Wicked Stepmother In Pop Culture

Variations of these tales have been told and shared in different parts of the world for centuries; they’ve become a vital part of literature and pop culture. Children live and learn through these fairy tales and popular stories. Parents read these stories to their children – unknowingly instilling indications of violence and punishment. Heroines and villains alike are abused and tortured in the enjoyable classics pop culture currently reanimates. Namely, Cinderella exhibits elements of extreme violence and revenge. In variations of the classic tale, the beautiful, mother-less daughter is abused by, arguably the most famous villains, the jealous, spiteful trio: her step mother and two stepsisters. In addition to the violence and hatred inflicted

upon the main character, the stepmother and stepsisters receive their fair share of karma. From incinerating to ashes, to hideous sprouting extremities, Cinderella tales all over the world exhibit notions of revenge and persecution from and to the step mother. These are tales of right and wrong. Given her status as a villain, the wicked stepmother's chances of surviving the ending are not good. The “happily ever after” ending of most fairy tales often dwells with more detail on how the wicked stepmother was punished than on the heroine and her happiness. The wicked stepmother is always defined in relation to a surviving father's children.
In Relentless Progress: The Reconfiguration of Children’s Literature, Fairy Tales, and Storytelling, folklorist Jack Zipes argues, “While she wasn’t always wicked or always a stepmother in folklore tradition, the wicked stepmother can be found in a variety of well-known Western fairy tales.

The Brothers Grimm feature some of the best-known stepmothers… [and] the wicked stepmother has become a stock figure, a fairy-tale type that invokes a vivid image at the mention of her role—so much so that stepmothers in general have had to fight against their fairy-tale reflections. A quick Internet search for the term “wicked stepmother” will produce hundreds of websites dedicated to the plight of stepmothers fighting against the “wicked” moniker they have inherited from fairy tales” (255). According to Zipes, the stepmother plays a significant, yet unfair role in fairy tales as the abhorrent villain. Typically representations of evil included wolves, ogres, and witches, therefore suggesting that villainous stepmothers are the equivalent of wild animals and supernatural beings – entities that children have a very little chance of facing in real life. In these Cinderella-esque tales, the stepmother is expected to immediately assimilate into the new family and provide instant and unrequited love to the precious, mother-less child. However, the stepmother carries a lot of history before remarrying into a family where the father typically loves his daughter more than the new wife and

children. In the most popular versions of this story, she’s twice a widow with two children to support. She may have lost the upward mobility of her own attractiveness, but she has her daughters. If they are to advance, the stepmother must also eliminate possible rivalries. Hence Cinderella gets the short end of the stick…or broom.
Also, contrasts in personality and physical traits between the biological daughter and the stepsisters and stepmother often appear to be an element in many variations of Cinderella, where Cinderella is beautiful and soft featured compared to the persnickety stepsisters and stepmother.

In old tales, the stepmother treated her own genetic offspring differently from the offspring of her predecessor. She abused and neglected Cinderella until she was rescued. Additionally, the stepmother not only looks mean, but she also has much sharper features and slightly contorted hairstyles. Among these classics are – that don’t feature the blonde, peasant-like Cinderella western society knows today – Aleksandr Afanas’ev’s Russian tale, “Vasilisa the Beautiful.” Vasilisa’s father marries a widow with two daughters – who intend to exhaust Vasilisa in spite of her beauty. However Vasilisa, in opposite, is becoming more and more beautiful day by day, while step mother and her daughters undergo the opposite: “But Vasilisa bore all [the labor] without complaint and became lovelier and more buxom, every day, while the stepmother and her daughters grew thing and ugly from their spite, although they alwas sat with folded hands, like ladies” (Folk & Fairy Tales, 79). One night Vasilisa is sent by her wicked stepmother to fetch the light for a candle from Baba Yaga (a frightening cannibal) – with the intention of ridding the beautiful Vasilisa. Baba Yaga agrees to give her fire only when she

accomplishes few tasks. Vasilisa completes these toilsome tasks with the help of her doll (containing the spirit of her mother) and she returns to her freezing stepmother and stepsisters who urge her to come home and share the fire. However the skull senses the wickedness in her step mother and step sisters and they are burned to the ground by the light in the talking skull’s eye sockets, as a punishment for treating Vasilisa so poorly.
In the “Little Gold Star,” the stepmother favored her own children over Arcia and the day the Arcia’s father left to attain sheep in the mountains, Margarita treated Arcia poorly. Soon, with the help of talking animals Arcia is gifted a beautiful golden star on her forehead – making her stepsisters jealous. The stepsisters attempt to achieve a similar fate; however, their stubbornness and disrespect present them with a more unfavorable extremity. The stepsisters Arcia’s ill-mannered stepsisters ultimately grow a horn and a pair of donkey ears, leaving an unsightly disfigurement that costs them their beauty. The townsfolk nickname each stepsister based on their respective deformity, costing Arcia’s stepmother, Margarita, any chance of marrying her daughters to admirable suitors. However, they upon Arcia finding a suitor to marry, Margarita and her deformed daughters attend: “And everyone was invited, even the mean Margarita and her two daughters – Green Horn and Donkey Ears” (Folk & Fairy Tales, 91). As in other countless Cinderella tales, the stepmother and her daughters are villainous characters that receive punishment for their treatment of Cinderella.