vice

The message that fairy tales send readers about female virtues has been debated time and time again. Some people, like Karen Rowe, believe that fairy tales exhibit "passivity, dependency, and self sacrifice". While many fairy stories embody self-sacrifice, passivity and dependency are two virtues not widely portrayed in fairy tales. Self-sacrifice can be found throughout fairy tales. The tale of Donkeyskin has a young girl who gives up her rich life to be able to …

…rewarded for self-sacrifice, independence, and actively helping one's self. These two tales also show that passive, selfish, dependent people get punished until they learn the error of their ways. These unmistakably morals found in fairy tales will continue to be disputed. However, no matter how critics will try to argue that fairy tales incorporate dependency and passivity as virtues, one can expressly see from these two stories that fairy tales do not include such virtues.