first two are not the same descriptions of the same story, Rapunzel. There are definite  themes  derived  in all stories. First, there is the use of magic. All stories contain a section with witches or sorcerers. The witches are not all bad. Some are able to reason with the character in the story.

The stories also show the positivity of love as an aspect in society. The book portrays a happy conclusion for all the people that were in love. There are books by William Shakespeare that do not show this aspect. Some of the books written by writers such as William Shakespeare and Machiavelli do not share this characteristic. Other books such as the prince, by Machiavelli, are a biography about his life. Major themes in the book are political. Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian political analyst. The book is therefore nonfiction.

These are a number of examples of differences in comparison to other books. Fairy tales have a common flow in that the characters go through some pain, which forces them to act. They all end up living happily afterwards. The tales in the second chapter include two versions of the story Rapunzel. The others are Beautiful Angiola, La Prezzemolina, Filagranata, and the Old Woman of the Garden, The Fair queen Godmother, Parsillette, and Prunella.

As stated, the first two stories are about Rapunzel. In summary, the story starts with a couple expecting a child. The wife, heavily pregnant, has cravings for different things. One day she looks out and notices a garden with lettuces and other vegetables. The husband returned and she demanded the vegetables. The owner of the garden, a sorcerer returned and found that the man had made it a habit to steal her vegetables.

The husbands agreed to hand over the child as consolation to the sorcerer. Rapunzel was the name of the girl. The sorcerer jailed her   in a tower when she reached puberty. Rapunzel was secluded. A wandering prince found his way to the tower. This time too, the sorcerer was unhappy when she found out. She was upset and sorts to separate the two. In despair and anger, the prince fell of the tower and ends up blinded. The fairy concludes with Rapunzel helping the prince regain his eyesight through her tears. The story ends with Rapunzel walking into his kingdom. While he was missing she delivered two twins, who go with them to the new kingdom and they live happily ever after.

The story has certain themes seen in other stories. One is pregnancy in the traditional setting. There was a be.............