Once upon a time in a land far away, a young girl named Cinderella lived with her Stepmother and two stepsisters. Although they were exceedingly cruel, Cinderella continued to be as benevolent as a human could be. One night Cinderella had come across a ball that her mother had forbidden her to attend. Her stepsisters tore and ripped her dress that she had made herself, so Cinderella couldn’t attend the ball. After Cinderella’s stepmother and sisters went off to the ball, a fairy godmother had appeared to grant Cinderella’s dreams to attend the ball. There she met a young fellow whom she danced with all night. Little had she known he was the prince who was throwing the ball. At the beginning of the night the fairy godmother had told
In some instances, Cinderella’s behaviour in Perrault’s tale display characteristics that are alike to a modern western woman, today. On the first night of the Ball, the fairy godmother struggles to find something turn into a coachman. Then Cinderella suggests to transform the “...rate in the rat trap...into a coachman” (Perrault). This act reveals that Cinderella is capable of solving problems individually (Robbins, 107); a quality of a modern western woman. In addition, Cinderella demonstrates intelligence when the step sisters talk to Cinderella after returning from the first night of the Ball (Robbins, 107). Cinderella pretends to be sleepy by “...rubbing her eyes and stretching...” (Perrault) when the step sisters visit Cinderella’s room, after returning from the first night of the ball. By pretending to be sleepy, the step sisters assume that Cinderella did not attend the Ball. The step sisters tell Cinderella that a “finest princess” (Perrault) came to the Ball, however, when Cinderella inquires about the unknown princess name, the step sisters state that they did not know. Also, the step sisters tell Cinderella that the prince “would give all the world to know who...” (Perrault) is the unknown princess. This way Cinderella slyly and confidently interrogates the step
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
The lesson to take out of both of these stories is honesty and courage. “Oh. My poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs!...”(85). If she had been honest from the very beginning about loosing the necklace, they never would’ve ended up in poverty. It was courageous in a way that the ladies sacrificed and preformed a crime in order to help their friend. Sometimes we have to do things that are difficult, like admitting that she misplaced the necklace, but if we do the right thing to begin with the consequences are easier to
The book tells the story of a kind and beautiful girl named Cinderella. who lives with her evil stepmother and two stepsisters. The stepsisters Anastasia and Drizella keep Cinderella busy all day, forcing her to do various chores such as cooking, cleaning, and sewing. One day a messenger comes to Cinderella’s home with an invitation to the royal ball, where all young ladies are invited to dance with the Prince and hopefully become his bride. Cinderella is ecstatic but her stepmother assigns her chores that keep her busy all day, and leaves for the ball with Anastasia and Drizella. Thoroughly disheartened, Cinderella goes out to the garden and cries. There
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breaths away”-Maya Angelou. This quote demonstrates that life isn’t about the amount of things one has or can do, but the time one spends with joy and fun, appreciating what they can do and have. In the short story, “The Necklace” by Guy De Maupassant, the main character does the exact opposite of what this quote represents, she learns the hard way. Madame Loisel, the main character, doesn't appreciate her ways of living and wants something to represent the lifestyle she wants to live. Madame borrows a diamond Necklace, loses it and rather than telling the truth, she lies and buys another. She ends up wasting 10 years of her life working hard to pay off debt. Madame then finds that the diamond necklace was nothing but paste though the replacement was real. Maybe if Madame had been grateful for who she was and what she had, she would’ve lived a better life. De Maupassant uses multiple internal and external conflicts to teach the reader that people should just be grateful for who they are,what they have and what they can do.
The necklace serves as a symbol for greed. When Mathilda Loisel loses the necklace that she believed was worth forty thousand francs, she desperately retraces her steps and gets her husband to help her find it as well. It ends up taking ten years to pay off the debt. The ten years were hard on Mathilda Loisel and her husband, and Maupassant told the reader that she “looked old now… with hair half combed, with skirts award, and reddened hands” (6). However, even after the long ten years of manual labor all because she lost the necklace, she “sat down near the window and though of that evening at the ball so long ago, when she has been so beautiful and so admired” (6). The necklace symbolizes that when greed controls emotions and decisions, it never leads to good results.
The men in “Cinderella” also value women for their beauty. The prince has a ball for all the maidens in the land to find his future wife, which “amounts to a beauty contest” (Lieberman 386) for a new trophy wife. While some argue that Cinderella’s rebellion of going against her stepmother’s instructions of staying home shows that the story has feminist qualities, the prince weakens her achievement when he chooses her only because of her beauty as “girls win the prize if they are the fairest of them all” (Lieberman 385). Her need for independence is transformed into the prince’s need for a pretty wife, making her again an object in her family. Once integrated into the prince’s family, Cinderella goes from the maid of her family to the smiling porcelain doll next to the prince as the “first job of a fairy tale princess is to be beautiful” (Röhrich 110). This gives the impression that the only way
‘The Necklace’ is a morality tale written by Guy de Maupassant where he portrays the life of a beautiful but dissatisfied girl named Mathilde who desires to live a luxurious life despite being born into a clerk’s family and marrying a clerk too. Mathilde’s discontentment in life instigates her to pretend someone rich that she is not. Moreover, it leads her to severe trouble that caused ten years of hardship to Mathilde and her husband. So, this suffering is a punishment for Mathilde which taught her a lesson and changed her dramatically over the course of the story by making her a person of completely different personality for whom appearances
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
Both Mathilde and Cinderella’s stories start with them being unhappy with their current social status. The two women are not considered high class women, which leads them to their unhappiness. For Mathilde, she finds herself unsatisfied with her middle class status because of her beauty and greed as shown by the line “She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries,” (1, Maupassant). Mathilde desires the “delicacies” and “luxuries” of the higher class as stated in the quote. She also feels as if her beauty and charm belongs to the higher class, as she feels she was “born” for the riches. Living a life in anything but riches makes Mathilde feel as if she has “suffered ceaselessly” because she deserves better. Despite her feelings, Mathilde lives in middle class standard and does possess more riches than some others. She is told to have a maid, which is something affordable for her middle class status. Cinderella, while also beautiful, is not necessarily unsatisfied with her social standing. Her beauty does exceed her maid status, however, Cinderella seems to desire the kindness and stability of the higher class, as opposed to the physical and emotional abuse she faces as a maid. She does possess the greed for the riches she does not have. Mathilde and Cinderella are beautiful women, who seemingly deserve and desire a greater standing in society for different reasons.
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.
First of all, Mathilde was living an average middle class life, but she absolutely dreaded the life she had. Always thinking that everything she owned was not good enough, acting as if living in poverty. Mathilde hated her shabby furniture and ugly curtains. (Maupassant 1) She was so unnecessarily miserable all the time, the character that Mathilde portrays is a bad influence for women. She makes readers think that rich people live a better quality of life. The sight of the little Breton peasant girl who did her housework made Mathilde feel
Almost every person has denied the existence or occurrence of an idea or event at some point in their life. It is this characteristic of denying the truth as well as seeking self-gratification that leads to one’s ultimate downfall. Similarly, Mrs. Loisel, in The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, lives a modest lifestyle, constantly dreaming of a life far more luxurious than the one she currently lives. After being invited to a grand ball, she borrows a necklace from a wealthy friend, enjoys the evening as an equal to those attending the party, and wishes to continue living lavishly even after it ends. However, after losing the “diamond” necklace, Mrs. Loisel is spiraled into a debt that she aims to hopelessly recover from over the period of ten years, ultimately being her downfall. Mrs. Loisel denies the fact that one lavish party will not satisfy her desire to be wealthy and gives into her Id, self-serving desire for luxury, as well as seeks the pleasure principle in achieving instant gratification without considering its consequences.
Guy de Maupassant’s, “The Necklace,” is a short story about how a vain woman, Matilda, and her husband, Loisel, borrow a necklace, lose it, and then return it. Even though Matilda had no means of being loved and married by a man of money, she loves material items more than her husband because she suffers everyday in her apartment and dreams of things she should have. According to Olin H. Moore, “Maupassant, following the classicists, concentrated his attention upon the rational adult” (JSTOR 98). Maupassant putting his attention on rational adults as characters make the story seems more realistic. The story is more realistic by using an unhappy and materialistic woman, a hardworking and loving husband. Loisel does everything he can for his