A modern adaptation of Rapunzel

We have recently been tasked with analyzing the old aspects of fairytales, and I was given the fairytale Rapunzel. It is a story about a girl being trapped in a tower by a witch. However, we are also modernizing the ones given to us, so I needed to modernize Rapunzel. In this post, I will show you the modern version of Rapunzel that has been adapted to fit our society. Below is the first paragraph:

Once upon a time, there was a young couple who had a naughty child named Rapunzel. Rapunzel’s house was in an urban area and had many solar panels on the roof, which produced enough electricity to sustain itself. In their backyard, there was a beautiful view of a huge abandoned skyscraper. Ever since Rapunzel was 3, he loved to sit in his backyard and enjoy the outdoors. His parents did not believe in nature though, and always said: “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, go on your phone!” Ever since then, all Rapunzel has done every day is go on his phone and check his social media. He made sure to check his Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

Here, the young means that they are naive and are not aware of the dangers of social media. The solar panels are referring to how we are using harmful ways to produce energy, and solar panels are a renewable source of energy. In the original tale, Rapunzel was trapped in a tower. Here, in the first paragraph, the “tower” is already introduced, that being the skyscraper to make it more modern. Here, his parents were the bad ones, encouraging him to go on his phone and [spoiler alert] ultimately leading him to being trapped.

One day, Rapunzel saw a beautiful girl following him on Instagram. Her name was simply a heart emoji. It seemed that Rapunzel and this mystery girl had the same interests, and they started talking. They talked about all sorts of things, and the user always replied back really quickly. After two weeks, they became the best of friends, and the beautiful girl sent Rapunzel images of how pretty she looked. One day, the beautiful girl invited Rapunzel on a skyscraper date! Rapunzel, believing that he found a secret admirer, giddily told his parents about it. His parents thought that it would be a fantastic experience for Rapunzel, and bought Rapunzel some gifts he could give to his secret admirer.

This is where the plot reveals itself. Rapunzel gets catfished, which is another modern thing, and the parents are encouraging him, thinking that it’s a good idea to meet up with a stranger online and even buying gifts for him. The next paragraphs shows how ill the judgement of his parents are:

Excited to meet his online friend, Rapunzel left for the skyscraper as soon as his parents bought the gifts. While Rapunzel was walking to the location, his secret admirer was secretly watching him from the top. As Rapunzel’s steps echoed throughout the empty skyscraper, he called out “Hello? Is anyone here?” before hearing a loud creaking noise followed by a slam behind him. The door has shut.

It was dark at the bottom of the building, so Rapunzel quickly went up the elevator. At the top, he found an entrance to a yellow room with worn mono-yellow walls, inconsistently placed fluorescent lighting, scattered electrical outlets and an old moist carpets. Rapunzel panicked and quickly opened his phone, only to find it out of battery. The day was rapidly ending, and Rapunzel found Rampions growing all over the building’s walls. “Ew, I’m not going to eat that!” he said.

These paragraphs are about how Rapunzel is trapped in the skyscrapper. It is also a reference to the Backrooms, which is an urban legend, once again giving the story that modern detail. Rapunzel panicked and immediately opened his phone, showing his dependency on technology. Rapunzel also said “Ew, I’m not going to eat that!”, showing his disgust for vegetables, once hinting at the fact that he is spoiled and ill-brought up.

After a few hours, Rapunzel could not find the girl and grew hungry. Eventually, he was starving. He finally worked up the courage to pluck some rampion from the walls. He tentatively bit into the first one, and it resembled radish, but with very little flavour. He made a face and proceeded to try the leaves, only to realize that they tasted like the spinach that his parents always tried to make him eat. “Ugh, this ain’t bussin, it’s disgustin!” said Rapunzel, making a face. Nevertheless, he was still hungry, so he continued to indulge in the rampion.

Days passed, and Rapunzel was bored to death. He had nothing to do, and he desperately tried to find a way out. Rapunzel was trapped. After searching floor after floor, he eventually reached the bottom. He saw that there was a trail of footprints imprinted into the carpet that he had not seen before. After following the footprints, they led him into a corridor.

Suddenly, a hunched hooded figure appeared and said, “you little kids on your phones! All of you will believe anything!!! Hahahahah!!!” she laughed. The hunched figure took rapunzel by the head and threw him further into the skyscraper.

Since then, Rapunzel has done a lot of thinking. He realized that he was tricked by social media, and started wondering whether he owned social media or if it owned him? As time passed, his beautiful dreadlocks grew long, and he always liked looking out the window.

That was a long bit, and there’s quite a few things to take away from here. In the first paragraph, Rapunzel referenced something that is trending right now, and the second and third paragraph are basically the witch revealing herself. The last paragraph is meant to inspire readers, allowing them to think whether they are being controlled by technology or not.

One day, a girl saw his beautiful long hair flowing down the skyscraper. The girl worked at a window cleaning company, and one day, she was assigned to clean the skyscraper’s windows! She was incredibly excited to meet Rapunzel. So, she left for the skyscraper immediately. When she arrived at the main entrance, she was greeted by the hooded figure. “State your name and purpose here,” the hooded figure said. The girl responded by saying “Oh hello! I’m Jackie, the window cleaner.”

Jackie started to clean the skyscraper’s windows. It was incredibly tiring and Jackie grew anxious as she slowly went up, floor by floor. When she almost reached the top of the skyscraper, she could see Rapunzel’s long locks. “It’s beautiful!” she remarked. When she reached the top, both Rapunzel and Jackie exclaimed, “AAHHHHHHH!!!! WHO ARE YOU!?!?!” They were both surprised by each other’s presence, and they introduced themselves to each other.

We are nearing the climax of the story now. The window cleaner is the one that rescues Rapunzel, but she is going to meet troubles along the way. In most of the old fairytales, it was always a damsel in distress and a male comes and saves them, but here we changed it and made it the opposite.

They both felt love at first sight! So Jackie and Rapunzel sat down together and Rapunzel explained the situation he was in. “So…. I’m kind of in a pickle. I’ve been trapped here, and I can’t find a way out!” Rapunzel said. So they both thought long and hard and after a couple of minutes, Jackie suddenly had an epiphany. “I’VE GOT IT!” said Jackie, “We should get out using my window cleaning lift!” “But there isn’t enough space for me on the lift…” he uttered. But Jackie had all of it planned out. They were going to tie Rapunzel’s hair to the lift and get down that way.

But it wasn’t as easy as that. The hooded figure grew suspicious since Jackie had been up there for hours. So the hooded person pulled out a crystal orb and began a ritual. “Magic orb, magic orb, what is taking the cleaner so long?” Said the figure. “Thee shouldst go up and check, witch, for I feareth a storm is brewing,” answered the orb. So the witch went up, floor by floor, to search for the window cleaner. Once she arrived at the top, she exclaimed in terror, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING! NO ONE ESCAPES ME!” and she suddenly moved like lightning, grabbed Rapunzel’s hair and pulled Rapunzel back. She then pushed Jackie away and warned, “If you approach my building or Rapunzel ever again, I’ll send you on a trip to Belize!”

Although we needed to make the stories fit today’s audience, there must always be some kind of magic involved. Here, the witch asked a magical crystal orb to know things, adding that captivating element to the story.

Terrified of the witch, Jackie ran back onto the lift, afraid to ever come back. However, her sense of responsibility and compassion for Rapunzel nagged and tugged at her. She desperately wanted to help, and she scanned her lift in despair, looking for an item that may help. Suddenly, her eyes lit up. She spotted a spray bottle full of bleach, and she jumped back in, determined to help. The witch was just dragging Rapunzel away when she shouted “STOP!”. The witch turned around, just as Jackie held the spray bottle like a gun and sprayed bleach right into the witch’s eye. “BULL’S EYE!” She said, as the witch screamed and clawed her eyes. “My bad, I meant witch’s eye,” she giggled. She then sprayed four more times in each eye, making sure that the witch can’t see them.

Here we are, the climax of the story. Jackie used a bleach spray bottle (You guessed it, modern theme) and blinded the witch. I also incorporated a little joke into it, adding that sense of humor that is often not amiss in fairytales.

“Quick, let’s get out of here!” exclaimed Rapunzel. Jackie grabbed his hands and together, they ran back. Jackie got onto the lift and tied Rapunzel’s hair using a slipknot. “Are you afraid of heights?” asked Jackie. “Nope, I’ve been trapped here for too long, I’d appreciate a thrill,” sighed Rapunzel. “Alright, hold onto the bars from the outside,” said Jackie, “and I’ll operate this”. They slowly went down, looking into each other’s eyes as the witch screamed above “I’ll never forget this!! I’ll make you brats pay!!!”.

After that, the whole media heard about it. Rapunzel now gives ted-talks and presentations about the dangers of social media. He became very famous for that, but even more for his amazing hair. Jackie also got a lot of attention, being praised for being brave and coming up with such a good solution. Soon, they got married and had a child, and they definitely warned him about the dangers of social media as well as other life lessons and they all lived happily ever after.

After the villain is defeated, there will be some kind of conclusion along with a “happily ever after”, which is what happened here. Rapunzel now gives ted-talks and presentations, which is referring to a recent presentation about the dangers of technology that we recently had. Throughout the story, the dangers of social media was emphasized to give the reader a better sense of what social media is and the pros and cons of it.