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

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

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