Ancient history 's depiction of
Andromeda chained to the rocka
Romantic-era portrayal of the damsel in distress from
Greek mythology|alt=A naked woman chained by the wrists to a large rock by the sea; a sea serpent looking to lunge through crashing waves The damsel in distress theme featured in the stories of the
ancient Greeks.
Greek mythology, while featuring a large retinue of competent
goddesses, also contains helpless
maidens threatened with
human sacrifice. For example,
Andromeda's
mother offended the
Nereids and
Poseidon, who sent a
beast to ravage the land. To appease him Andromeda's parents fastened her to a rock in the sea. The hero
Perseus slew the beast, saving Andromeda. Andromeda in her plight, chained naked to a rock, became a favorite theme of later painters. This theme of the
princess and dragon is also pursued in the myth of
Saint George. The homosexual variant is also present in the stories of
Cleostratus and
Alcyoneus, youths who are to be sacrificed to man-eating serpentine monsters before they are saved by their love interests
Menestratus and
Eurybarus respectively.
Post-classical history European
fairy tales frequently feature damsels in distress. Evil
witches trapped
Rapunzel in a tower, cursed Snow White to die in
Snow White, and put the princess into a magical sleep in
Sleeping Beauty. In all of these, a valorous prince comes to the maiden's aid, saves her, and marries her (though Rapunzel is not directly saved by the prince, but instead saves him from
blindness after her exile). The damsel in distress was an archetypal character of medieval romances, where typically she was rescued from imprisonment in a tower of a castle by a
knight-errant.
Geoffrey Chaucer's ''
The Clerk's Tale'' of the repeated trials and bizarre torments of patient
Griselda was drawn from
Petrarch. The
Emprise de l'Escu vert à la Dame Blanche (founded 1399) was a
chivalric order with the express purpose of protecting oppressed ladies. 's depiction of
Saint George and the dragon, , a classic image of a damsel in distress The theme also features in the medieval legend of
Saint George who saved a princess from being devoured by a
dragon. A late addition to this saint's
hagiography, not attested in the several first centuries when he was venerated, it is nowadays the main act for which Saint George is remembered. Obscure outside Norway is
Hallvard Vebjørnsson, the Patron Saint of
Oslo, recognised as a martyr after being killed while valiantly trying to defend a womanmost likely a
slavefrom three men accusing her of theft.
Modern history 17th century In the 17th century English
ballad Spanish Lady (one of several English and Irish songs with that name), a Spanish lady captured by an English captain falls in love with her captor and begs him not to set her free but to take her with him to England, and in this appeal describes herself as "A lady in distress".
18th century The damsel in distress makes her debut in the modern novel as the title character of
Samuel Richardson's
Clarissa (1748), where she is menaced by the wicked
seducer Lovelace. The phrase "damsel in distress" is found in Richardson's
The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753): Reprising her medieval role, the damsel in distress is a staple character of
Gothic literature, where she is typically incarcerated in a castle or monastery and menaced by a
sadistic nobleman, or members of the religious orders. Early examples in this genre include Matilda in
Horace Walpole's
The Castle of Otranto, Emily in
Ann Radcliffe's
The Mysteries of Udolpho, and Antonia in
Matthew Lewis's
The Monk. The perils faced by this Gothic heroine were taken to an extreme by the
Marquis de Sade in
Justine, who exposed the
erotic subtext which lay beneath the damsel-in-distress scenario. 's
The Knight Errant of 1870 saves a damsel in distress and underlines the erotic subtext of the genre. One exploration of the theme of the persecuted maiden is the fate of Gretchen in
Goethe's Faust. According to the philosopher
Schopenhauer: "The great Goethe has given us a distinct and visible description of this denial of the will, brought about by great misfortune and by the despair of all deliverance, in his immortal masterpiece Faust, in the story of the sufferings of Gretchen. I know of no other description in poetry. It is a perfect specimen of the second path, which leads to the denial of the will not, like the first, through the mere knowledge of the suffering of the whole world which one acquires voluntarily, but through the excessive pain felt in one's own person. It is true that many tragedies bring their violently willing heroes ultimately to this point of complete resignation, and then the will-to-live and its phenomenon usually end at the same time. But no description known to me brings to us the essential point of that conversion so distinctly and so free from everything extraneous as the one mentioned in Faust" (
The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I, §68)
19th century The misadventures of the damsel in distress of the Gothic novel continued in a somewhat
caricatured form in
Victorian melodrama. According to Michael Booth in his classic study
English Melodrama, the Victorian stage melodrama featured a limited number of stock characters: the hero, the villain, the heroine, an old man, an old woman, a comic man and a comic woman engaged in a
sensational plot featuring themes of love and murder. Often the good but not very clever hero is duped by a scheming villain, who has eyes on the damsel in distress until
fate intervenes to ensure the triumph of good over evil. Such melodrama influenced the fledgling
film industry and led to damsels in distress being the subject of many early
silent films, especially those that were made as multi-episode
serials. Early examples include
The Adventures of Kathlyn in 1913 and
The Hazards of Helen, which ran from 1914 to 1917. The silent film heroines frequently faced new perils provided by the
Industrial Revolution and catering to the new medium's need for visual spectacle. Here we find the heroine tied to a
railway track, burning buildings, and
explosions.
Sawmills were another stereotypical danger of the Industrial age, as recorded in a popular song from a later era: {{cquote|... A bad
gunslinger called Salty Sam was chasin' poor Sweet Sue He trapped her in the old sawmill and said with an evil laugh, If you don't give me the deed to your ranch I'll saw you all in half! And then he grabbed her (and then) He tied her up (and then) He turned on the bandsaw (and then, and then...!) ...
20th century , frequently found herself in distress in
Perils of Nyoka. File:Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life.jpg|thumb|left|''Barney Oldfield's A Race for a Life'' [1913] with left to right:Hank Mann; Ford Serling; At St John and in foreground Mabel Normand in the act of saving a Damsel in distress (cover art by
Earle K. Bergey) During the
First World War, the imagery of a damsel in distress was extensively used in
Allied propaganda (see illustrations). Particularly, the Imperial German conquest and occupation of Belgium was commonly referred to as the
Rape of Belgium – effectively transforming Allied soldiers into knights bent on saving that rape victim. This was expressed explicitly in the lyrics of "
Keep the Home Fires Burning" mentioning the "boys" as having gone to help a "Nation in Distress". A form of entertainment in which the damsel-in-distress emerged as a stereotype at this time was
stage magic. Restraining attractive female assistants and imperiling them with blades and spikes became a staple of 20th century magicians' acts. Noted illusion designer and historian
Jim Steinmeyer identifies the beginning of this phenomenon as coinciding with the introduction of the "
sawing a woman in half" illusion. In 1921 magician
P. T. Selbit became the first to present such an act to the public. Steinmeyer observes that: "Before Selbit's illusion, it was not a cliche that pretty ladies were teased and tortured by magicians. Since the days of
Robert-Houdin, both men and women were used as the subjects for magic illusions". However, changes in fashion and great social upheavals during the first decades of the 20th century made Selbit's choice of "victim" both practical and popular. The trauma of war had helped to desensitise the public to violence and the emancipation of women had changed attitudes to them. Audiences were tiring of older, more genteel forms of magic. It took something shocking, such as the horrific productions of the
Grand Guignol theatre, to cause a sensation in this age. Steinmeyer concludes that: "beyond practical concerns, the image of the woman in peril became a specific fashion in entertainment". The damsel-in-distress continued as a mainstay of the comics, film, and television industries throughout the 20th century. Imperiled heroines in need of rescue were a frequent occurrence in black-and-white
film serials made by studios such as
Columbia Pictures,
Mascot Pictures,
Republic Pictures, and
Universal Studios in the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. These serials sometimes drew inspiration for their characters and plots from adventure novels and comic books. Notable examples include the character
Nyoka the Jungle Girl, whom
Edgar Rice Burroughs created for comic books and who was later adapted into a serial heroine in the Republic productions
Jungle Girl (1941) and its sequel
Perils of Nyoka (1942). Additional classic damsels in that mold were
Jane Porter, in both the novel and movie versions of
Tarzan, and Ann Darrow, as played by
Fay Wray in the movie
King Kong (1933), in one of the most iconic instances. The notorious hoax documentary
Ingagi (1930) also featured this idea, and Wray's role was repeated by
Jessica Lange and
Naomi Watts in remakes. As journalist Andrew Erish has noted: "Gorillas plus sexy women in peril equals enormous profits". Small screen iconic portrayals, this time in children's cartoons, are
Underdog's girlfriend,
Sweet Polly Purebred and Nell Fenwick, who is often rescued by inept Mountie
Dudley Do-Right. On the original
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series, the television newswoman
April O'Neil was repeatedly held captive by the evil
Shredder and often needed to be rescued by the titular turtles. The
James Bond novels of
Ian Fleming, originally published in the 1950s and 1960s, would sometimes feature the "
Bond girl" tied up by a villain and needing to be rescued by Bond, and this theme continued into a number of the films, produced from the early 1960s onward, including
Dr. No,
The Spy Who Loved Me,
Octopussy and
Spectre, all of which show Bond rescuing the female lead, who has been tied up. In some films, Bond and a female character are tied up together (for example, in
Live and Let Die and
Moonraker). In other films, Bond is shown tied up and in peril (examples include
Goldfinger,
You Only Live Twice,
The World Is Not Enough,
Casino Royale and
Skyfall) and in some cases is rescued by the female lead (such as in
Licence to Kill and
Spectre). The protagonists of the
Disney Princess franchise are often depicted as damsels in distress, with the leads of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and
Sleeping Beauty requiring rescue by Prince love interest from a witch's evil plan. Scholars have noted the emphasis on youth and femininity in these narratives: with the damsel princess being depicted as youthful and
hyperfeminine, while their witch captors are older "evil
femme fatales or ugly hags" embodying masculine traits. Frequently cited examples of a damsel in distress in comics include
Lois Lane, who was eternally getting into trouble and needing to be rescued by
Superman, and
Olive Oyl, who was in a near-constant state of kidnap, requiring her to be saved by
Popeye. Coined by
Gail Simone in 1999, "
women in refrigerators" is a
literary trope where female characters are injured, sexually assaulted, killed, or depowered (an event colloquially known as
fridging), sometimes to stimulate "protective" traits, and often as a
plot device intended to move a male character's story arc forward. The phrase is used to analyze why such plot devices are used disproportionately on female characters. It refers to an incident in
Green Lantern vol. 3 #54 (1994), written by
Ron Marz, in which
Kyle Rayner, the title hero, comes home to his apartment to find that the villain
Major Force had killed his girlfriend,
Alexandra DeWitt, and stuffed her in a refrigerator. Simone and a number of collaborators created the website
Women in Refrigerators which hosts a list of works which they believe express the trope. == Critical and theoretical responses ==