Blog Entry 7

Let me just start out by saying that if I were forced by my father to share my meal and bed with a talking frog, I wouldn’t be too happy. As we could see, when reading the Grimm’s tale, “The Frog King,” I’m not the only one who feels this way. “The Frog King” and the classic Greek story, “Cupid and Psyche” are two tales that easy to compare as they share a similar plot; pretty girls are forced into spending their precious time with ugly monsters.

Both stories can be easily compared to the classic story of “Beauty and the Beast,” simply because the “beasts” happen to be, unknown by their princesses, strapping young men. Not only this, but what both stories also have in common is that the protagonists are extremely beautiful princesses; however, one seems to be slightly less spoiled than the other. The nameless princess in “The Frog King” refuses to treat the frog with the slightest bit of respect merely because of what he is, while Psyche in “Cupid and Psyche” found herself accepting the situation she was thrown into and did all she could to make matters better for herself in a more mature manner. Both are rewarded with surprisingly handsome men, but to me Psyche is rewarded for a much better reason. She had no way of judging her husband because she literally couldn’t see him. This made her a much less shallow character; therefore probably resulting in her being respected by readers a great deal more than the princess in “The Frog King.”