BIBLIOGRAPHY
Zelinsky, Paul O. 1997. Rapunzel. New York, NY: Dutton Children’s Books. ISBN 0525456074
PLOT SUMMARY
Once upon a time, a husband and wife live together in a beautiful villa next door to an old sorceress. The wife becomes pregnant and while sitting at her bedroom window, she glimpses into the sorceress’s garden and sees a bed of rapunzel. She begins to crave the herbs with a feverish passion, claiming to her husband that she will die if she does not get to taste some soon. Her husband, fearful of her mental state, climbs into the sorceress’s garden and steals as much rapunzel as he can carry.
The wife makes a salad of the rapunzel and savors the flavor of the herb so much she almost loses consciousness. She tells her husband that she has to have more or she will surely die. Fearful, once again, the husband steals into the sorceress’s garden for more rapunzel, but is caught by the sorceress. He pleads with the sorceress to spare him and his wife for the crime, explaining to her the situation. The sorceress forgives the husband of the crime, but demands the newborn baby his wife will bear as payment. The husband, who cares more for his wife’s life than anything else, agrees. So, when the baby is born, the sorceress comes to claim the baby girl.
The girl is named Rapunzel and she spends a happy childhood with the sorceress who meets her every need. When the girl turns 12, the sorceress locks her away in a tower in the middle of the wilderness with no door, only a window. The girl’s hair grows so long that it can be used as a ladder for the sorceress to climb in and out of the window when she comes to visit. One day, a prince rides through woods and hears the sound of Rapunzel’s singing. He searches for her voice and made inquiries in town, discovering the identity of the girl. The next day, he comes to the tower and beckons Rapunzel to let her hair down to him. He climbs into the window and, after some convincing is able to charm Rapunzel, who has never seen a man before. They eventually fall in love and have a spiritual marriage of sorts.
Rapunzel, unknowingly, becomes heavy with child. When the sorceress comes to visit one day, Rapunzel asks her to help her retie her dress; it has become too tight. The sorceress immediately realizes that Rapunzel is pregnant. She cuts Rapunzel’s hair and banishes her into the wilderness. The prince comes to visit again, and the sorceress lowers Rapunzel’s severed hair to him. When he climbs up, the sorceress reveals Rapunzel’s fate. In despair, the prince lets himself tumble to the ground; he is blinded in the fall. He wanders the wilderness and after some time, stumbles into Rapunzel, who has borne twins in her exile. Rapunzel’s tears heal the prince’s eyes and together, they and their children, return to civilization to live happily ever after.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Author and illustrator Paul Zelinsky uses a masterful blend of the more familiar tale of “Rapunzel” told by the Brothers Grimm and earlier versions of the tale: “Petrosinella” and “Persinette” to create his retelling of “Rapunzel”. He chooses to set the story in an Italian countryside, and imitates the style of Italian Renaissance artists. The rich oil paintings on each page draw in readers with their beautiful and realistic imagery.
The text of the story is simple yet elegant that can be easily read aloud and understood by young audiences. The story begins in the traditional sense, by dating the story in a time period long, long ago, in a place far, far away. The main scenes in the beginning are established within the first two pages: the house of Rapunzel’s parents and the sorceress’s garden, which looks neither dark nor ominous. The garden is very neat, decorated with white stone statues of a mother holding a baby, and another woman wearing a shawl.
When the wife becomes pregnant and demands that her husband steal into the sorceress’s garden for rapunzel, the artwork remains light and lovely. The husband appears to steal the rapunzel in the middle of the day as the sun is up and the hills in the background are illuminated by its light. However, there is a slight shadow cast down upon the husband from a tall tree nearby as he gazes around nervously. Zelinsky chooses not to change settings and colors to reflect emotions in these scenes, but instead focuses on the facial expressions of the characters. In the next scene, the audience can see the wife’s joy at being given the rapunzel and the husband’s relief at “saving” his wife and not being caught in the process. The next time the husband steals into the garden, it is in broad daylight again. The sorceress appears, but she does not wear black or anything that looks threatening, but her facial expression is one of fury.
After the bargain to exchange the baby as payment for the rapunzel is made and the sorceress comes to claim the child, Rapunzel’s birth parents are left in shadow as the sorceress steps into the light from doorway holding the baby. Her expression is kind. We see a scene of the sorceress, who is portrayed in other stories of Rapunzel as mean and repulsive, as a kindly mother figure. She sits sewing while Rapunzel is allowed to play outdoors. Rapunzel and the sorceress blend into the natural imagery painted by the author/illustrator. To see the sorceress depicted as such a kindly maternal figure brings me back to the statue of a mother holding a baby in the garden. Perhaps this is a woman who could not have children of her own, but desperately wants someone to care for. She becomes a sympathetic character. Rapunzel dances by a body of bluish, green water as a peacock watches. Peacocks are known for their beauty and vanity and that one watches Rapunzel is indicative of her growing beauty. The sorceress locks Rapunzel away when she is twelve perhaps because Rapunzel has become too beautiful to escape the notice of those from the outside world. In a few years, young men would come to call and Rapunzel would marry and move away from her surrogate mother, leaving her alone again.
The forest or wilderness in contrast to the well manicured countryside is filled with tall trees that cast long, dark shadows. Forests are symbolic for confusion, chaos, and the human unconscious. Characters lose themselves in forests, usually in states of indecision or turmoil, and return to civilization in a better mindset, having matured or changed. Rapunzel spends her teenage years, or rather her transition years from a girl into a woman, trapped in the center of a forest.
One day, a prince emerges from the foliage on the back of a pure white horse. He invites himself into Rapunzel’s tower, her temple of isolation. The colors used are soft and romantic; the author brings us close enough to notice fine details in the faces of the main characters for the first time. When the sorceress returns to the story, she is wearing a scarlet dress, different from the duller greens and blues she has worn in previous scenes. Her facial expression is one of horror rather than rage when she realizes that Rapunzel is pregnant. It is clear that she feels betrayed without even reading the text. Rapunzel’s facial expression is one of rebellion rather than fear. This brings the audience to a deeper interpretation of the relationship between the sorceress and Rapunzel. Theirs is not the bond of a captive and a bailiff, but an overprotective mother and a willful daughter who has had enough.
The sorceress cuts Rapunzel’s long hair, pressing her against the open window so that we can see the dense, expanse of unknown wilderness below where Rapunzel will be banished. It is an amazing contrast between the narrow slice of civilization that is Rapunzel’s tower and the dark, wilderness of the outside world the sorceress sought to protect her from. When the prince learns of Rapunzel’s fate, he loses himself, letting himself plunge to the ground and losing his sight in the process. He wanders through the wilderness, like Rapunzel, lost in mental turmoil. When Rapunzel and the prince find each other again, they do it in a clearing, where the shadows of the forest have parted. The twins Rapunzel bore while in the wilderness watch as their parents embrace and the prince’s eyes are healed by Rapunzel’s cleansing tears. The second to last scene, shows the couple and their children leaving the wilderness in one panel, a single dark tree marking their exit, and the next panel shows the beginnings of city with a palace at its center. Rapunzel entered the forest as a girl who knew nothing of the outside world, but leaves it as a woman, a wife, and mother. The prince leaves the forest as a husband and a father.
The last image displays Rapunzel and the prince sitting together, gazing down at their children. They almost mirror the content image of Rapunzel’s parents at the beginning of the story. That they lived happily ever after is unneeded.
Zelinsky’s story of Rapunzel is filled with beautiful imagery, symbolism and clear prose that depict a traditional story in a new light that is actually closer to the true essence of the original story. The classical Italian settings are rich with detail; the pottery, statues, homes, clothing, and gardens may intrigue young audiences to seek out information on this time period. Children may also wish to seek out other works that feature this style of artwork and other authors who choose to tell variants of traditional stories that reflect an understanding and in-depth study of the original literature.
REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Caldecott Medal Winner, 1998
In our Best Book citation, PW said, "A breathtaking interpretation gives the fairy tale new art-historical roots, with illustrations that daringly-and effectively-mimic the masters of Italian Renaissance painting." Ages 5-up. (Oct.) –Publishers Weekly
Kindergarten-Grade 3. An elegant and sophisticated retelling that draws on early French and Italian versions of the tale. Masterful oil paintings capture the Renaissance setting and flesh out the tragic figures. –SLJ
Exquisite paintings in late Italian Renaissance style illumine this hybrid version of a classic tale. As Zelinsky (The Wheels on the Bus, 1990, etc.) explains in a long source note, the story's Italian oral progenitor went through a series of literary revisions and translations before the Brothers Grimm published their own take; he draws on many of these to create a formal, spare text that is more about the undercurrents between characters than crime and punishment. Feeling ``her dress growing tight around her waist'' a woman conceives the desire for an herb from the neighboring garden--rendered in fine detail with low clipped hedges, elaborate statuary and even a wandering pangolin--that causes her to lose her child to a witch. Ensconced for years in a tower, young Rapunzel meets the prince, ``marries'' him immediately, is cast into the wilderness when her own dress begins to tighten, gives birth to twins, and cures her husband's blindness with her tears at their long-awaited reunion. Suffused with golden light, Zelinsky's landscapes and indoor scenes are grandly evocative, composed and executed with superb technical and emotional command. (Picture book/folklore. 8-10)—Kirkus Reviews
By filling his illustrations with visual fine points and making them historically specific, Zelinsky also reminds readers of the idea that this story, or something like this story, actually could have happened. (Ages 4 to 8) -- The New York Times Book Review, Maud Lavin
CONNECTIONS
To further knowledge or to even introduce more retellings of traditional folklore and fairytales that are true to the original roots of the story, one might look for titles such as the ones that follow. Some children may be unfamiliar with the more traditional stories and will need a sound basis for comparison when introduced to more variant tales. Also, these stories share similar artwork, so that the children may be able to locate parallels in the artistic themes.
Zelinsky, Paul O. 1996. Rumpelstiltskin. London: Puffin. ISBN 978-0140558647
Lesser, Rika. 1999. Hansel and Gretel. Ill. by Paul Zelinsky. New York, NY: Dutton Juvenile. ISBN 978-0525461524
Craft, Mahlon F. 2002. Sleeping Beauty. Ill. by Kinuko Y. Craft. San Francisco, CA: SeaStar Books. ISBN 978-1587171208
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