What do fairytales teach us about love?

Do fairytales send a positive message when it comes to love? Cliona Elliott looks at some of the classics

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who sat on the sofa in a pair of fluffy pink pyjamas, mesmerised by the Disney princesses she watched on the video player. With their long, flowing hair and bouffant gowns, the princesses were always saved by a handsome prince and brought back to life by true love’s first kiss. Like many little girls, she always imagined that by the age of twentysix, when she’s ‘all grown up’, she would be married to her prince charming and would live happily ever after. The little girl then grew up, and oh how different things are to how she imagined them with her child’s mind. If what they say about frogs is true, she has yet to kiss a few more until she finds her prince.

There are many powerful lessons embedded within the enchanted forests and magical characters that make up our favourite childhood fairytales, but what do they teach (or perhaps not teach) us about love?

Let’s start with the positives. Ultimately, fairytales teach us that love conquers all. It will find its way through all of life’s obstacles and seep through the cracks even in the darkest of times. When Cinderella’s father tragically dies, her cruel Stepmother puts her to work as a scullery maid as a punishment for being much more beautiful and graceful than her two daughters, Anastasia and Drizella. "Have courage and be kind. Where there is kindness there is goodness, and where there is goodness there is magic." Despite Cinderella’s rags and lower social status, the Prince searches the whole kingdom, finds Cinderella and they fall in love. In a world so obsessed with external beauty, Cinderella teaches us that it’s our actions and how we treat others that determine our nobleness and beauty.

Beauty and the Beast also teach us about true beauty, and that love doesn't discriminate. Every rose has its thorns, and Belle discovers that real beauty is defined by kindness, compassion and having a heart full of good intention. She falls in love with the Beast when she takes the time to get to know what's beyond the surface level, showing us that sometimes we need to look beyond our perceptions. The same goes for Ariel. No matter how different or odd we think we are to everyone else, we should never try to change ourselves to fit another mould. We are all unique, and the people who accept our uniqueness are the only ones that matter.

The Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs teaches us that first and foremost, we must love ourselves. "Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who's the fairest of them all?" The Evil Queen becomes so envious of Snow White that she plots to kill her. In her pursuit to remain the "fairest in the land", she leads herself to her own demise. It’s a similar story for Maleficent, the evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty. Both of these cruel antagonists are bullies, but behind every bully is someone who's hurting. Their curses against Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are the real mirror, reflecting the insecurities and unhappiness they feel within themselves.

But what do the fairytales fail to teach us? In all of these stories, the princesses’ fate is to find ‘The One’ and live happily ever after. As lovely and romantic as ‘The One’ sounds, the idea of there being one person who was put on the earth to find you is outdated. It creates a feeling of scarcity, and it can also encourage people to stay in relationships they are no longer happy in. That’s not to say soulmates don’t exist, but I think we can have more than one; we can have multiple soulmates who serve a different purpose at different points in our lives. The classic fairytales also paint a picture of being saved by love. The princesses are always at the mercy of love, waiting to be rescued by their prince so that they can be free. Love is amazing, and it can enrich us, but we can’t rely on someone else to fill our cup. If you think you need someone to come and sweep you off your feet, to make you feel worthy, then you’ll never be truly fulfilled. The fairytales fail to teach us that actually, someone can drop you after sweeping you off your feet, and when it happens, it’s you who’s going to have to pick yourself up and do the work if you want to be happy.

I would say that we are responsible for our own happy ever after, but I’m not going to use that term as it implies that one day we’ll wake up and everything will be perfect. If we try to seek the perfect relationship, the perfect house, the perfect family - the fairytale ending that will last forever - we’re chasing an illusion. There are magic moments to be found in every day, but if love was as straightforward as it is in the fairytales, there would be no room for the wonderful growth that happens in between all of the plot twists.