Interpreting the Princess and the Frog

James Oinam *

An illustration of 'Princess and the Frog' by James Oinam

In the world of fairytales, a frog is not someone who looks ugly, but someone who thinks ugly. After all, in the story of the Hunchback of Notredam, an ugly-looking person was the hero of the story.

But it should be remembered that ugly behaviour can result in ugly looks, as it happened to the prince in the story the Beauty and the Beast wherein the prince was cursed to become a beast because of his bad behaviour. A kiss is symbol of love. That a frog transforms into a prince upon kissing implies a bad person can be changed into a good person through love.

The phrase 'kiss a frog' means kissed a bad or unworthy person. In some stories, a princess turns into a frog on kissing a frog. This can be interpreted as becoming a bad person due to bad company. Love can transform someone for the better is still a pervading belief in children's stories.

In the movie Frozen (adapted from the folktale The Snow Queen), the wise troll says, 'An act of true love can thaw a frozen heart.' A cold heart means an unsympathetic or unfeeling heart. It means through love a cold, unsympathetic person can be changed into a loving person.

Also, the troll says, 'The head can be persuaded.' I think this means a wise person (represented by head) can be reasoned with. Anna, who was accidentally injured by her sister Elsa, forgets about the accident.

If one can 'forget' unintentional harm done to him or her, the question of forgiving does not arise at all! A head-oriented person can be 'persuaded' to see their mistakes. Albert Einstein admitted the mistakes he committed. But a heart-oriented person needs love to change them.

Now coming to the Manipuri story of the Widow and the Frog (available in the Folk Tale section of this website), what lessons our forefathers wanted to teach us?

First, it is obvious that a mother loves even her unworthy son, sometimes even to a fault. If the widow had a son who turned into a frog, then the widow would be fulfilling her parental duty. But adopting a frog as a son shows the widow, as a mother, is completely blind to her son's shortcomings.

In the story, because of the tantrum thrown by the frog son, the mother goes to the king for the princess' hand. The frog did not go to the king himself. In fact, the poor mother got beaten for her behaviour. This shows the nature of the son frog is not admirable.

The second lesson is about vanity and obsession with worldly pleasures. Out of vanity and anger, the king had to give his daughter to a frog. If the king had maintained his calm and not thrown a challenge, he would have avoided marrying his daughter to a frog.

It is interesting to note that in order to win the challenge thrown by the king, the frog sprinkles gold dust from the palace gate to his house. However, there is no explanation where this treasure came from. A frog, or a bad or corrupt person, may have wealth whose source is unknown!

If at all the frog is capable of doing magic, he is putting it into bad use. This obvious as he is turning himself into a frog during daytime and not into a good-looking prince.

Thankfully, the story is not over yet. That the princess burnt the frog skin without first asking the frog husband is significant. In the world of management, it is said that to avoid getting into red-tapism one should first take the action, say sorry, and then fulfil the requirements later.

Otherwise the bureaucracy may set conditions that are practically impossible to fulfil and the work may never be done. This way the princess forces her husband to be a good person all the time, and not just at night.