Character Analysis

It is hard for me to distinguish exactly what it is about the eldest daughter of The Twelve Dancing Princesses with which I identify most.  In any case, there must be some reason for the strong attachment I feel to this story and the way in which her character strikes me.  Perhaps, the mere fact that I am the eldest of my siblings brings me the greatest sense of connection with this character.  It could also be the way in which she is the leader of the girls, persuading them to follow her into the night to dance with inhumanly handsome men until their shoes are worn.  On that note, perhaps it is simply the love of dancing with which I identify.  I relate to the burning desire these girls feel to escape the stresses of their own lives through dancing.  Escape is not the right word.  It is a way to channel all that you are feeling into this one form of powerful and invigorating expression.  It is the way in which you feel you have control over your body, but at the same time allow your body a certain amount of control over your internal self.  I understand how someone might get lost in that high and allow several mediocre suitors to lose their heads or their ears, depending upon the version with which you are familiar.

In terms of leadership, I have always been more of an outgoing, comedic, overbearing type, than a quiet, do-what-I’m-told, keep to myself kind of girl.  Although I have adapted those traits more with age, I am still very much the same girl.  I love to act and sing and dance and play sports and hike and explore and be active in any way possible.  I suppose it is my itch for change and activity that makes me like the eldest of the sisters.  Since she is the oldest, I assume that she initiated this tradition that so greatly contradicts the norm by which twelve princesses are thought to live.  By instigating this tradition, she is demonstrating such an itch for variation in a monotonous lifestyle.  I cannot conceive of having to live such a life, and although I am not the rebellious type, I imagine I would be if such constraints were placed on me in daily life.  I am not sure which of these characteristics it is that I feel connects me most to this character, whose name I don’t even know.  It is most clearly a connection with the story of twelve girls and this burning desire and ability to enter an imaginary world in which my love for dance and the metaphorical experience of dance illustrate themselves.