In her poem "Briar Rose," Anne Sexton is taking the classic Grimms' fairy tale of Briar Rose, more commonly known as Sleeping Beauty and, if not reclaiming it as a woman's tale, at least rereading it from a modern point of view and looking at what meaning this tale might hold for women. When reading a "classic" fairy tale from a feminist viewpoint (as defined by Marcia K. Lieberman), a reader will find that women characters are important-- are "chosen"-- because of their beauty. Sexton, as a feminist, ignores this point and goes directly to talk about the issues and problems facing that a woman character must face. What the woman is thinking, feeling, and experiencing is far more important than her appearance, and Sexton makes this clear by never once describing how the princess looks, but describing instead what happens to her. Even more importantly, she does not just describe what happens to Briar Rose, but how Briar Rose feels and reacts to what is done to her. In most traditional fairy tales the heroine is an object, a reward to the hero, a plot device-- she is "passed hand to hand/ like a bowl of fruit" (p. 112). As a feminist, Anne Sexton focuses on Briar Rose, not as a plot device, but as a person.
An important aspect of Sexton's retelling is that she takes the story and fixes it, very definitely, in the time at which she wrote (the poem was published in 1971). The stress Sexton places on contemporary products and expressions (such as Bab-o, Munch's Scream, safety pins, cigarettes, and Novocain) serves two purposes. First, this emphasis on modern inventions demonstrates that this fairy tale deals with issues that are relevant today and not just "once upon a time"; second, it draws attention to the fact that every tale reflects the time in which it was written, and the Grimms' telling of Briar Rose (for example) reflects the bias of their time period and their own personal feelings just as much as Sexton's telling of the tale reflects her own biases and social discourse. The Grimms' Briar Rose should not be read as a timeless tale, written "once upon a time" expressing inherent truths about human interactions and feelings, but instead a story, transcribed in nineteenth century Germany by two, middle-class men. A feminist study of fairy tales-- as Ruth Bottigheimer would explain it-- sees the portrayal of women characters in the stories as a manifestation of a society's feelings about women and their role in society at the time the story was written down.
The poem "Briar Rose" functions as a feminist re-telling of the tale. Anne Sexton's poem follows the plot of the Grimms' tale, but tells the story in a new way. Certain aspects of the story, such as the heroine's passivity, are given attention in Sexton's poem, though they were overlooked in the Grimm tale. Female characters in fairy tales are generally passive, as Marcia K. Lieberman explains in her article "Some Day My Prince Will Come," (published in Jack Zipe's book Don't Bet on the Prince) and Sleeping Beauty is an extreme example of feminine passivity, as the heroine sleeps through most of the story in the original tale. Sexton draws attention to this passivity in her poem, and describes the frustration a woman feels at being forced into inactivity. Sleeping Beauty's insomnia in this poem can be read, at least on one level, as anger at her inability to act. "I lie still as a bar of iron" (p. 111) she says, "This trance girl/ is yours to do with" (p. 111). Not only is she "still as a bar of iron" and unable to act, but she is always acted upon, "yours to do with." The heroines of fairy tales, as Lieberman discusses in her article, are often rewards for the hero. The women are objects to the men in the tales; they exist to be given, taken, and acted upon by men, but are not permitted to act themselves. When they show any strength, it does not take the form of direct action, but instead of endurance-- and Sexton's Briar Rose has much to endure.
The Briar Rose of the poem is a victim of incest. Sexton's poem is not just a re-telling of Sleeping Beauty, but a feminist interpretation of the tale, and the addition of the king forcing an incestuous relationship on his daughter compels a reader to focus on the feminist concern of where the princess fits within the power relations of the story. The father's rape of his daughter is a dramatic way to draw attention to the harm committed to Sleeping Beauty because she is forced into passivity. It also subverts the traditional interpretation of the protective father, who "ordered every spinning wheel/ exterminated and exorcised," and who "fastened the moon up/ with a safety pin/ to give her perpetual light" (p. 109). The father's protectiveness is actually overprotectiveness and it harms, rather than helps the heroine. Sexton's telling of "Briar Rose" makes apparent what is only implicit, and easily overlooked or interpreted differently in the Grimms' version of the tale.
This poem does not empower the heroine in any way or make her any less passive or any more heroic than the Sleeping Beauty of the Grimms' story. What this poem does, as a feminist version of the fairy tale, is to draw attention to Briar Rose as a real person who is affected by the course of the story, rather than merely a beautiful object, a plot device which allows the story to progress. The poem draws attention to the tensions that develop within a woman when she is forced into passivity. It deals, also, with the terrors of incest and rape, in which a woman becomes a passive object, acted upon by a man, as often happens to women in fairy tales-- the presence of incest in the poem emphasizes the existence of this troubling aspect of fairy tales. Sexton's "Briar Rose" is a feminist telling of a fairy tale that brings out the complications and disturbing aspects of the tale and shows that the story cannot honestly end "happily ever after." It is a tale which raises questions and problems and forces the reader to think about the woman's role in the story. Because Sexton focuses on the difficulties of the heroine in the tale and tries to tell the story from her perspective, Anne Sexton has created a feminist version of the tale of Briar Rose.