Briar Rose by Jane Yolen is a heart-wrenching story of Sleeping Beauty intertwined with the horrors of World War II. The novel contains all the elements of the classic Sleeping Beauty: the castle, thorns, princess, and a tale of death and awakening from eternal sleep. Yolen compared a story that fictitiously occurred during World War II with Sleeping Beauty, which allowed one of the main characters, Gitl Mandelstein, to indirectly tell her horrifying experiences during the war. .
The story beings with Gitl, or Gemma (as she is referred to by her granddaughters), in a nursing home. Her granddaughters Silvia, Shauna, and Becca went to visit her, for she was on her deathbed. She began telling them the story of Sleeping Beauty, a story which she had told them throughout their childhood, although this time was different. She told her grandchildren that she was in fact Briar Rose. Gemma did not go into detail, but made her granddaughter Becca promise to discover everything about her past. This is shown in the following quote: ""Promise me you will find the castle. Promise me you will find the prince. Promise me you will find the maker of the spells"" (Yolen 20). Soon after, Gitl died. .
Throughout Briar Rose Yolen depicts Becca's struggles to uncover the truth about her Gemma's connection to Sleeping Beauty. She had so many unanswered questions. Was her Gemma a princess? Did she live in a castle? Who was her prince? The only thing Gitl had left behind was a small box of papers with very few answers. Becca did end up finding all her answers from a man named Josef, who had actually known and interacted with Gitl. .
After a trip to Poland to speak with Josef, Becca figured out that the fairy tale her grandmother told was in fact a tale of horror. The castle Gitl described to her grandchildren was in fact an extermination camp, Chelmno. The thicket of thorns which surrounded the castle in which the princess slept represented the barbed wire that surrounded the camp.
Within "Briar Rose" many classic symbols exist. ... Beginning with Briar Rose curiosity in entering the tower we see a transformation occur. ... Through this all is the importance of Briar Rose's age, the point of sexual maturation. ... They are the empowerment of Briar Rose. ... We see this in Briar Rose when the suitor follows his beliefs and the hedge of thorns turns into roses, opening a pathway to the princess. ...
Briar Rose is an unusual and poignant novel. ... In Briar Rose, "kisses" draw parallel lines between the fairytale and the novel's story. At the end of the Briar Rose, Stan kisses Becca at the airport. ... Gemma's fairy story never ended happily ever after except for the princess Briar Rose and her own little girl. ... Briar Rose evokes all of the emotion that a true fairy tale should. ...
In a nutshell: Briar Rose is the story of the Holocaust intertwined with the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. The story begins with the death of the "Gemma," the grandmother of Becca. Through out Becca's life Gemma told the story of Sleeping Beauty many times to her. Now, however, after making a ...
In a nutshell: Briar Rose is the story of the Holocaust intertwined with the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. The story begins with the death of the "Gemma," the grandmother of Becca. Through out Becca's life Gemma told the story of Sleeping Beauty many times to her. Now, however, after making a ...
"Blackberry-Picking" by Seamus Heaney is a poem that shows the reader a sense of feeling the speaker had of fun and sorrow over the blackberries. The author uses diction, imagery, and metaphor to enhance the speakers thoughts and feelings. The diction in the poem presents ideas of this setting H...
*Briar Rose is the story of the Holocaust intertwined with the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. This story takes place in the present time. *The story begins with the death of the Gemma, the grandmother of Becca. Throughout Becca*s life Gemma told the story of Sleeping Beauty many times to her. Now,...
Sleeping Beauty Sleeping Beauty, or Briar Rose in the Grimms' telling, endures more hardships than a pleasant hundred years' sleep in her earlier incarnations. ... It is not really surprising that the Grimms chose to cut out this element altogether, and concerntrate on Briar Rose's enchantment, ending with her waking. ...
In both Grimm's and Perrault's versions of the tale, there is an innocent woman in some random castle, who didn't know spindles were outlawed, and in Perrault there is some ambiguously evil mother-in-law, who tries to eat Briar-Rose's baby while her husband is off at war. ...
