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THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN RUSSIAN FAIRY TALES Women and girls appear so frequently in Russian fairy tales that it is impossible to read these stories without being struck by the way female figures are portrayed. As might be expected, the treatment given to women in Russian fairy tales reflects the social role assigned to women and the general attitude to the female sex that existed in the times when the tales were created. However, since fairy tales are not intended to be a true-to-life description of reality, the female characters in these tales must be seen as stereotypes or symbols rather than as real characters. Thus, in addition to giving us some insight into the role and social status of women in early Russian society, fairy tales also tell us something about the symbolic significance of the female sex. The first thing that a modern reader of Russian fairy tales notices is that females are almost never the protagonist or hero of the story. This special role is reserved for males. The women and girls are almost always secondary or minor characters, and appear in the story only because of their connection to one of the male characters. Even when the title of a story refers to a female character, that character is rarely the hero (or heroine) in the story. For example, in “The Enchanted Princess,” the hero is Ivan, the son of a wealthy merchant. In “The Wise Wife,” the hero is the youngest son of an old couple, a simpleton. In “The Sorceress,” the hero is the ten-year-old son of a priest. In “The Frog Princess,” the hero is Prince Ivan, the youngest son of the king. In some fairy tales that have a woman named in the tile, the main character is indeed the woman mentioned in the title. However, this woman does not possess heoric qualities at all, but is, instead, an ‘anti-hero’ with the worst qualities imaginable. Examples of such tales are “The Mayoress,” “The Bad Wife,” “The Indiscreet Wife,” And “The Lazy Maiden.” A notable exception is the fairy tale “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” in which the main character, Vasilisa, is in fact a true herione, with positive qualities. The second fact that stands out about the female characters in Russian fairy tales is that they are presented two-dimensionally, that is, they are portrayed as either good or bad. This division of women into two basic ‘black-or-white’ categories is an oversimplification of the true nature of women, and is in sharp contrast to the way the male characters are portrayed. The men in the tales are portrayed along a wide spectrum of character types: brave/cowardly, wise/foolish, hard-working/lazy, kind/cruel, miserly/generous, and so on. In no case are the males shown simply as good or bad. A good woman in Russian fairy tales is simply one who does her duty faithfully. A woman’s duty is housework: grinding corn, spinning yarn, making gruel. If she does these tasks faithfully, she will be rewarded with gifts. In “The Grumbling Old Woman,” the title character’s stepdaughter is “not clever enough and not pretty enough” and is therefore banished into the woods by the stepmother.
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