There is a softer note, however, sounding underneath the storm of Merida’s frustration: “I’m not doing this to hurt you!” she yells at her horse, a surrogate for her mother, while Elinor admits to Fergus (Merida’s father, in Merida’s place) that she had her doubts about that whole courtship thing, too. It is hard, after all, to reject the life your mother lives without rejecting your mother herself.
That’s the idea I hated – even though I loved and admired my mother. There is something really interesting to the idea that your mother is your fate – that’s certainly a message I received as a daughter of Christian patriarchy. She rebels so hard that she runs off to the woods, meets a witch and sells her heirloom pendant in exchange for a cake that will “change” her mother and thus allow her to change her own fate. In fact, her rebellion is a bit… well… overblown. She’s the teenager that the daughters of Christian patriarchy would have never dared to be. But it makes her a less sympathetic character to daughters of Christian patriarchy than Rapunzel because, unlike Rapunzel and unlike us, Merida doesn’t give a damn about pleasing her mother. Which is fine, since the real plot hasn’t even started yet.
It’s defiant and petulant and generally immature.
Merida’s rebellion is actually that: rebellion. Both women have now destroyed the things most precious to each other: Merida’s bow, symbolizing independence, and Elinor’s tapestry, symbolizing family. In case you didn’t notice.) Merida shakes a sword at her mother, Elinor.Įlinor, on the other hand, rolls her eyes and sighs at her daughter’s impulsiveness, stuffs her into a corset and throws her cherished bow into the fireplace. “I’d rather die than be like you!” Merida howls.Īnd she slices her mother’s family tapestry in half with her sword, right between the figures of herself and Elinor. She throws some serious barbs at Elinor (her mother), who has spent Merida’s whole childhood telling her what a princess shouldn’t do. On the contrary, she’s a frothing bundle of anger at ridiculous gender norms and the restrictions of being a role model to her clan and its allies. Unlike Rapunzel, Merida is not at all afraid to tell her mother how she feels. She admits it – nay, proclaims it: she hates that ladylike crap. Does having not only (a) a female lead, but also (b) a conflict driven not by romance or masculinity but by a daughter’s fight for independence and a mother’s pragmatic (if stifling) plans alter the meaning of the coming-of-age trope? Let’s think about it.
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