A Wound is Not a Virtue
The Flawed Symbolism of The Princess and the Pea
Back in April, I posted Bruises, a dark flash fiction retelling of The Princess and the Pea, with a subtitle saying I’ve never cared for the tale. But I never explained why. Given my reputation, I think I should. After all, if there were anyone who loved that story, it should be me: #1 Fairy Tale Fan, Nerd, and Defender Extraordinaire. I’ve simply got to have a passionate defense of its symbolic message at the ready. Right?
Afraid not. I’m as surprised as you are, but there really are fairy tales I don’t like. Not many, but they’re out there, and The Princess and the Pea is high on the list. Worse still, dear reader, is that I must now criticize the work of my beloved Hans Christian Andersen. Hans, I adore you, but I do think you messed up on this one.
Now, it’s important to note that Andersen’s “fairy tales” are not what I would consider true fairy tales—or maybe it’s not important and I’m just being pedantic, but if you didn’t go into this expecting a bit of tangential nitpicking, that’s on you.
Andersen’s stories often break the rules of the category in which they are so often placed. The Little Mermaid is the perfect example of this, with its non-human main character and its moralizing ending, which is ultimately joyful but clearly marked by tragedy. They are also wholly original, penned instead of gathered. They are the product of one mind, rather than the result of generations of storytellers, and their original forms have been preserved. In my post on Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl, I likened fairy tales to skeletons.
“Fairy tales are skeleton stories, you see. They are old, so old that all that’s left of them is what one teller remembered from the one who told them, who told them, who told them, and on and on it goes. All that’s left of fairy tales are the basic structures, the archetypes, and the symbols. Fairy tales are all teeth and bones and grave goods.”
Andersen’s works, on the other hand, have flesh and blood and breath. I don’t consider them fairy tales, placing them in the far less catchy category of original, fairy tale-like fantasy short stories. They often share themes, messages, and symbols—not to mention beauty—but cannot honestly be classified as the same thing.
The Princess and the Pea is one of the most fairy tale-like of these non-fairy tales. It’s got the basics: a princess, a prince, a dash of magic, a happily-ever-after, and killer imagery. And yet…it’s a bit lacking, don’t you think?
My issue with the story lies in its message—not the one it’s trying to send, but the one it does. In The Princess and the Pea, the defining attribute of the princess is her delicate skin. When she rises, exhausted and bruised, she is hailed as the ideal woman.
What does it mean? Well, what it’s trying to mean is that sensitivity is a tremendously valuable characteristic, symbolically depicted in the physical sense. The trouble is partially that the symbol doesn’t work, that it equates sensitivity with weakness. The rest of the trouble is that it portrays sensitivty as purely virtuous.
By demonstrating the sensitivty of the princess through her skin, Andersen depicts a single aspect of the trait: the ease with which one can be hurt. It doesn’t exactly paint a full picture.
I doubt you’ll be surprised when I tell you I’m a bit on the sensitive side. Actually, I imagine there’s a good chance you rolled your eyes or something in reaction to that understatement. I have a lot of feelings, arguably too many. I can cry over pretty much anything. I cried my way through The Sixth Sense because I can’t handle witnessing the suffering of sad, lonely little kids, even fictional ones. (No, that’s not an exaggeration. I started tearing up about as soon as I saw that poor boy.) I’m a walking cliché—INFP, Enneagram 4, the works. Heck, I’ve even got skin sensitive enough I might have a shot at passing the pea-and-mattresses test.
Point is, I’ve got the inside scoop on sensitivity, pros and cons. And yes, it does mean I get hurt easily. Annoyingly so. It means I have to check myself rather more than I’d like, consider if this feeling is in proportion to its cause. It means every time some lovely person is kind enough to give me feedback on my work I have to take a deep breath or two and remember that just because they found a flaw doesn’t mean they hate the whole thing, and that their critique comes from a good, kind place. Getting hurt is absolutely part of sensitivity, but it’s nowhere near the whole thing.
At its core, sensitivity is feeling, and more specifically feeling in response to relatively minor stimuli. Deeply, thoroughly, boundlessly feeling. It doesn’t simply mean you get hurt more easily. It’s not just about pain. It’s joy and sorrow and rage and all the rest. It also doesn’t mean your feelings are somehow more valuable or pure than anyone else’s. Everyone is capable of experiencing the extreme scope of human emotion; all being sensitive means is you get to those extremes quicker than most.
Sensitivity on its own is not a virtue. It’s how you use it.
When you wallow in it, when you imagine it makes you better than other people, it becomes a vice. When you see your ability to get hurt as a reason to avoid anything or anyone that might hurt you, it becomes a shackle. When you allow your fear of making yourself vulnerable to someone become an assumption that they will hurt you—even when you know them, even when you know they care about you—the price of safeguarding those delicate feelings of yours becomes thinking unkindly of others. Trust me, I know.
It can be a terrible thing, used poorly. It can be a way for others to manipulate you, a way for you to manipulate others. It can be a crutch, a cage.
It can, however, be something wonderful.
At its best, sensitivity becomes compassion, feeling not just for yourself but for others, something which drives you to help them in whatever way you’re able. It can, as we artsy types like best, be used as a catalyst for expression. All those roiling emotions come alive on the canvas, the page, whatever the medium, and become a gateway for others to access those feelings.
I’ve personally found that being sensitive and in touch with my feelings and all that hippie nonsense lets me help people in my life better understand themselves and others. I’m a feeler surrounded by thinkers, which means I get to be their translator when they’re having trouble understanding emotional issues.
There is even value in getting hurt, in the fact that no pain is truly unique, that all suffering you experience gives you a better understanding of someone else’s. Not long ago, I found myself awestruck by how incredibly lucky I was to have had a rough period in my life similar to that which someone else was going through. I didn’t have to feel helpless, didn’t have to wonder what it was like, didn’t have to fumble for words. I knew exactly what had helped me and I got to share it with them. Suddenly there was a purpose to that time. Suddenly I was thanking God for my struggle.
(Yeah, I cried over that too.)
Even at its best, I question The Princess and the Pea’s portrayal of sensitivity as the ultimate feminine virtue. I think most true fairy tales would disagree with the idea, as sensitivity is only one of many attributes commonly found in their heroines. Kindness would be closer, what I would call the ultimate virtue of fairy tales, but the women of these stories are often show to be clever, brave, and resilient as well. There are plenty of women out there who aren’t particularly sensitive, but it would be incredibly foolish to claim that made them lesser somehow, as women and as people.
A real princess is not defined by her bruises. She is not defined by her pain, by her sensitivity, by her feelings. She is not defined by anything passive. A real princess is defined by her virtue. A real princess gently washes and combs the hair of the three heads in the well. A real princess tricks a double-faced giant into killing his daughters instead of her and her sisters. A real princess works her hands to the bones for a pair of spiked shoes to climb a slick mountain of glass to reach her beloved and free him from wicked trolls.
A wound is not a virtue. Not a wound alone. Blood is only blood unless it’s shed for something more.