Roles of Women In Fairy Tales

  When you read Hans Andersen's stories, you realize that many of them have a girl or a woman as the protagonist. And the supporting characters are, also, mostly women. But what about the men? From the stories I remember reading from my childhood, fathers and men are mostly absent from the stories. One example would be Thumbelina. The mother of Thumbelina went to a fairy for an answer to have a child. Why didn't the mother get out and find a man for herself to start a family with? Why wasn't that an option? Another example would be in The Little Mermaid. The underwater castle has a king that has little to no role in the original version of the story. This may have happened because Andersen didn't have his father for most of his life. His father died when he was only 11, which means his mother had more of an influence on him during his teenager years. This caused women to have bigger roles in his stories than men.