Wolf is backed up again when Angela Carter says, "Am I fact? Or am I fiction? Am I what I know I am? Or am I what he thinks I am? (Carter, pg. 107, Nights at the Circus, Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women's Fiction, 2001) This emphasizes the frustration that young female readers may feel when pressured to live up to the beauty seen in these fairy tales. The above quote also brings the male into the picture. Carter suggests that men develop an ideal image of women, and therefor women and men alike become confused about who they are. They become uncertain if they are their own person or if they have become a socially constructed image of what people think they should be. Beauty from Beauty and the Beast is a strong example of the way women are portrayed. She has all the characteristics of an unrealistic woman, but for some reason, this unrealistic image is taught to children across the world.
Beauty is seen in all fairy tales, and this helps to form a basic identity for young readers. This beauty is displayed through both description and physical images created by an artist. In most fairy tales, a woman is deemed worthy of marriage and happiness due to her beauty. The authors and artists of the fairy tales have set a direct correlation between beauty and happiness. This is very evident in the fairytale, Snow White. Snow White is "fairer than you [Queen],"(Brothers Grimm, pg. 35, Classics of Children's Literature fifth edition, Grffith and Frey, 2000) and is seen as a good woman. The wicked stepmother was once the fairest in the land but now is second only to sleeping beauty. This is especially interesting because before the arrival of sleeping beauty, the child could see the stepmother as good. This, however, changes upon the arrival of sleeping beauty, as the stepmother turns bad and takes on transformations as ugly old women in order to try and kill sleeping beauty so she can reclaim her fame as "fairer than you.