In the United States, the best known variants of the Sleeping Beauty tale are Dornröchen, as transcribed by the brothers Grimm, and Perrault's La Belle au Bois Dormant.. These stories both present readers with very passive heroines-- so passive, in fact, that they spend most of the story in an enchanted sleep. They awake, after a hundred-year rest, to the kiss of a prince, whom they subsequently marry and with whom they presumably live happily-ever-after in the blissful state of marriage. Their lives are apparently fulfilled, and all their problems solved, by the arrival of the prince.
The princess in Perrault's tale does meet with a few complications following her awakening: the prince marries her, but does not tell his parents (she never questions this decision of his) until his father dies, at which time he finally brings the princess and their children home to live with his Ogress mother, who plans to kill the children and the princess. The princess, of course, never complains and she and the children are only saved because of the actions of the cook. She is passive throughout all her troubles.
The only action for which any heroine of the traditional Sleeping Beauty tales can be given credit is that of pricking her finger on a spindle because of curiosity-- but, as she was fated at birth to do so, she can take very little responsibility for even this one action.
Because the sleeping princess in this tale-type is so passive many modern writers have created new versions of the story taking new perspectives on the princess' role within the tale, and on what implications it has for women, men and their relationships with each other.
Feminist analyses of Sleeping Beauty tales:
Sleeping Beauty feminist variants: