Reader's Guide

Spinning Straw into Gold : What Fairy Tales Reveal About the Transformations in a Woman's Life
by Joan Gould

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1. Let's start with the opening line of the book: What's your favorite fairy tale? The first story that comes to mind is apt to be the one that reveals the most about your inner self and the family history that shaped your life. Bear in mind that ten women who name "Cinderella" may have in mind ten different aspects of the story.

2. The book's subtitle refers to "the transformations in a woman's life." Do you think that a man goes through transformations as marked as a woman does when she bleeds with her first period, like Sleeping Beauty pricked by a spindle; when she loses her virginity; when she marries, becomes pregnant, bears a child; when she reaches menopause and realizes that her fertility is at an end? How many male transformations can you think of?

3. Which transformation do you remember most vividly in your own life? At the time, were you aware of what Joan Gould calls "the shift in consciousness as well as biology that propels women from one level of being to another"?

4. Would you call falling in love a transformation?

5. "Snow White" Have you ever had a moment when you saw yourself - or your daughter - transformed into a young woman? What were your reactions?

6. At what stage do you suppose you broke off with your mother - no matter how close the two of you may have been, and may be now - in order to become yourself? Was it in high school, the first week of college, after your first sexual experience or first paycheck? Or some other time?

7. In the Grimms' story, written in the 19th century, the dwarfs play the role of fathers, insisting that the girl must learn to cook, bake and sew, if she's to stay with them. In the Disney movie, Snow White is instantly transformed into the perfect little mother, in charge of a troupe of messy, adorable little dwarfs. (They're her own size in the old story.) What does this say about the changing image of fathers, or men in general? Have you heard women complain that their husband is one more child in the house? What does it say about our picture of motherhood?

8. "Cinderella"

When you were a teenager, did you think you were as attractive or sexy looking, as your classmates? What feature bothered you most - breasts, hair, hips, complexion? Clothes?

9. Were there any "wicked stepsisters" in your life - biological sisters, classmates or friends? Looking back, can you think of any ways in which they influenced your life in a positive direction?

10. Has anyone played the fairy godmother role in your life, or have you played the role for someone else?

11. In modern "Cinderella" stories, the fairy godmother is turned into a superior human being who teaches the bedraggled heroine the social graces she needs - like Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady. Have you ever been attracted by a teacher, doctor, psychiatrist or sports coach, because you thought this person could transform you into someone finer?

12. Pretty Woman and The Color Purple are two modern versions of the "Cinderella" story, with the glamorous singer Shug Avery playing the roles of both fairy godmother and Prince in The Color Purple. What other versions can you think of? Does Extreme Makeover fit the bill?

13. "Sleeping Beauty"

Joan Gould considers depression, anorexia, bulimia, drug addiction, and alcoholism as modern forms of sleep. Have you gone to sleep at any point in your life? What form did your sleep take? What was different in your life when you woke up?

14. Great artists and scientists often report that they came to their most inspired solutions or creations in their sleep. Was something ever clear to you in the morning that wasn't clear when you went to bed?

15. The parents of Sleeping Beauty are told that she will sleep for a hundred years, and then a Prince will awaken her. Do you think that she woke up because the hundred years had ended, and then she saw the Prince? Or did the Prince awaken her, at which point she decided that she had slept long enough? Which matters - the right man or right time? Or both?

16. Can you imagine meeting the right man at the wrong time in your life - when you're too young to settle down, or already married with children? Can you imagine the reverse, when you feel you're more than ready for marriage, but no Prince appears?

17. "Beauty and the Beast"

The story of "Beauty and the Beast" begins with the Beast and the heroine's father fighting over the rose that symbolizes Beauty. She risks her life, in order to save her father, by entering the Beast's castle in his place.

Consider your relationship with your father. Were you ever his princess, and how did that affect your future relaionships with men and your image of yourself? How did your father react to your boyfriends? Did you feel that you had to find a young man who could match your father? What role did your mother play?

18. The Beast is opposed by the Hero, or Prince, who is society's champion. Did you lose your virginity to a Hero or Beast? Have you ever fantasized about a Beast in the form of a male associated with the physical aspects of life: a doctor, physical therapist, karate or kick-boxing instructor, cyclist or amateur sailor?

19. If you were the heroine in Casablanca, would you stay with your heroic husband, who is the gallant leader of the French Resistance forces against the Nazis, but hasn't much time for you, or would you decamp with isolated, alcoholic Rick (Humphrey Bogart), still wounded by his frustrated love for you?

20. The Matron stage of Life, with "The White Bride and the Black Bride" and Jane Eyre

Can you explain why two young women would be attracted to a King they had never met? Is power really the great aphrodisiac, as Henry Kissinger said?

21. Why is it always the White Bride who bears a child?

22. In Gone With the Wind, the White Bride, Melanie Wilkes, goes into labor for the first time while the Yankees are bombarding Atlanta. Neither she nor her baby would survive without the efforts of the Black Bride, Scarlett O'Hara, who doesn't like Melanie and doesn't much like babies, either. Gould says that it takes both White and Black Brides to mother a child, one for tenderness and the other for strength. Do you agree? Have you seen these two natures in yourself as a mother? Have you ever become ferocious while defending your child?

23. Houses are often said to represent the woman's body, especially in stories and dreams. When a girl is of marriageable age, she moves from a humble home (her adolescent body) into the mansion of womanly power - like Jane Eyre - or she discovers that the house she has lived in all her life has hidden chambers, like Sleeping Beauty's palace. Have you ever dreamed about your house? Did it surprise you with space or windows you never knew you had?

24. Witches and Death

After the witch is defeated, Hansel and Gretel find jewels scattered on the floor of her house, which must have been there before, but weren't noticed. What are some of the joys of life that you tend to ignore until you find yourself threatened by death?

25. How do we explain the myth that says Persephone is Queen of the Dead, but she's also the daughter who returns to her bereft mother each year, bringing the flowers in her wake? Can death and springtime be connected?

26. Joan Gould calls the challenging last section of this book, devoted to the Crone, the Age of the Spirit. How can this be true? Can you imagine yourself as an old woman, seeing more clearly by the light of death than you did in youth?

Excerpted from Spinning Straw into Gold by Joan Gould Copyright © 2005 by Joan Gould. Excerpted by permission of Random House Trade Paperbacks, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Joan Gould's work has appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated. The author of Spirals, she lives in Rye, New York.