‘Once upon a time, it was all very Grimm…’

Rapunzel is a Tangled Tale of Entitlement Gone Wrong

There are several versions of Rapunzel, the fairy tale in which the parents have to hand over their kid — their future — because they are starving.

In the familiar classic, a girl's baby’s dad steals some lettuce from the garden of a rich and powerful witch who strongly believes in private property. The witch demands the baby girl pay for the theft. Given the situation's power dynamics, the parents have no choice but to agree.

The rich witch renames the stolen baby Rapunzel and then raises the girl in an extremely comfortable tower. Rapunzel is unaware that she is named for the very food her father sought to acquire to keep his family alive for one more day. While Rapunzel demonstrates a healthy interest in the world outside her elite bastion, the irony of her well-fed status is lost upon her.

She simply has no real frame of reference for ideas like ‘hunger’ and ‘desperation.’ She’s desperate for difference, not disparity.

Rapunzel grows up in a state of ambiguous, naive discontentment, removed from what her ‘mother’ calls the ‘evil world’ in a fortress of isolated privilege. The story ends happily or sadly, depending upon your worldview, with Rapunzel re-entering the world below through the painful experience of love lost, unexpected poverty, and arbitrary tragedy.