Cinderella Short Story Analysis

For centuries, “Cinderella” stories have told a similar tale, a parent is lost and replaced, the main character struggles to make way in their new life until they find help and eventually reach happily ever after. Historically, these stories explained social differences, taught moral lessons and entertained readers, but these tales have not always been the nicest to the stepfamilies involved, but continue to be told. “Cinderella” stories have been creating a false image of the step family for centuries, not all step-parents want to destroy their spouse’s offspring to benefit their own.

In the traditional Cinderella stories, the readers or listeners are introduced to the horrors of life with a step family. The stories depict the additional

In this version, Cinderella’s biological mother dies and the father takes to a new wife who has two daughters. This new family dynamic forces her out of her old life, they make her their servant rather than a family member. Readers immediately learn of the motives behind the characters, and recognize the horrible things that they do. “They were beautiful, with fair faces, but evil and dark hearts. Times soon grew very bad for the poor stepchild.”(Grimm21). In this story, it is not only one evil mother figure but an entire family, the stepmother being just as cruel as the two stepsisters, she goes to ridiculous lengths to ensure that Cinderella cannot attend the ball. “However, because Cinderella kept asking, the stepmother finally said, "I have scattered a bowl of lentils into the ashes for you. If you can pick them out again in two hours, then you may go with us."”(Grimm 23). Chores like these became the norm for Cinderella in her new

In most fairy tales, this character is played by a fairy godmother, and in Harry Potter it is Hagrid. These surrogate moms show the character hope and bring to them a sense of family coming from and outside source.

These ideas are molded into society and there are very few stories to tell children where the stepmother is not the villain. Most fairytales express the ideas of an evil stepmother and the main character must seek help from someone outside of the family, never do you hear of the stepmother being the one to help the character through her conflict rather than being the main source of it. Characters such as fairy godmothers or animals are created to assist the “Cinderella” character and help them escape from the issues of their family lives and find their happily ever