Charles Perrault’s Cinderella

1319 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Compare contrast two versions of cinderella

In "Cinderella" by Charles Perrault, the story depicts an imaginative fairytale through the hardships of a mistreated daughter and the magic of a fairy; in essence, Cinderella demonstrates that focusing on materialism is more important and more effective other than working up the path to majesty. Cinderella is a character who is often mistreated by her stepmother and god sisters. Bearing unsuitable personalities, they treat her harshly, leaving all of the chores to her. However, she admits that her tattered clothes are not worthy of a formal event, and continues to be belittled by her stepsisters. Portrayed with low self-esteem and insecurity, she does not respond harshly to their cruel insults. As a result, the main character relies on romanticizing her dream of going to the ball with the help of magic by her fairy godmother.
In the beginning, Cinderella is represented as the maid of the entire home. Readers can identify her as the image of a young woman submissive to the will of her stepmother and stepsisters. She does not argue with them, but only obey, which causes her to appear weak. With a position as the housemaid in the family, she inspires young girls to behave like a lady by treating others equally in kindness and in virtues, hopefully achieving such beauty of character. This could reassure that someday, girls would be able to obtain a Prince strongly enough to marry her. As stated by Kuykendal, “Fractured fairy tales challenge gender stereotypes and patriarchal ideologies only at the story level of the text”. The stepsisters referred to her as ‘Cinderwench’ since she’s sporadically tasked with household chores such as scrubbing the floors, cleaning the bedrooms, and more. Many of these tasks can be traced back to the ...

... middle of paper ...

...s-to-scary-for-children/>.
Perrault, Charles. "Cinderella, Or the Little Glass Slipper." Tales of Mother Goose. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1956. 2-18. Print.
Hühn, Peter, and Jens Kiefer. "Realistic and Fantastic Schemata." The Narratological Analysis of Lyric Poetry: Studies in English Poetry from the 16th to the 20th Century. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2005. 216-18. Print.
Kuykendal, Leslee, and Brian Sturn. "We Said Feminist Fairy Tales, Not Fractured Fairy Tales!" Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children 5.3 (2007): 38-41. Print.
Lambert, Ellen Zetzel. "Beauty and Identity." The Face of Love: Feminism and the Beauty Question. Boston: Beacon, 1995. 78-81. Print.
Robbins, Alexandra. "The Fairy-Tale Facade: Cinderella's Anti-Grotesque Dream." Journal of Popular Culture 32.3 (1998): 101-15. ProQuest. Print.

Show More
Related

  • American Poets: Biography of E. E. Cummings

    1546 Words  | 4 Pages

    Everett, Nicholas From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamiltong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.

    Read More

  • Essay on Fate in Beowulf, Grendel, and Macbeth

    2183 Words  | 5 Pages

    Raffel, Burton. and Alexandra H. Olsen Poems and Prose from the Old English, (Yale University Press)Robert Bjork and John Niles,

    Read More

  • A Girl A Shoe, A Prince: The Endlessly Evolving Cinderella

    1585 Words  | 4 Pages

    It all begins with “Once upon a time” and ends with “and they lived happily ever after”. “Cinderella” is a very widely known story that many children around the world look up to and admire through their entire life. The history of this story, how scholars interpret this tale, and how the authors have retold the story are all key points to keeping this story fresh and popular. Most of the time when people hear the story of “Cinderella”, they think about the Disney version and maybe it is time that changes. All in all, the story brings light to everyone’s life even if they only know the original “Cinderella”.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Catherine Orenstein's 'Cinderell Not So Morally Superior'

    1243 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the article, “Fairy Tales and a Dose of Reality,” Catherine Orenstein attempts to show the contrast between the modern romanticism of marriage and the classic fairy tale’s presentation of them (285). She looks at the aristocratic motivations for marriage and the way these motivations are prominent in Cinderella. She then looks at the 20th century to highlight the innate difference of our mentalities, showing a much more optimistic and glorified relationship. In the article, “Cinderella: Not So Morally Superior,” Elisabeth Panttaja claims that Cinderella’s success can be attributed to her craftiness (288). She shows her and her mother as an equal to the stepfamily, analyzing each family’s goals and values. She attempts to show their similarities,

    Read More

  • Comparing Two Versions of Cinderella

    446 Words  | 1 Pages

    Over centuries of children have been enjoying the classic fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers and Charles Perrault. The fanciful plots and the vivid details allow children to be entranced by characters and adventures that can only be found in these stories. One of the most beloved fairy tales, which both the Perrault and the Grimms have their own separate versions of, is Cinderella. Cinderella is able to show how both versions are able to feed off the same plots while personifying the century and social economic situation in which they have lived.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Cinderella And A Loss Of Father-Love By Jacqueline Schectman

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cinderella is a childhood fairytale created through Disney that highlights fairy godmother magic, animated nature with talking animals, and happily ever after ending. While the latent meaning we grow

    Read More

  • Cinderella : A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts, by Bruno Bettelheim

    1475 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bettelheim, Bruno. ""Cinderella" A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipial Conflicts." Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment. 1976. 279-282.

    Read More

  • Gender Conflicts In The Girl With Bangs By Zadie Smith

    956 Words  | 2 Pages

    A young girl is forced to live with her step-mother and step-sisters after her father and mother die. She becomes the maid of the family, tending to their every need. Eventually there is a ball; she acquires a fairy Godmother, goes to the ball, falls in love with the prince, blah blah blah. All you really need to know is that she has a happy ending. A happy ending. No matter how much suffering she went through in her early years, at the end, it all came together and she had no more worries. And this is the problem. Cinderella is not realistic. It never was and never will be. Watching this movie when I was young made me believe there was a prince waiting for me somewhere. I grew up thinking that life was simple and uncomplicated, that I did not need to worry about the future because there was a man that would provide everything I wanted and needed. But as I got older, I realized this was not the case. I saw many of my friend’s parents divorce, people die, and the world fight with each other. My fantasy died off, and I realized I had to work hard for myself, and not others. The poem Cinderella by Anne Sexton made fun of the ending of Cinderella. She states, “Cinderella and the prince / lived … happily ever after … / their darling smiles pasted on for eternity. / Regular Bobbsey Twins. / That story.” (Sexton 11). Notice who she referenced and how she has a sarcastic tone. Cinderella and the prince smiled for others, trying to convince

    Read More

  • Comparison of Two Versions of Cinderella: Grimm vs. Perrault

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    A lot of the fairy tale stories that we have seen as young adults and even as adults are original folk tale stories that have been modified and rewritten to accommodate our new cultures. Cinderella happens to be one of these stories that have been changed over the years. There are many different versions of Cinderella, an African Cinderella, a Hungarian Cinderella and even a Chinese version. All of the Cinderella’s are similar in plot, but the author dictates the story’s theme based on the people whom he is writing for which completely changes the story’s tone, mood and other elements. While Perrault's version stresses the values and materialistic worries of his middle-class audience, Grimm’s' focus is on the harsh realities of life associated with the peasant culture. Perrault’s and Grimm’s Cinderella’s have the same plot, but their writing style is different which completely modifies the tale.

    Read More

  • Comparison Of Cinderella By Charles Perrault And Giambattista Basile

    1055 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Cinderella” the tale of a suffering young girl who finds her prince charming, and lives happily ever after in a big beautiful castle. Truly, the dream of many young female readers. This story is well known all around the world and has many different versions. This paper will specifically focus on the versions by Charles Perrault and Giambattista Basile. One cannot argue that while writing their individual version of Cinderella both Charles Perrault and Giambattista Basile were strongly influenced by the many other tales of Cinderella, and this can be seen by the repetitive plot line, character and morals in both their stories. Giambattista Basile story was called “The Cat Cinderella” and Charles Perrault named his “Cinderella” or “Little Glass

    Read More

  • Feminism and Fairy Tales

    1259 Words  | 3 Pages

    A prolific exemplification of the ideal female virtues portrayed in fairy tales is Charles Perrault’s “ The Little Glass Slipper”. Perrault presents the ideal female fairy tale character through his portrayal of Cinderella. Cinderella is a tame and forgiving individual who subjects herself to the will of her father, stepmother and s...

    Read More

  • What the Cinderella Story Has to Teach Young Girls

    1423 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bettelheim, Bruno. “’Cinderella’: A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts”. Behrens and Rosen 651-657.

    Read More

  • A Two Tale Comparison

    1449 Words  | 3 Pages

    of the Cinderella story are psychologically harmful to women.” (p648). The fact that Cinderella is a limited character may give the girl an impression that she should be happy with what she has and not have any or aspirations in her life. That is, until her Prince comes to rescue her. Since these comments were made, the Cinderella story has been modified and changed. In order to see how gender roles have changed in fairy tales from the old to the new, let’s compare the classic version of Cinderella by Charles Perrault to a recent version which is a movie that was released in 1998 called “Ever After”which was directed by Andy Tennant.

    Read More

  • Cinderella Literary Analysis

    712 Words  | 2 Pages

    The story teaches us that society expects women to be passive. Cinderella’s abuse by her stepsisters and stepmother cause her to live in grief silently without expressing her emotions. She does nothing to fight for her freedom except sing about all the dreams of happiness that she hopes will come true someday. She only wishes for things to change rather than attempt to do anything to change it for herself. Cinderella waits to be rescued by Prince Charming instead of fighting for her own freedom. This teaches women that they should suffer in silence without doing anything for themselves.

    Read More

  • Cinderella Character Analysis

    1002 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cinderella’s mother passed away and her father remarried a woman who had two daughters from a previous marriage. A few weeks passed and a prince is holding a three day festival and all the beautiful young girls in the town were invited. Cinderella wanted to go but her evil stepmother gave her two impossible tasks to complete before she could attend the festival. Cinderella completes the two tasks with the help of her bird friends and her mother’s grave. Cinderella goes to the festival and she dances with the prince all three days. Finally, the prince has fallen in love with her and eventually they get married. Fairytales and Disney productions threaten gender politics and women’s role by portraying women in certain areas like domestic behaviors

    Read More

More about Charles Perrault’s Cinderella

Open Document