The Sleeper and the Spindle

The first nine pages of the story (which begins on page 10, after the book’s dedication and some preliminary illustrations) comprise the first act: introduction of characters and setting, conflict, goals, and inciting incident that launches the plot into motion. The two neighboring kingdoms are introduced by name: Kanselaire and Dorimar—a rare distinction in the story where most concrete nouns are left nameless. Riddell splits his illustration of the unnamed mountain range that divides the two kingdoms into a light half and a shadowed half, referencing the juxtaposition of darkness and light in traditional fairy tale literature. The first three full-page illustrations (including the two preceding the actual text) feature the three dwarves, allowing Riddell to highlight their nuance and defining attributes; the third image features the most personality and detail. As the story begins, the dwarves are carrying a ruby they’ve excavated in their mine under the border between kingdoms to trade—an allusion to the traditional Snow White fairy tale. The dwarves’ belief that “it’s the distance that makes a gift magical” emphasizes the importance of quests as a motif in traditional folklore and fairy tales (10). Riddell introduces the queen through a visual that occupies two complete pages. Although she lives in a castle of luxury and comfort, she’s clearly unhappy, and her bedspread is given a prominent skull motif (a symbol that recurs many times throughout the book, equating stasis with death). Once the story moves into her perspective, her source of contention is immediately clear: “A week from today, I shall be married” (14).

As the three unnamed dwarves arrive in Dorimar, Gaiman immediately invests the scene with a sense of conflict, laying the foundation for the primary action of the story. The dwarves observe: “there must have been thirty people in that place, and not one of them looked happy” (15). The story uses an assortment of vivid stock characters to deliver exposition on the kingdom’s past and present challenges, which directly reference the familiar story of Sleeping Beauty, cursed into an enchanted sleep by a malevolent fairy. The villagers describe the roses that have grown up around the sleeping castle, and the heroes who have lost their lives trying to pass through them. They also describe the villain of the story, who waits at the center of the tale, building dramatic tension: “If you make it through the roses, she’ll be waiting for you. She’s old as the hills, evil as a snake, all malevolence and magic and death” (16). The villagers’ description creates an expectation for the reader about the elderly woman figure in the story’s second act that Gaiman eventually subverts, pointing to Preconceptions of Youth and Beauty and the story’s Inversion of Gender Dynamics. The dwarves learn that the sickness is spreading, driving them to return home for help, launching the rest of the story forward.