Cinderella, a classic fairy tale, is one of the oldest tales that is well known throughout the world. With the many versions that share the same storyline and the same meaning, Cinderella has played an important role model for many young girls. She is portrayed as a helpless young woman that is trapped by evil and receives help to find her Prince Charming. Many young girls in societies of third world countries desire to live a similar fantasy. Cinderella’s story goes beyond becoming a princess and finding true love, however. The history of the fairytale and the portrayal of the character reveals the significance of women’s role in society and femininity.
In similarity to other fairy tales, having a happy ending is always desired, but the characters
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Cinderella wouldn’t have had the opportunity to attend the ball if it weren’t for the dress she viewed as perfect and the fact that she looked presentable. This can serve as an example of double standards because men usually escape with the way they perceive or represent themselves physically, meanwhile women have to try twice as hard to look presentable. This brings to attention that “looks” play a big role when grabbing the attention of men. It shows to young girls that not unless you are adequately dressed or have what society defines as “beautiful” then you won’t get far in life. For example, at the ball the Prince rejects every girl that invite him to dance, until he sees Cinderella. Both the Prince and Cinderella had a fast and real connection, but that vanishes when Cinderella remembers that she had a designated curfew. The following days of the ball, the prince goes in search for Cinderella after she left her glass slipper behind. The glass slipper is the only item he has of her along with the connection the experienced. The Prince going after after Cinderella can also serve as an example of society. He went looking after her which now we could also see this in society. Men are usually the ones to chase after women. They are the ones looking for their target, making women look foolish, superficial, and
Have you ever heard of other Cinderella stories aside from the traditional ones that usually come across television or shows up in children's books? Well, if not now you know there are more. These Cinderella stories are all different, but similar in some type of way. There are many stories that are unique either because of the cultural diversity, or even the way it ended. We all know how the traditional one goes where there’s a beautiful girl who’s mistreated by her step mom and sisters that were married into the family. Long story short she sneaked to the ball and left before midnight losing a slipper; the prince found it, and then so on… later getting married at the end. Two stories that can be taken into consideration as of
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
Cinderella (who is a young but yet independent lady ) lives with her father who’s married to a haughty woman with two arrogant daughters, none of who are like Cinderella. She’s then abused and exploited by her cruel stepmother and stepsisters after her father's remarriage, and is forced to live as a servant by doing household work. When the prince announces a ball, Cinderella helps her stepsisters get ready for it, although she’s not allowed to go herself. She is then able to attend the royal ball afterwards with the help of her lovely fairy godmother. Her fairy godmother gave her a dress that is a cloth of gold and silver, all beset with jewels for the two nights of the ball, with the advise that she be gone before midnight, because that's
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
Fairytales are usually shown as stories where no one ever gets hurt, and dreams always come true. The original story of “Cinderella” defies this stereotype, and shows true punishment to those who hurt others. Cinderella is a girl who always remains a good and kind person even though her stepsisters are always mean to her. Cinderella goes to a ball against her stepmother’s instructions, and she meets a prince who falls in love with her. The prince later marries her, while the stepsisters are punished for their cruelty to Cinderella.
Cinderella is a fairytale for children that displayed love, loss and miracles; however, when it is further analyzed, it has a deeper meaning. Cinderella is a story about a young girl who became a servant in her own home after her father remarried a malicious woman with two spoiled daughters. She was humiliated and abused yet she remained gentle and kind. She received help from her fairy godmother to go to the prince’s ball after her stepmother rejected her proposal. Cinderella and the Prince fell madly in love but she had to leave at twelve o’clock and forgot to tell him her name but she left her glass slipper behind. He sent his servants to find her and Cinderella was the only maiden in the kingdom to fit into the shoes. She
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
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.
Cinderella is one of the most well‐known stories in the country. She is a beautiful young woman that is treated badly but in the end lives happily ever with a prince. Almost every culture has a “Cinderella” story, with different culture details. The Walt Disney “Cinderella” is strong,and romantic, where the character “Cinderella” goes through so much with the stepsisters and stepmother and end up living happily ever after. However, in Anne Sexton version of “Cinderella”, the stepsisters were violently punished for mistreating Cinderella.
The prince sets out to have young women in the village try on the lost shoe to find the owner. Cinderella fits the shoe, and the stepsisters see her as the beautiful girl at the ball now. Cinderella lives happily ever after. Through the characters in “Cinderella,” Charles Perrault illustrates the theme that one who is mistreated by family but overcome it.
Sexton’s curt style in “Cinderella” is used to convey a satirical tone. She approaches this piece by first telling four short stories; one references a nursemaid “some luscious sweet from Denmark who captures the oldest son’s heart” (line 7). By choosing “luscious sweet” to explain the maid, Sexton suggests the woman is beautiful and only uses her looks to win the man’s love. Implying the maid has nothing else to offer other than her aesthetics, Sexton questions a stereotype of women and shows her negative thoughts of this common assumption. Sexton begins to recant Grimm’s tale of Cinderella and the prince’s ball
With her magnificent gown and majestic shoes in hand, Cinderella proceeds to the ball where the prince falls madly in love with her solely based on her appearance. However, the prince is unable to recognize Cinderella after she changes back to her sooty face and ragged clothes. The shallow relationship between Cinderella and the Prince reveals another fault of society: the pressure placed on superficial characteristics and the emphasis placed upon beauty is a priority set too high. When people must "gussy up" (30) to be noticed, the person within is unable to be seen.
There also is another form of symbolism in this essay and that is Cinderella’s dress. This too provides magical powers so that the prince notices the immaculate beauty that Cinderella possesses. It is believed that the prince or Cinderella never actually confessed any love, but in the magical powers that the dress endows has the prince so enchanted that marrying Cinderella could only be the right choice. The author just simply wants the reader to grasp the fact that there really
When someone mentions the name “Cinderella”, the first thing that usually comes to our minds is the fairytale in which the fair maiden who works so hard yet it treated so poorly gains her “fairytale ending” with a wave of a magic wand. However, the fairytale of Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers has multiple differences in plot from the fairytale we all usually think of. The plot of the Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers, written in 1812, is that a young female’s mother passes away early in the story, departing with the message to Cinderella to remain “pious and good”. Cinderella remained true to this message given to her by her mother, and she showed this in her work ethic. Because Cinderella had remained pious and good, her mother, in return, watched over her in the form of the birds above her grave that gave Cinderella help and material things that she needed. In the end, Cinderella has her “happily ever after”, for when the prince held a festival to find a new bride, she was chosen due to her insurmountable beauty. The feminist lens critiques how females are commonly represented in texts, and how insufficient these representations are as a categorizing device. These representations of women often include them being passive and emotional—staying back while the men do the work. Cinderella relates to the feminist lens because she fits into the typical representations of women created by men. Feminist criticism is important to recognize because women are often falsely represented as helpless, thus needing a man to come to their rescue. It is common in literature to see helpless women, crying and begging for help instead of being able to work out their own problems and hardships. Others, however, may believe that it is still important to uphold the fundamentals of the feminist lens because it keeps the man in power, which they say is important in keeping the man the head of the household. Cinderella thoroughly represents the feminist lens because it shows how women in literature uphold the representations of passive and emotional, created by the man.