The story begins with a King asking his two daughters how
much they love their father; the most devoted daughter will ultimately rule the
kingdom. The eldest daughter responded “as the apple of my eye” however the
youngest daughter responded “I look upon you, my father as I look upon salt”.
The King was unhappy with the answer and kicked out of the youngest daughter.
She goes to pack and merely brings her jewels and her best dresses.
The princess chooses
to make her appearance unpleasant to get a job on a farm; she changes her exterior due to the fact that a farmer’s wife would not want a good-looking girl employed
in their home. She makes herself unpleasant
by dressing in rags and messing up her hair, the farmers’ wives thought she was
filthy and underprivileged; some even gave her scrapings of bread out of
charity.
The princess soon finds a farm in need of a shepherdess and the
family happily engages her. One day the Princess wants to feel beautiful again
so she bathes herself and wears her dress and goes into the forest. She is
spotted by a prince who falls in love with her a first sight but never sees her
again. The prince is lovesick and won’t eat or sleep without figuring out who
she is. He goes to the local farm and asks the farmer who is the beautiful shepherdess
is, farmer laughs in his face and describes the shepherdess as “the ugliest and
dirtiest creature under the sun”. The prince then asks the farmer to have the
shepherdess make him a loaf of bread. The princess makes the bread then drops her
ring into the dough by accident; the prince discovers the ring while eating the
bread. He states that he will marry
whoever the rings fit. Eventually the shepherdess tries the ring and it fits, but
the prince’s parents don’t want him to marry a girl like her, they call her “ugly
and dirty”.
She soon reveals who she is; she cleans up and dresses in a
gown. The prince’s parent soon accept who she is and they make plans the wed.
Word gets back to the princesses dad and her father comes to the wedding, happy
to know his daughter is okay. The princess makes her father’s food without salt;
the King then states that his food was “tasteless”. The story ends with the daughter
saying “Did I not tell you father, salt is the best thing in the life”. The
father soon realizes that he misunderstood what his daughter meant when she
said “I love you like I love salt”.
The way the princess dresses is a way to transform her
appearance and how other others view her. Dressing in rags shows the change in
the princess, she was raised in a castle with servants and help so she never
had to learn how to do a thing. When she gets kicks out by her father, she
needs to learn how to survive by herself. She is treated as a vile creature and
is given charity, something no princess experiences.
The filthy clothing shows internal growth in the princess as
well as freedom. She is working on a farm now and realizes how hard it is to be
a non-privileged person. Her peers view her as secondary citizen based on her
appearance, the story shows how much the village values appearance. She dresses
in rags to survive because she was too pretty before but now she is too ugly.
Can anyone ever please society or will we always label people for being too
much or too little? The princess leaves home with only jewels and dresses which
demonstrates how much she values materialistic factors more than her own life.
One would think to bring food, warm clothing, or water when leaving home but
she brings things that won’t help her stay alive. Wearing rags shows a huge
character change, she cares less about being the prettiest and focuses more on
how to survive, and her being less attractive helps her survive. If you are too
pretty farmers won’t take you seriously or think you don’t know how to work
hard but if you are too ugly or dirty you are viewed as unfortunate and worthless.
The modern issue this story is parallel with is identity and
appearance in term so fashion, identity, and social actors. On page 71 of Identities through Fashion, it states “the
problem of identity is not the problem of appearance”. We pre-judge a person’s identity
through their appearance such as what they wear or how they act. According to
Goffman, a person’s identity shouldn't be based on what they wear but on who
they are under all of the superficial layers. The Dirty Shepherdess connects to
what Goffman says because the princess while dressed in rags has the appearance
of being dirty but her identify doesn't match her appearance at that time.
Full story available at: http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/371.htm
-Shawnna M Hall-Enoch
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