Waking the World: Classic Tales of Women and the Heroic Feminine

In familiar fairy tales such as "Sleeping Beauty" and "Snow White", a captivating maiden falls under an evil spell - usually cast by a wicked, older woman - and sleeps as if dead until a valiant hero awakens her. Not so in the stories discussed in this book! Chosen from some seven thousand read by the author, these stories focus on mature women and set traditional plots on their pretty little ears. In these stories it is the man who sleeps, and the woman who must break the spell that imprisons both king and kingdom. Psychiatrist A. B. Chinen has collected tales from Germany, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Russia, Siberia, and Swaziland whose themes are the rigors of womanhood rather than the fantasies of adolescence. Their protagonists face challenges that are universally recognized, sometimes shocking, and always catalysts of transformation. Brutalized women transform cruel husbands, and unfaithful wives reform themselves. Trusting daughters are mutilated by their fathers, and clever sisters outwit sultans. There are good men and bad, virtuous mothers and treacherous crones. And always there is complexity and duality, sunlight and shadow, iniquity and redemption. Dr. Chinen has chosen unfamiliar versions of well-known stories to present afresh the ancient wisdom they contain. With commentaries drawn from his clinical experience and literature from around the world, he skewers stereotypes and challenges us to rethink our concept of authentic womanhood. Waking the World reminds readers that there is more to women's culture and mythology than spinning wheels, pricked fingers, and spellbound sleep. There is unwavering vigilance, a passion not only to survive but to prevail, and within every woman'sthroat, a clarion cry to awaken and galvanize the world.