Here are some questions to help you get thinking about Sleeping Beauty in a more academic manner.
1. Why is Sleeping Beauty the least popular of all the romantic fairy tales in the canon (esp. the ones we are studying)? And what do the reasons for its unpopularity (or would it be lack of popularity?) say about our contemporary society? What is it about Sleeping Beauty that we can no longer find acceptable (kissing dead/unconscious women being one of them)?
2. Does the spindle symbolize anything, do you think?
3. Let's, for a change, look at how the men are disregarded in this story. We have been reading from a feminist stance all this while but I do think that there's a lot of injustice where men are concerned too. At least from a modern perspective. Thoughts?
4. If you were to re-tell the story and you could twist things around any way you wanted, what are the things you would change? And why? (You can use the two books we read as a sort of directive in this question.)
So tomorrow, we will be discussing your answers to these questions amongst all the other observations you have about the readings.
