Prince Charming
Encyclopedia
Prince Charming is a stock character
who appears in a number of fairy tale
s. He is the prince
who comes to rescue of the damsel in distress
, and stereotypically, must engage in a quest
to liberate her from an evil spell
. This classification suits most hero
es of a number of traditional folk tales, including Snow White
, Sleeping Beauty
and Cinderella
, even if in the original story they were given another name, or no name at all.
These characters are often handsome and romantic, a foil
to the heroine, and are seldom deeply characterized, or even distinguishable from other such men who marry the heroine.
In many variants, they can be viewed more as rewards for the heroine rather than characters.
"Prince Charming" is also used as a term to refer to the idealized man some people dream of as a future spouse
.
's version of Sleeping Beauty
, published in 1697, includes the following text at the point where the princess wakes up: "'Est-ce vous, mon prince?' lui dit-elle, 'vous vous êtes bien fait attendre'. Le Prince charmé de ces paroles... ne savait comment lui témoigner sa joie". ("'Are you my prince?' she said. 'You've kept me waiting a long time'. The prince charmed by her words... did not know how to express his joy.")
It has sometimes been suggested that this passage later inspired the term, "Prince Charming", even though it is the prince who is charmed (charmé) here, not who is being charming (charmant).
In the eighteenth century, Madame d'Aulnoy
wrote two fairy tales, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks
, where the hero was named Avenant ("Fine", "Beautiful", in French), and The Blue Bird
, where the hero was Le roi Charmant ("The Charming King"). When Andrew Lang
retold the first (in 1889) for The Blue Fairy Book, he rendered the hero's name as "Charming"; the second, for The Green Fairy Book, as "King Charming".
Although neither one was a prince and the first was not royal, this may have been the original use of "Charming."
Then, Oscar Wilde
's 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray
refers ironically to "Prince Charming", perhaps the earliest use of the exact term. The main character, Dorian, is supposed to be a young actress's "Prince Charming," but he abandons her and in despair she commits suicide.
In the early Disney animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
(1937), when Snow White tells the dwarfs about her prince, she says, "Anyone could see that the prince was Charming, the only one for me." The logical antecedent of "one" in this lyric is "Charming" because of the placement of the pause. However, he is never referred to specifically as "Prince Charming".
In other languages, like Spanish and Italian, he is called the "Blue Prince". In Portuguese, a translation mistake occurred and he is called "Prince Charmed" (Príncipe Encantado; the correct term for "Charming" should be Encantador or Charmoso), coincidentially closer to the sense in Perrault's story mentioned atop this section.
The character of Prince Charming is deconstructed
in the 2004 movie Shrek 2
and its 2007 follow-up Shrek the Third
, wherein he has an undesirable and boorish personality unfitting for a fairy-tale prince. He is the secondary antagonist in Shrek 2 and the main antagonist in Shrek the Third.
"Prince Charming
" is the title of a 1981 album and song
by Adam and the Ants
. Prince Charming is also the title of a 1999
movie starring Andy Lau
and Michelle Reis
. Meet Prince Charming is the title of a 1999 movie starring Tia Carrere
and David Charvet
.
Prince Charming is a prominent character in the Fables comic book
. In that version, he successively married Snow White
, Sleeping Beauty
and Cinderella
, with each marriage ending in divorce due to his compulsive womanizing. He himself comments: "I always truly love a woman when I first pursue her...I'm just no good at the happily-ever-after part." He parlays his charm into election as the mayor of Fabletown
, the underground "Fable" community, and finds the job more difficult than he had anticipated.
This aspect of his character is also explored in the Broadway musical Into the Woods
, where there are not one, but two Prince Charmings. Here they are shown as brothers pursuing Cinderella and Rapunzel
, then later, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, after they have married their first loves. Cinderella's Prince has an affair with the baker's wife as well, and when confronted about his womanizing, states "I was raised to be charming, not sincere."
The concept of the Prince Charming is also parodied in Enchanted when Edward is looking for Princess Giselle in New York City
. While knocking the doors he finds a pregnant housewife holding three kids, who tells him, in a scoffing voice, "You're too late."
In The Sisters Grimm, Prince Charming is the mayor of Ferryport Landing, a town inhabited by fairy-tale characters- or everafters. He is shown to be rude, arrogant and boastful, but turns out to be a valuable ally to the protagonists of the series. He is shown to have married and slept with many of the girls in this town, among them Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. But he clarifies that he truly loves Snow White and proposes to her. He then separates himself from her for her protection.
In the television series Once Upon a Time
, Prince Charming is the husband of Snow White, though neither of them remembers this in Storybrooke.
Stock character
A Stock character is a fictional character based on a common literary or social stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. In their most general form, stock characters are related to literary archetypes,...
who appears in a number of fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s. He is the prince
Prince
Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...
who comes to rescue of the damsel in distress
Damsel in distress
The subject of the damsel in distress, or persecuted maiden, is a classic theme in world literature, art, and film. She is usually a beautiful young woman placed in a dire predicament by a villain or monster and who requires a hero to achieve her rescue. She has become a stock character of fiction,...
, and stereotypically, must engage in a quest
Quest
In mythology and literature, a quest, a journey towards a goal, serves as a plot device and as a symbol. Quests appear in the folklore of every nation and also figure prominently in non-national cultures. In literature, the objects of quests require great exertion on the part of the hero, and...
to liberate her from an evil spell
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
. This classification suits most hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
es of a number of traditional folk tales, including Snow White
Snow White
"Snow White" is a fairy tale known from many countries in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the Brothers Grimm...
, Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault or Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, enchantment, and a handsome prince...
and Cinderella
Cinderella
"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...
, even if in the original story they were given another name, or no name at all.
These characters are often handsome and romantic, a foil
Foil (literature)
In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character in order to highlight particular qualities of another character....
to the heroine, and are seldom deeply characterized, or even distinguishable from other such men who marry the heroine.
In many variants, they can be viewed more as rewards for the heroine rather than characters.
"Prince Charming" is also used as a term to refer to the idealized man some people dream of as a future spouse
Spouse
The term spouse generally refers to a partner in a marriage:* Husband, referring to a male partner* Wife, referring to a female partner* In some usages, a partner in a civil union, domestic partnership or common-law marriage- See also :* Bride...
.
History of term
Charles PerraultCharles Perrault
Charles Perrault was a French author who laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales. The best known include Le Petit Chaperon rouge , Cendrillon , Le Chat Botté and La Barbe bleue...
's version of Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault or Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, enchantment, and a handsome prince...
, published in 1697, includes the following text at the point where the princess wakes up: "'Est-ce vous, mon prince?' lui dit-elle, 'vous vous êtes bien fait attendre'. Le Prince charmé de ces paroles... ne savait comment lui témoigner sa joie". ("'Are you my prince?' she said. 'You've kept me waiting a long time'. The prince charmed by her words... did not know how to express his joy.")
It has sometimes been suggested that this passage later inspired the term, "Prince Charming", even though it is the prince who is charmed (charmé) here, not who is being charming (charmant).
In the eighteenth century, Madame d'Aulnoy
Madame d'Aulnoy
Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d'Aulnoy , also known as Countess d'Aulnoy, was a French writer known for her fairy tales...
wrote two fairy tales, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks
The Story of Pretty Goldilocks
The Story of Pretty Goldilocks or The Beauty with Golden Hair is a French literary fairy tale written by Madame d'Aulnoy. Andrew Lang included it in The Blue Fairy Book....
, where the hero was named Avenant ("Fine", "Beautiful", in French), and The Blue Bird
The Blue Bird (fairy tale)
"The Blue Bird" is a French literary fairy tale by Madame d'Aulnoy, published in 1697. An English translation was included in The Green Fairy Book, 1892, collected by Andrew Lang.The tale is Aarne-Thompson type 432, The Prince as Bird...
, where the hero was Le roi Charmant ("The Charming King"). When Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.- Biography :Lang was born in Selkirk...
retold the first (in 1889) for The Blue Fairy Book, he rendered the hero's name as "Charming"; the second, for The Green Fairy Book, as "King Charming".
Although neither one was a prince and the first was not royal, this may have been the original use of "Charming."
Then, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine...
refers ironically to "Prince Charming", perhaps the earliest use of the exact term. The main character, Dorian, is supposed to be a young actress's "Prince Charming," but he abandons her and in despair she commits suicide.
In the early Disney animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...
(1937), when Snow White tells the dwarfs about her prince, she says, "Anyone could see that the prince was Charming, the only one for me." The logical antecedent of "one" in this lyric is "Charming" because of the placement of the pause. However, he is never referred to specifically as "Prince Charming".
In other languages, like Spanish and Italian, he is called the "Blue Prince". In Portuguese, a translation mistake occurred and he is called "Prince Charmed" (Príncipe Encantado; the correct term for "Charming" should be Encantador or Charmoso), coincidentially closer to the sense in Perrault's story mentioned atop this section.
Adaptations
The prominence of the character type makes him an obvious target for revisionist fairy tales.The character of Prince Charming is deconstructed
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
in the 2004 movie Shrek 2
Shrek 2
Shrek 2 is a 2004 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film, produced by DreamWorks Animation and directed by Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon. It is the second installment in the Shrek film series and the sequel to 2001's Shrek...
and its 2007 follow-up Shrek the Third
Shrek the Third
Shrek the Third is a 2007 American animated film, and the third film in the Shrek series. It was produced by Jeffrey Katzenberg for DreamWorks Animation, and is distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was released in U.S. theaters on May 18, 2007...
, wherein he has an undesirable and boorish personality unfitting for a fairy-tale prince. He is the secondary antagonist in Shrek 2 and the main antagonist in Shrek the Third.
"Prince Charming
Prince Charming (Song)
Prince Charming was a UK number one single for four weeks in September 1981 for Adam and the Ants, featured on the album of the same name. Written by Marco Pirroni and Adam Ant, it was their second number one single....
" is the title of a 1981 album and song
1981 in music
See also:* Timeline of musical eventsThis is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1981.-January–April:*January 10 – A revival of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance opens at Broadway's Uris Theatre, starring Linda Ronstadt and Rex Smith.*January 24 –...
by Adam and the Ants
Adam and the Ants
Adam and the Ants were a British rock band active during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The original group, which existed from 1977 to 1980, became notable as a cult band marking the transition from the late-1970s punk rock era to the post-punk and New Wave era...
. Prince Charming is also the title of a 1999
1999 in film
The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep...
movie starring Andy Lau
Andy Lau
Andy Lau MH, JP is a Hong Kong Cantopop singer, actor, and film producer. Lau has been one of Hong Kong's most commercially successful film actors since the mid-1980s, performing in more than 160 films while maintaining a successful singing career at the same time...
and Michelle Reis
Michelle Reis
-Biography:Reis was born in Macau which was then a Portuguese colony. Reis is of mixed ancestry as her father is Portuguese and her mother is Chinese. So, she can be considered as a macanese. Reis attended Maryknoll Convent School, and matriculated from St. Paul's Secondary School.Reis started...
. Meet Prince Charming is the title of a 1999 movie starring Tia Carrere
Tia Carrere
Tia Carrere is an American actress, model, voice artist, and singer, perhaps most widely known for her role as Cassandra Wong in the feature films Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2, Queen Tyr'ahnee in Duck Dodgers, and as Sydney Fox in the TV series Relic Hunter.-Early life:Carrere was born in...
and David Charvet
David Charvet
David Charvet is a French singer and actor.-Personal life:Charvet was born in Lyon, France. His father is the Tunisian Jewish businessman Paul Guez. David Charvet's mother, Christiane Charvet, is French. He and his siblings speak French as their first language. He won a green card through the...
.
Prince Charming is a prominent character in the Fables comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
. In that version, he successively married Snow White
Snow White
"Snow White" is a fairy tale known from many countries in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the Brothers Grimm...
, Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault or Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, enchantment, and a handsome prince...
and Cinderella
Cinderella
"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...
, with each marriage ending in divorce due to his compulsive womanizing. He himself comments: "I always truly love a woman when I first pursue her...I'm just no good at the happily-ever-after part." He parlays his charm into election as the mayor of Fabletown
Fabletown
Fabletown is the fictional, clandestine community of "Fables" resident in New York in the Fables comic book universe. It exists in two locations, one being Bullfinch Street in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and the other on a large farm in upstate New York, protected with magical spells that...
, the underground "Fable" community, and finds the job more difficult than he had anticipated.
This aspect of his character is also explored in the Broadway musical Into the Woods
Into the Woods
Into the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife brought acclaim...
, where there are not one, but two Prince Charmings. Here they are shown as brothers pursuing Cinderella and Rapunzel
Rapunzel
"Rapunzel" is a German fairy tale in the collection assembled by the Brothers Grimm, and first published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales. The Grimm Brothers' story is an adaptation of the fairy tale Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force originally published in 1698...
, then later, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, after they have married their first loves. Cinderella's Prince has an affair with the baker's wife as well, and when confronted about his womanizing, states "I was raised to be charming, not sincere."
The concept of the Prince Charming is also parodied in Enchanted when Edward is looking for Princess Giselle in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. While knocking the doors he finds a pregnant housewife holding three kids, who tells him, in a scoffing voice, "You're too late."
In The Sisters Grimm, Prince Charming is the mayor of Ferryport Landing, a town inhabited by fairy-tale characters- or everafters. He is shown to be rude, arrogant and boastful, but turns out to be a valuable ally to the protagonists of the series. He is shown to have married and slept with many of the girls in this town, among them Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. But he clarifies that he truly loves Snow White and proposes to her. He then separates himself from her for her protection.
In the television series Once Upon a Time
Once Upon a Time
Once Upon a Time may refer to:* "Once upon a time", a stock phrase used to open the telling of a story in the English language.- Film :* Once Upon a Time , a film directed by Thomas Bentley...
, Prince Charming is the husband of Snow White, though neither of them remembers this in Storybrooke.