Anthological, Psychological, and Socialogical Analysis of Cinderella

This is a battle not of beauty, but of material. The prince does not recognize the face of Cinderella, only the gown she is wearing, making this fight for marriage one based on the clothing on the girls’ backs (288). While Cinderella comes home from the ball, her mother is hard at work making sure she is not seen for who she really is. Panttaja claims, “...it is quite possible that we are meant to see the mother's influence also at work in the rather mysterious way that Cinderella manages to avoid too-early detection” (287). This symbolizes how hard Cinderella's mother is working and how little it matters that Cinderella is pious and

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.

The author explains early on the initial absence of Cinderella’s mother proposes a sign of disempowerment. This in term changes the events of the story and leaves Cinderella bewildered with her stepmother and stepsister. Cinderella has the advantage that her mother is now a form of power through symbolism and is now a magical figure. The author explains that there are similarities between Cinderella and her mother and the stepdaughters and their mother because each child is trying to perform to impress ones maternal figure. This creates tension between Cinderella and the stepdaughters through competition for the ball to attend with a prince. The author explains firmly that “Cinderella is also a competitor, she plots and schemes, and she wins.

The Grimm Brothers version of Cinderella is a written down oral story that people passed down from generation to generation, meant to teach a lesson about piety and good behavior. Before the Grimm Brothers ever wrote it down, the story had been told several times by memory. It is thus not surprising that the descriptions of certain events in the story, such as the way Cinderella went to the Ball, are lacking in details. It is obvious that these parts of the story are unimportant to the overall message of the story. Instead, it focuses on the piety of Cinderella and the wickedness of the step-sisters. Through the events of the story, it becomes obvious that the goodness of Cinderella is justly rewarded, and that

The Prince stereotypes the role of women being in need of a destined lover. He is the one that identifies Cinderella as the one in the dress, though excluding behavior, her appearance dazzles him for two nights at the ball. Most importantly, he’s not the hero of the fairytale, but readers can interpret the fairy godmother as the savior of Cinderella’s demise. The role of magic comes in part with the acceptance of achieving the imagery of an elegant woman, impressing the Prince who gains interest in her. The

When I started analyzing Cinderella I noticed some gender roles/stereotypes that are brought to light. One of them being how women are the ones who stay home and perform household chores. They are “housewives” who depend on a man. The father is briefly in the beginning and afterwards we do not hear of him, initiating that he is off working, or on a business trip while the mom and daughters are home. We also see through Cinderella (who is forced to do all the chores) how their are consequences if she (or women) don’t complete or do the chores that are expected of them (like not being able to go to a ball in Cinderella's case). Another theme that is consistent in Cinderella as it is in other princess stories is the value of being beautiful. We see this when the fairy godmother shows up and makes Cinderella beautiful. She transforms her house clothes into a gown and so forth showing us that beauty is in the way you look or your appearance. If we pursue this theme further we see that the prince falls in love with Cinderella based on how she looks (love at first

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.

The story that most of us know as “Cinderella” actually has a lot of different versions. These different versions contain several elements that are similar, but yet even more elements that differ from one another. The three main difference between all the different versions of this story are the characters, how others treat the main character, and the setting in which these stories take place.

Cinderella is innocent just as the child, and this allows the child to not feel guilt about his jealous judgements towards siblings. Cinderella’s story helps the child realize how terrible things could be for them and to appreciate how lucky they are instead of looking at the negative side of their life.

Cinderella’s story is undoubtedly the most popular fairy tale all over the world. Her fairy tale is one of the best read and emotion filled story that we all enjoyed as young and adults. In Elizabeth Pantajja’s analysis, Cinderella’s story still continues to evoke emotions but not as a love story but a contradiction of what we some of us believe. Pantajja chose Cinderella’s story to enlighten the readers that being good and piety are not the reason for Cinderella’s envious fairy tale. The author’s criticism and forthright analysis through her use of pathos, ethos, and logos made the readers doubt Cinderella’s character and question the real reason behind her marrying the prince. Pantajja claims that

Jane Yolen and James Poniewozik have different individual thoughts towards Cinderella and the way the Cinderella character has changed over time. In Yolen’s America’s Cinderella, she describes the change in the Cinderella character which Disney has made into a wimp. In Poniewozik’s The Princess Paradox, he describes the change from the typical Disney princess, to the newer princesses. Although Yolen and Poniewozik are examining the changes that have occurred in the Cinderella character, Yolen mentions that Cinderella seems to be dependent and weak in the newer versions, while Poniewozik says the new princesses are strong and independent. This difference within the similarity in the change of character

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,

Cinderella held on to what her mother had told her and put up with everything her step- family was making her do. Cinderella always did what she was supposed to do, not once did she stop short of finishing or try to fight back. Cinderella kept her faith and believed that what her mother had told her was the truth and that life would get better. Eventually life did get better. By keeping her faith Cinderella was able to get all her chores done and get dressed for the ball, with the help from some creatures. If Cinderella wouldn’t have kept her faith she wouldn’t have dance with the prince and the prince wouldn’t have fallen in love with her. Cinderella wasn’t self-centered and believed if she was a good person she would be rewarded and in the end, she was able to live happily ever after with her prince. The exact opposite can be said about the step-sisters. The two sisters were awful people telling Cinderella to do their dirty work. When the prince came looking for the owner of the shoe the two girls would have done anything to fit the shoe. Anything is exactly what they did, one sister cut off her toe and another cut off her heel. The girls “hearts were foul and black” (Grimm 117), because of this they couldn’t have a truly happy life. In the end the two sisters had their eyes pecked out by birds. Cinderella found the deeper meaning to her life by being a self-less person and the sisters did not because of

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.

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