A Complex Princess : The Evolving Story Of Cinderella

The story of Cinderella is one in which I’m sure you’re all familiar with. How this relates the the method of narrative chaining though maybe not so much. Narrative chaining is the technique of devising a story utilising all material in an attempt to remember the words and then recall them in the future. Essentially it is a simple mnemonic strategy that links unrelated items in a process called chaining to create a sequence of meaningful information know as a narrative or story. Adding organization and meaningfulness to an otherwise unconnected list.

Judging from most classic fairy tales, a prerequisite for being the heroine of the story is being incredibly beautiful. Beauty, in life as well as literature, is incredibly valued. To be beautiful is to be good and vice versa. This line of thinking is well-represented in classic fairy tales. “Cinderella” by Lin Lan is one of the best examples of how a piece of literature, as well as a society, sees the relationship between virtue and physical attractiveness. Lin Lan’s Cinderella, as with many fairy tales, believes that beauty and goodness are strongly correlated, shows this through the characters and how other characters value beauty, and represents the opposite as well: to be evil is to be ugly. This point of view shown in “Cinderella” is

Have you ever had a dark and gloomy day? Imagine having that feeling every single day. The Grimm’s Cinderella was written in 1812. 1812 was one of the harshest years for America. An event that formed it was the war against Great Britain and the United States. Not only was there a war, but there was also a series of disastrous harvests. Taxes got higher, and more than twenty people who were involved with a Luddite Act were hung. In 1812, there was also the only assassination of a prime minister, who was shot dead in the House of Commons. The Grimm Brothers have put the dark times of 1812 into their stories. Some of their stories contain violence, child abuse, and wicked mothers. They came up with these types of stories after their father died, and when they struggled out of school. That gave them enough time to research and put together a collection of folk tales. Now you can see why the Grimm’s Cinderella was dark and gloomy. Although the plot stayed the same, over the years, the story did get lighter. Disney’s Cinderella came out in 1950. In 1950, learning information was not by fear, but by engaging happiness. Disney’s Cinderella transforms the Grimm’s Cinderella into a happier atmosphere. While some similarities between Disney’s Cinderella and Grimm’s Cinderella are noticeable, the differences are pronounced, especially when referring to the slippers, her father, and the ball.

A fairytale that almost everyone knows is Cinderella. Cinderella is about a young girl whose father decides to remarry after her mother dies. The women who he remarries is evil with two evil daughters. As Cinderella's father is out of town for various things the evil step-mom makes Cinderella do all the chores. They treat her like a servant rather than someone apart of the family. Since Cinderella has no friends she becomes friends with animals who help her complete her daily chores. One day they receive an invitation to a ball. Cinderella is allowed to go if she completes a set of chores but Cinderella ends up staying home while her stepmother and stepsisters go to the ball. Cinderella's fairy godmother shows up and makes her beautiful (changes her dress, etc) but says she has to be home at midnight because her beautiful dress will disappear and she'll go back to her old self. She goes to the ball and the prince falls in love with her but she has to leave at the strike of midnight. As she is running out of the ball she loses one of her glass slippers. The prince searches town for Cinderella. He then finally finds her and they live happily ever after.

What people see is not necessarily all they get; there are more significant aspects that encompass what people use, hear, or see, besides the obvious messages employed throughout popular culture. It is not uncommon to find hidden messages within our culture today, especially in the context of movies. One movie in particular, the newest Cinderella, is full of these hidden messages. Besides the common message that is employed throughout Cinderella over and over again, the message to “have courage and be kind”, there are several hidden meanings that are often not discovered by viewers. These messages include “being a light” when surrounded on all sides by darkness, believing in the unbelievable, recognizing the fact that parent’s greatly influence their children, and seeing that it is okay to want a happily ever after kind of love.

Authors James Poniewozik and Peggy Orenstein are both concerned with the increase of princess culture among young girls. Poniewozik’s article “The Princess Paradox” and Orenstein's article “Cinderella and Princess Culture” discuss similar aspects of princess culture that could be potentially harmful to it’s audience. Both Poniewozik and Orenstein take on a feminist perspective in their articles. Specifically, both authors discuss feminist themes in princess culture but Orenstein focuses on toddler to pre-teen aged girls while Poniewozik is more concerned with specifically teenagers.

There is nothing more precious and heartwarming than the innocence of a child. The majority of parents in society want to shield children from the bad in life which is appreciated. Within human nature exists desires of inappropriate behavior; envy, deceit, selfishness, revenge, violence, assault and murder. The most well-known fairy tales depict virtue and the evil in life. Even more important, the form and structure of fairy tales suggest images to the child by which he can structure his daydreams and with them give a better direction to his life. (Bettelheim).

Fairy tales like Snow White and Cinderella both contain the struggle of good vs. evil. The struggle of good vs evil in these tales teaches us that good always prevails over evil. The fairy tales often times contain common elements that represent good and evil in the story. Both of these tales show the good and evil elements in similar forms. Both tales have the same outcomes where good prevails and they live happily ever after. These tales expose important concepts like good and bad for young readers. Tales such as these two can also teach young readers about good and bad things in life and ways of handling them.

Cinderella, by the Brothers Grimm, described the life of a maiden named Cinderella. Born to a loving family, Cinderella’s life had drastically changed when her ailing mother had perished from her disease. After the death of Cinderella’s mother, her father had married another woman, who had two daughters. Unfortunately, Cinderella’s step-mother and step-sisters were cruel to Cinderella, forcing her to wear rags and perform chores. Instead of voicing the abuse, Cinderella submissively endured the appalling treatment and had her value reduced to a servant. As years progressed, the king organized an extravagant ball for three days, designed to attract the prince to the maidens in the ball. Even though Cinderella desperately wanted to attend the ball, because of the cruelty of her step-sisters, Cinderella remained meek and was warned she would be severely punished if she didn’t sort the lentils. Rather than performing the task and arguing for her freedom, Cinderella wept and was helped by the pigeons. As the ball continued, the step-sisters were discontent with the completion of their tasks, so they resumed to mistreat Cinderella by requesting her to complete further preposterous tasks. However, the pigeons would resume assisting Cinderella, even advising her to shake the tree on her mother’s grave for the appropriate attire to attend the ball. Thanks to the pigeons and the tree, Cinderella attended the ball and established herself as the candidate of the prince’s affection,

The Cinderella Complex Introduction: Throughout the years, Disney movies have always been known to teach children beneficial lessons to use in society. Walt Disney once said, “Movies can and do have tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood.” Walt Disney was correct because young minds often try to mimic what they see on television. Disney movies seem harmless as a whole. However, when broken down and analyzed, the inspirational lessons prove to be contradicted by the actions and characteristics of the well known characters in the movie.

The two stories of “Cinderella” are “Tam and Cam”; and “The twelve Months: A Slav legend adapted by Alexander Chodzko. These stories have similar ways in portraying the hard working Cinderella including her suffering, but they are different in Cinderella’s motive of rescue one tale use violence if necessary; the other just more of a genuine resourceful approach. This means this character isn’t relying on a prince charming to be her rescue, so this makes the concept different from the other because “Tam and Cam” Cinderella lives forever happy with her lover, while “The twelve Months: A Slav legend adapted lives by herself and then a farmer she likes shows up. These tales went for a more sophisticated setting, each displaying the peasant overcoming the struggle; in which she is set free from all of her hurting. Throughout each story Cinderella is taking and caring she always seemed to get the short end of the stick. But, when the odds back fired on the step-sisters and step-mother the karma was naturally set upon to benefit Cinderella in her favor “Tam and Cam” or set in motion by her as payback to get even with her rival characters of a family in “The twelve Months: A Slav legend adapted lives.

With the power the step-mother has obtained, she utilizes it in order to oppress Cinderella as she is forced to become a maid within her own place of dwelling. For this reason, it causes Cinderella to become apart of an inferior level. Cinderella continues to stay passive and an inactive contributor within her life. Not resorting to the chance of rebelling or escaping the unfortunate situation. But even so, some may insist upon her attempting to break free as a form of escaping, yet she does not use it for instead she choses to wait in order to be saved. In view of that, Cinderella is presented as a goodhearted, but submissive character in need of rescuing. Above all, both the step-mother and Cinderella are seen as stereotypical characters. In fact the step-mother is showcased to hold great power, thus being a vision of dark evil ways. Much less, Cinderella and her character is not endowed with any power whatsoever, thus being looked upon as a good hearts and beautiful person inside and out. Accordingly this represents the message of female characters and power relationships between them. Being that those with power are seen as evil, while on the other hand those who have no power are meant to be good. Therefore a happy ending is give to those powerless, instead of female individuals with

     When examining adaptations of fairytales you must look at the original source. This can be a very difficult task because with fairytales we never really know where the original came from. I will base my paper on the theory that the original tale of Cinderella comes from the Grimm Brothers version of Ashputtle. In comparison we will examine two movies. First there is the Disney version Cinderella. Secondly we will look at the movie 'Ever After'.

There are many fairy tales out there and they all focus in teaching many of the different life lessons. Honestly, I was never the fairy tale reading type just because I really did not read much as a child. There was a couple fairy tales I became familiar with because I have two younger siblings. They really enjoyed watching these two fairy tale’s movies, which were Cinderella and The Little Mermaid. Since these are the only fairy tales that I can say I’m familiar with these will be the ones that I will be discussing further. In these fairy tales, there are two very important lessons to be learned. In Cinderella fairy tale, the lesson to be learned is that even when faced with the worst behavior from other people and the fact that you

In “Cinderella: Not So Morally Superior,” Elisabeth Panttaja makes a claim that the Grimms’ version of “Cinderella” provides reasons that Cinderella may not have been so fortunate due to her being “good and pious.” One main point that she discusses within the article is the mother/daughter relationship Cinderella shares with her deceased mother, in comparison to the mother/daughter relationship shared between the stepmother and stepsisters. Panttaja argues that the mothers in each relationship are both motivated by the same thing, “to ensure a future of power and prestige for their daughter” (Panttaja). Panttaja continues to identify how both mothers’ motives are similar, but her argument falters when she attempts to bring Cinderella’s