In the morning, the mysterious woman tells her hosts that she endured a rather restless night, kept awake by something in the bed that made her feel uncomfortable.

According to Zipes and other writers, this tendency found expression in Andersen's stories, where people like the princess undergo ordeals to prove their virtuousness.

[3] While a 1905 article in the American Journal of Education recommended the story for children aged 8–10,[4] "The Princess and the Pea" was not uniformly well received by critics.

Toksvig wrote in 1934, "[the story] seems to the reviewer not only indelicate but indefensible, in so far as the child might absorb the false idea that great ladies must always be so terribly thin-skinned.

In fact, critic Paul Hazard pointed out the realistic aspects of the fairy tale that make it easily relatable to all people.

He believed that "the world Andersen witnessed—which encompassed sorrow, death, evil and man's follies—is reflected in his tales," and most evidently in "The Princess and the Pea."

Another scholar, Niels Kofoed, noticed that “since they involve everyday-life themes of love, death, nature, injustice, suffering and poverty, they appeal to all races, ideologies, classes and genders.” Moreover, Celia Catlett Anderson realized that one of the things that makes this story so appealing and relatable is that optimism prevails over pessimism, especially for the main character of the princess.

[6] In 1927, German composer Ernst Toch published an opera based on "The Princess and the Pea", with a libretto by Benno Elkan.

[7] Reportedly this opera was very popular in the American student repertoires;[8] the music, as well as the English translation (by Marion Farquhar), were praised in a review in Notes.

A television adaptation of "The Princess and the Pea" starred Liza Minnelli in a Faerie Tale Theatre episode in 1984.

After the boy enters a castle and is given a bed of straw for the night he tosses and turns in his sleep, attempting to guard his treasure.