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Comparing two Cinderella stories
Analysis of Cinderella's story
Literary analysis on cinderella
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“You tame pigeons, you turtle-doves, and all you birds beneath the sky, come and help me to pick the good into the pot, the bad into the crop.” (Brothers Grimm) In the Brothers Grimm Aschenputtel (Cinderella) the birds are the helpers and symbolize hope for Cinderella. She sings “Shiver and quiver, little tree, Silver and gold throw down over me” (Brothers Grimm) to them, similar to a godmother, they gave Cinderella with beautiful clothes so she could go to the ball. In the Grimm Brothers’ story the slipper is golden. In the story when Cinderella leaves and escape so, the prince set a trap and her golden slipper is left behind. The prince intentionally covered the palace in sticky pitch to stop her from leaving. In the Grimm Brothers Cinderella, Cinderella goes to her mother’s grave and cries about how bad she gets treated, she tries to satisfy her wicked step-mother by doing everything she asked for, but she is never successful. …show more content…
In the end when Cinderella and the Prince get married the sisters get brutally attacked by the birds. The Grimm brothers try to teach you the lesson that if you’re good, you will be rewarded. Out of evil never comes any good. The Grimm brothers had a different point of view. They seem to think that what you do will come back and haunt you and you can not be a sinful person and be forgiven. In both versions of Cinderella there are some differences and some similarities one of the similarities is how she had a gold and silver dress and a difference is how she left in both version in the Grimm Brothers version she left upon her own will and in the Perrault version she promised to leave the ball before
Cinderella’s true strength was shown in Ever After and Cinderella. One major part in both versions is that Cinderella attends the Prince’s ball alone. In Ever After, Danielle was persuaded by all of her friends to go to the ball, against her stepmother’s wishes, in order to tell the Prince that she is really a peasant girl. She was only pretending to be a countess to save a friend’s life. Danielle’s friend, Leonardo DaVinci, finally said to her, “If you don’t go, the Baroness wins,” (Tennant). This changed Danielle’s attitude because she was not about to let her stepmother win. In Cinderella, Cinderella just wanted to go to the ball because she had always dreamed of it. The Prince’s invitation said that every girl in the kingdom was allowed to come to the ball, so Cinderella thought that she was going to be able to go too. Aft...
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
Cinderella is a folktale that countless people can relate to, whether they completely know it or not. As Jane Yolen argues, the tale has so many different variations, which is why it has spread across the world and become so popular. It’s popularity is with people of all ages, since the story is relatable to anything that is going on. Cinderella is the adventure of a young girl, who is treated as a servant, that has the desire to attend the ball. Her stepmother and stepsisters try to keep her as far away from that ball as possible, giving her extra work and chores to do around the house. Cinderella dreams of going to the ball, until a fairy godmother appears to help her. The fairy godmother provides everything Cinderella needs to attend the ball and feel beautiful. She warns that Cinderella must be back before midnight, or else the magic will expire and her dress, shoes, etc. will
Fairytales, the short stories that most children heard as they went to bed, are actually folktales from previous decades. The fairytales today are primarily adaptations of older versions recreated by Disney— the pioneers of this generation. With that said, the modern versions consistently display good triumphing over evil, a prince charming that constantly came to the rescue, and a happily ever after ending. However, the original folktale version didn’t always come with fortunate events, but often were more violent and gruesome. With the fairytale Cinderella, Disney maintains a similar theme as its Grimm version; however, the conflicts, events, and characters that support this idea are rather different.
Even though the time periods are very different (by 200 years) the formulas for their fairy tales seems to remain constant. Character development, which is very important in fairy tales is both well done and accurately portrays the living situation for a character in the time period of when it was written. Perrault's version seems to put Cinderella's family in a higher, well-off situation of the Grimm's because she is still abided to obey the rules that her dying mother had set for her. Something that you would see a women do in the late 1600's. Her higher class and the rules of her generation has set her to not have revenge on her step-sisters and helps them marry in the end, making a happy ending to the story for everyone. This also gives off the rules of the time to the young girls who would be listening or reading this story back then. They knew their place in society and tales like Perrault's reinforced it. The Grimm's version, titled Ashenputtle, has key elements in the story line that make it very different from Perrault's Cinderella. The theme becomes very different as the end of the tale results in revenge on the step-sisters from Ashenputtle. This variation in the story line represents the setting in which the Grimm's either lived in themselves, or the living situation of the people who related this tale to the Grimm's.
Cinderella is about a beautiful young girl that is mistreated by her step family. They give her the worst chores, make her sleep in a very dirty room up in an attic, and even give her the name “Cinderella” because they say she is always playing in the cinders of the fire. Cinderella is different though because despite being mistreated, she is still very nice and warmhearted. She represents how you should act in a world full of hate. If you are nice to everyone despite their rudeness and hate you will be rewarded in the end. Since Cinderella was so nice to her step sisters throughout her whole life, when she wanted to go to the ball her fairy godmother granted her wish. Cinderella got to go to the ball and looked absolutely beautiful, beautiful enough to catch the attention of the prince. While at the ball she was still very nice to her stepsisters, giving them food and telling them how nice they looked. When the stepsisters got home from the ball that night, they explain how lovely the mysterious princess was and how they thought she was so beautiful, not knowing that the mysterious princess was Cinderella. Cinderella played it off like she knew nothing of the princess but agreed with them that she must have been very beautiful. The next day came around and the stepsisters returned to the ball the
The Grimm’s stories have strict criteria for good and evil. Good women are not the hero, they do not plan, nor do they get themselves out of bad situations; they are obtuse and wait until a Prince saves them. These qualities doom the female protagonists (and readers) to pursue the only destiny women have, and that is to be a wife and mother (Rowe, 1978). Cinderella is the heroine and the ideal good girl. She is unambiguously beautiful, kind, and compassionate. She does not complain or get angry. This is foreseen early in the Grimm’s Cinderella story:
On the other hand, Cinderella’s perspective of what is going on around her is different in both films. In the older film she has the perspective of her being a maid as a punishment. She believes that her stepmother and stepsisters do not like her and she feels mistreated. While in the new film she has a bigger perspective of her role in the household. When her stepmother and stepsisters first arrive she has a vulnerable and open heart towards them. She goes out her way to make them feel welcomed and loved no matter how much they mistreat
It is more obvious in this tale than others, but some of these aspects are the nickname of Cinderella, the evil stepfamily, the three balls, and the beautiful slipper. However, Perrault and the brothers Grimm made some parts of the story very different. In the Grimm’s version, Cinderella’s mother was very important to her and she was very important to her father, while in Perrault’s her mother is not even mentioned and her father is more attached to his new wife than he is to his daughter. Perrault described the stepsister’s as less beautiful than Cinderella, while the brothers Grimm described them as just as beautiful but with bad personalities. Another major difference was Cinderella’s magic helper. In Perrault’s story Cinderella had a fairy godmother that gave her horses, a carriage, footmen to escort her, and new beautiful clothes, and in Grimm’s story her magic helper was birds that only provided clothes. A main difference that a lot of people would notice is the fact that in the Grimm’s tale Cinderella’s slipper was made of gold, and in Perrault’s it was glass which is what most people are familiar with. The endings of the stories also differed. The Grimm’s version ended in a much darker way. Both stepsisters got their eyes pecked out and were doomed to live a life of blindness, which was clearly not a very child friendly way to end a story. In
Each person in the world has heard of Cinderella, no matter what kind of version it may be. Cinderella is the one fairy tale story that has been popular and will always be the one tale that has to be told to children. Words and story lines might be twist and turn, but in the end the knowledge of the story will be learned in similar ways. As we all know when one story is told another is created, when one is at its best then another is at its worse. One version will always be better than another, but no matter what version it might be the story will be told.
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.
Even though the two versions are extremely similar, they contain slightly different morals. When the Grimm Brothers wrote their story, the world was a different place and children did not need to be babied. That is why they chose to write such a cruel ending to their version. In the modern-day Cinderella, there is a profusion of magic and there is no violence, which is a change from the original story. By changing this and the ending, children receive a different message from the story. However, both stories give kids hope that they will live happily ever after.
This over exaggeration of the human imagination is what makes fairytales stand alone in their own category of fictional stories. Valerie Gokturk describes a fairytale as, “having magical things happen…talking animals… inanimate objects talking.” This can be seen through the Cinderella story as Cinderella is treated poorly by her new step-family, so in response she turns to frequently visiting her passed mother. Upon request, the father of Cinderella brings her a hazel twig to place on the mother’s grave. With the twig placed on the ground, a magical element comes into play as a hazel tree grows and produces birds that grant Cinderella wishes. This sense of magic is further seen as the tree produces a series of exquisite dresses that Cinderella wears to the prince’s ball. No tree of non-magic origin would be able to fully grow in such a short period of time, not to mention being able to spawn flawless dresses. The birds are seen as having a magical essence as Cinderella talks to them, instructing them to pick out the lentils out of the ash in the fireplace. This event can be seen as slightly more plausible; however, the fact that the birds can communicate with Cinderella places the series of events that unfold in a magical category. With the utilization of talking birds as well as a magical tree, it is clearly shown that the story of Cinderella has the essential element of magic that allows it to
The narrator says this to further the idea that the character of Cinderella evolves during the entire tale. She begins being this beautiful girl to this bottom-feeder only bossed around by her own family. This is significant when the stepmother takes “her beautiful clothes away” and dresses Cinderella “in an old gray smock” with “wooden shoes” (Grimm 1). This change makes the character more vulnerable in which it can make the other characters push her around more. The taking away of beauty can also show the true colors of the other characters because it shows that they are insecure. They are scared of Cinderella and by changing a simple look, it can give them the confidence to rule over her. Another personality trait that Cinderella has is the “damsel in distress” princess. This was very common in older princesses like The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel. All of these characters engulf this idea that princesses are passive, naive, innocent, easy targets, and always wanting to be rescued. For example, Cinderella never speaks up to her stepmother. Many older princesses were commonly known for doing nothing and letting stuff happen around them. As a result, the quote illustrates certain personality traits that are common in
In Snow White, she does not serve as a servant to her stepmother, but has to escape from her envious stepmother to survive. Then she lives in the forest with seven dwarfs who take care of her after she is deserted in the forest. However, Snow White is still seduced by her stepmother three times. This shows that Snow White is vulnerable because she trusts a stranger easily. Moreover, the way Snow White gets saved by the prince is different from Cinderella because she gets saved after she was buried in a glass coffin. Her envious stepmother gets punished by fire when she attends Snow White and the Prince’s wedding. On the other hand, Cinderella lives with her stepmother and two stepsisters who mistreat her. She can’t escape from their curse and is treated as a maid. She meets the prince before she goes to the ball when he tries to steal her father’s horse. She isn’t permitted to go to the ball, but her childhood friend helps her out. She gets saved by the prince when she fits in her slipper, and her wick stepmother and older stepsister get punished by the king to work as laundry maids for the rest of their