Fairytales Are Fictional Stories Collected Through Folklore, And Maria Tatar

One of the world’s best known stories is that of Cinderella. Variations of this tale exist in cultures all across the world from Spanish America to Russia to Vietnam, and it has been pulled apart and reimagined into several different forms on the page, stage, and screen. But the incarnation of the story that is probably the most familiar is the one by Charles Perrault, with its signature Fairy Godmother and glass slippers. Despite being published in 1697, it is still popular enough that it was remade for the umpteenth time earlier this year. While the tale obviously has a timeless appeal, its ideological assumptions do not go unchallenged by modern writers. Sara Maitland’ s The Wicked Stepmother’s Lament criticizes how Perrault celebrates

Our culture is full of fairy tales. Girls are taught at a young age about Prince Charming and happy endings while boys are taught to be the girls’ heroes. They are taught these dreams and desires through fairytales and movies. These fairy tales started out as entertaining stories, but as they were handed down from one generation to the next, they slowly became more than that. They became bedtime stories for children, and as such, they have great importance because they teach children how to be in the world. One such fairy tale I want to focus on is Cinderella.

The central focus of this unit is to identify the elements of stories and how their themes may relate to each other in a variety of ways. Students will be guided in a variety of comparison and contrasting activities in order to gain understanding of main ideas, characters, and cultural themes across similar fairy tales from different cultures. This unit focuses on three different versions of Cinderella from different cultures. I chose to focus on the common elements of the fairy tales and the cultural differences because this was something the students were struggling with previously.

Fairy Tales are not just stories that parents tell to their children, but stories with hidden valuable messages which are mostly left on a side. In the article “An Introduction to Fairy Tales,” Maria Tatar clearly explains how people need fairy tales in their lives. Tatar also states how fairy tales have the ability to take the listener, especially children’s, into a journey in which they can play with their imagination so that they can discover their deepest fears and wishes. Personally I agree with the author, because of the fact that in an individual’s lives as they get older, they will try to define themselves, sometimes comparing their own life with a character from their favorite story or Fairy Tale.

One can argue that Cinderella stories have become an essential folktales not only to young people but as well as to older people. These stories have been recognized worldwide. Even more so, they were retold by different people and have been translated to different languages. What is fascinating about this is that different cultures have different interpretations of Cinderella stories and some do not appear to be the same slightly. Moreover, this paper examines two different cultures, Yen- Shen a Chinese Cinderella story and The Golden Sandal, a Middle Eastern Cinderella Story, and their philosophies about these folktales by comparing and contrasting them. I will be exploring the different versions of this story from different cultures including the American version. Cinderella story is universal.

Cinderella has changed so little over time that it seems we’re still in the 1700’s reading Charles Perrault’s first edition. And yet it remains one of the most popular fairy tales read to

The story and symbolism of Cinderella is viewed in different kinds of ways. In 1697, the most popular version of “Cinderella” was called “Cindrillon” written by a Frenchman named Charles Perrault. Many individuals were drawn to Perrault’s story due to the elements: the pumpkin being transformed into a chariot, the fairy godmother, and the glass slipper. Later throughout history, about 1500 different versions of “Cinderella” were being altered by dissimilar cultures. The most popular story is about a girl that has a magical guardian who helps her overcome how her family treats her. According to Bruno Bettelheim in his article “‘Cinderella’: A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts,” shares Cinderella hopes and her troubles through sibling rivalry and how she overcame it. On the other hand, a feminist theologian, Madonna Kolbenschlag explains in her article “A Feminist’s View of ‘Cinderella’” that Cinderella displays patterns of “feminine socialization” by her feeling worthless and wanting rescue.

In art historian, Bonnie Cullen’s, “The Rise of Perrault’s ‘Cinderella’”, Cullen evaluated different versions of the common Cinderella tale. Charles Perrault, an influential french author wrote the Cinderella story that is known today. Cullen writes to an audience that look for the relationships between common themes and culture, often in fairy tales. Perrault’s version has been remembered. Cultures have progressively changed, Perrault’s story is popular due to its ability to fit into recent cultures and themes of women's independence and femininity.

Fairy tales make an important part of cultural prophecy, because they contain wisdom which is passed from parents to their children. They contain basic moral and ethical guidelines for children. Images and symbols used in fairy tales can help to judge about cultural, ethical, social and moral values popular in the contemporary society. Changes and similarities, which can be found in the popular fairy tale Cinderella by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, version of 1812 and the Disney version of Cinderella (2015), can help to realize the changes in cultures and historical epochs.

In a society unbridled with double standards and set views about women, one may wonder the origins of such beliefs. It might come as a surprise that these ideals and standards are embedded and have been for centuries in the beloved fairy tales we enjoyed reading as kids. In her analytical essay, “To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tales”, Karen Rowe argues that fairy tales present “cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues.” Rowe presents an excellent point, which can be supported by versions of the cult classics, “Cinderella” and “Snow White”. Charles Perrault’s “ The Little Glass Slipper” and the Brothers Grimm’s “ Snow White” exemplify the beliefs that

However, few realize that there are many communal ideas imbedded in the plots that often go unrecognized. Fairy tales, more often than not, highlight a multitude of social aspects which might seem inappropriate for children. Constantly evolving, fairy tales, as indicated by Yolen and Zipes, illustrate the sexist views of the dominating class, the societal beliefs as they change throughout history as well as the community’s values especially during crisis.

In the article “Grim Variations from Fairy Tales to Modern Anti-Fairy Tales”, the author Wolfgang Mieder identifies that fairy tales has a quite significant value in people’s life. The author argues that fairy tales are not only just meant for children, but they are also meant for adults, even though fairy tales may be refer to as children stories, according to scholars these tales are traditional narratives for adults. Within these tales there are lessons on how people should behave and other aspect of life, which only adults can understand. The fairy tales contain the hidden frustrations of adults and their longing for a perfect world. Mieder present the readers with examples of why these tales are also for adults and the hidden meaning they have within them. Mieder states “fairy tales present the world in black and white, but in the end of this conflict is resolved (Mieder 91)” and the belief that there is always good in humanity and the longing for a utopia plays a significant role for adults. The concept of hope for fairness and equality allows these tales to last for centuries among children and adults. Mieder then states many adults today do not accept the value of the benefits that these tales contain, and are too focus by real-life problems. The adults of today’s society are realist and do not see the good meaning behind these tales, deeming them to be far-fetched, unlike the adults in the past who create these stories as a form of escape from the cruel reality.

Remarkably throughout all of history, females have encountered the issue of oppression while any form of power is ripped away from them. The concept is plainly indicated within countless fairytales, much like Cinderella as it is narrated from the female perspective. When examining and using the feminist lens for the folk tale of Cinderella, numerous power relationships were clearly viewed. In other words, the relationships correspond with both gender, and how the individual is portrayed. At the beginning of the story’s context, the power connection between Cinderella and her step-mother is rather obvious. In addition, the constant power relationships among male and females within the general public greatly influences Cinderella. Therefore every

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.

Fairy tales are full of tropes and stereotypes that exist from story to story, one of the main ones being the “happily ever after” ending. Most fairy tales, especially the traditional Perrault or Grimm versions, fall prey to this trope where the main goal is for the princess to find her prince, get married, and live happily ever after. Many critics, particularly feminist critics, find this trope to be problematic because of the extreme emphasis placed on marriage as women’s main, if not only, objective in life. Karen Rowe, for example, states in her essay “Feminism and Fairy Tales”, that “fairy tales perpetuate the patriarchal status quo by making female subordination seem a romantically desirable, indeed an inescapable fate” (342). In other words, Rowe relates the “romanticizations of marriage” portrayed in fairy tales with promotions of “passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice” expected of women in their everyday lives (342). However, it can be dangerous to assume that every fairy tale conforms to the singular promotion of marriage as women’s only option. While early fairy tales such as “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty” tend to glorify the romantic ideal of marriage, and in turn female subordination, contemporary tales and adaptations such as Brave and Frozen, are working to give women a more powerful position.