Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship Read Online Free PDF Page A

process. In terms of the fairy tale’s conventional narrative structure, then, the reference to infertility is arguably superfluous. Indeed, in some fairy tales, the state of infertility is introduced and then resolved in the mode of inexplicability in which the genre operates. As Lüthi argues, within the abstract style of the fairy tale, events occur so matter-of-factly and randomly that characters evince neither astonishment nor fear: the fairy tale protagonist “lacks all sense of the extraordinary” and does not seek explanations. So, for example, d’Aulnoy’s “The Orange Tree and the Bee” simply continues, “Since the queen was already old, she had given up all hope of having any [children]. However, it was just then that she became pregnant, and in due time she gave birth to the most beautiful girl the world had ever seen.” 16 The problem of conception is abruptly announced, just as promptly erased, and the narrative proceeds in a new direction.
    Peter Brooks’s theory of narrative desire may be more useful here than Todorov’s schema. Brooks argues that readerly expectations are propelled by a longing for closure; thus, narrative structure strives to satisfy a sequence of desires that are directed toward fulfillment. However, digression is also necessary: on the one hand, we are eager to reach the dénouement, but its achievement cannot occur too quickly or the narrative will seem incomplete. A satisfying narrative must paradoxically comprise both digression and progression vis-à-vis the ending. 17
    Perhaps the pregnancy-wish motif provides one of these small narrative digressions; however, it is so frequently invoked and yet so often summarily dismissed that it suggests more than a minor plot device. D’Aulnoy’s “Princess Mayblossom” offers another example of the pregnancy wish and its sudden resolution, but with more suggestive detail: “Once upon a time there lived a king and a queen who had had several children born to them. But they all died, and the king and the queen were so very sorry that they could not be comforted. They were very rich and the one thing they wanted was to have children. It was five years since the queen’s last son had been born, and everybody thought she would not have more or she distressed herself so much in thinking of all the little princes who had been so pretty, and who were dead. At last, however, the queen knew that another child was to be born to her.” 18
    As with many other tales, the childless state is rectified without explanation and the plot develops along an entirely different line; however, the opening of “Princess Mayblossom” is also historically allusive. The reference to the death of the previous heirs is a reminder that the high rates of infant mortality made a queen’s maternal function even more fraught: we could cite any number of royal heirs whose premature death threatened the succession. This passage also highlights a recognizable emotional state: grief. In light of the high rates of infant mortality in the early modern period, historians have debated the extent to which parents mourned the loss of their children, but there is ample evidence for such grief, especially for women. 19 Furthermore, the queen’s very failure to conceive another child is seen as a direct result of her “distress” and “so much thinking” about her dead princes. 20 In both history and fiction, the desire for an heir was typically shared by the royal couple, but the burden of reproduction was largely ascribed to the queen. Certainly, the process of conception necessarily involved the king, even though he might have minimal participation during the queen’s gestation period and delivery. Yet, in the majority of tales involving pregnancy wishes, the king’s role, even at the stage of conception, is negligible or nonexistent.
    Basile offers a few exceptions. In “The Three Crowns,” the king responds passionately to the royal couple’s childlessness: