Character: Princess Paulina, Queen Zelda of Blom Castle, Prince Drupert, other princesses, and Paulina’s father
Setting/ Time: Once upon a time
Setting/ Place: Blom Castle
Plot: Paulina heard about Queen Zelda finding the bride for Prince Drupert so she wants to attend the competition.
Perspective: Third-person view-point
Gerne: Fairy-tale
The story “The Princess And The Pizza” written by Mary Jane Auch talks about Princess Paulina. Paulina needs a job after her father gave up his throne to be a wood-cutter. One day Queen Zelda made a competition of finding a bride for her son, Prince Drupert. Paulina signed up for the competition because she wants to be a princess again. Competition has four tests, including sleeping with a pea on the bottom of the bed, writing an essay, wearing glass slippers, and making a feast. Pauliine passes the first three tests without problems. For the last test of making a feast, Paulina tripped and barely got any materials. She used the left-over materials to make dough, which just stuck to the plate, wanted to brighten it up with tomato sauce, which made it look messy and added bits of cheese. Surprisingly, the left-over food ingredients became a delicious pizza, which made Pauline the winner. In the end, Pauline did not accept the deal to marry Prince Drupert. Instead, she recognized she actually was good at making pizza and decided to open the Princess Pauline Pizza Palace.
Women being independent is essential for breaking traditional society expectations and choosing their own life path. Independence enables women to take control of their life, pursue their dreams, and explore new opportunities without relying on men. Paulina was left with a few food ingredients and locked up in a room with no one helping her. Pauline became independent for cooking the feast on her own. Surprisingly, Pauline created a tasty pizza, won the competition, and had the privilege to marry Prince Drupert. However, Pauline chose to open her own pizza shop and earned the money by herself rather than depending on Prince Drupert. Traditionally, a princess is coming from royalty and she is supposed to be taken good care of by others. Later, after a princess marries a prince, she could continually rely on others doing everything for her. Similarly, girls depend on their parents when they are baby girls and their husband after getting married. They are never learning how to be independent or being independent, which is NOT good at all. Relying too much on parents will bring negative consequences like not knowing how to cook and feed herself, which restricts her opportunity for exploring the world and learning to be self-sufficient. Instead of relying on someone else, women should learn how to be independent and strive on their own to promote their personal growth and development.
Once women are independent, they begin to practice self-awareness of their own feelings, thoughts, and actions. Having self-awareness gives women the power to recognize their own strengths and weaknesses, which in turn would help them set goals for themselves. Paulina needs to make a feast out of the left-over food ingredients. Due to the beheading threat, her meal was her only hope to not get beheaded. Paulina tried but she thought it was still messy so she decided to give up and take a nap. In the end, Paulina won the competition but she didn’t marry Prince Drupert. Instead, Pauline realized that she was actually good at making pizza and she could run a pizza store all by herself as her new career to make money. Everybody is making a feast based on the rules. But Paulina is making a pizza, which is fresh and unique but so different from old style. This suggests Paulina is a person who can do something that others cannot do or never have done before. It turned out Paulina actually did this thing very well and gained the achievement. Paulina started to recognize herself as a capable cook who is confident and can make tasteful pizza, so she opened a pizza store for herself. From Paulina’s case, it takes some time for a person to explore the possibility around him, recognize himself, and know his capability. One never knows he actually can do something that is beyond his imagination so do not underestimate one’s own ability.
The author’s creative writing skills not only brings about the wow-moment to the readers but also provide the readers new perspectives on fairytales. Specifically, the author blends the existing famous fairytales and twists them a little but while keeping the main plot or main characters. The author copies “The Princess and the Pea” fairytale to find out five princesses are honest about the bed, and “Cinderella” fairytale to kick out two big-footed princesses. The author also twists “Rapunzel” and “Snow White” fairytales by Rapunzel tripped Pauline and the little strange men stop Pauline get the food ingredients. The author is very clever in writing this story by blending and twisting original famous fairytales, including Princess and the Pea, Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel. The author not only helps the readers recall the knowledge of already-known fairytales they had read while they were young, but also quickly bridges the readers into the story to engage the readers in reading. The author also reminds the readers of something they forgot or is very important about the other fairy tales such as the main plots or the main character, which might lead the readers into new ideas and thoughts. In other words, referencing existing famous fairytales allows the readers to get to the main points without the author saying too much while readers might gain some new viewpoints from the original fairytales.
The story “The Princess And The Pizza” is really a you-cannot-put-down book. I like this book because it takes the fairytale fantasy and mixes it with real life. Thanks to the unique writing skills from the author, the twisting of original fairytales definitely get the readers’ attention and provide some new insights to the readers. At the same time, the story tries to inform readers, especially young girls, that women should not rely on others to do everything for them. Women should be independent and break the traditional views of depending on men, which gives them the power to choose their own personal path. When women are independent, they begin to self-aware how great they are or they still have some room to get improved. In reality it might take some time or challenges for women in learning how to be independent, still women need to take the opportunity. Without independence, women would not have the self- recognition of how great they are.
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