Mischaracterization Of Cinderella

For decades, the famous fairy tale that we have all grown so fond of over the decades years has touched many young adolescent girls in many ways. Perhaps; the story of (Cinderella) has had such an impact in ways, which, which a young girl gains a stereotypical idea of these fantasies. The desire for a life lived “happilyy ever after” that is repetitively pounded into recent generations of young girls via corporations such as Disney has created a scripted lifestyle, or personality traits for young girls. Following the analysis of Ever After, Cinderella, and What’s wrong with Cinderella by Peggy Orenstein we can: conclude that the generalization and persistent theme of princesses over time; can alter the unique individual development of personality in adolescents, as well as propose a major profit opportunities for large corporations simply by continuously portraying and merchandising the fairy tale concept to young girls around the world.

"Cinderella" is perhaps the most recognized fairy tale in history, one of the few that spans across generations and cultures. Every prominent culture in the world tells some similar version of this story of a poor girl going from rags to riches; over 700 versions have been accounted for worldwide. In America, numerous authors have penned their own version of the classic folktale. One of these is Tanith Lee, a prolific writer of stories for young adults. Lee cleverly found a way to include all of the traditional elements of the classic "Cinderella" tale, but added a new twist: Cinderella, or the character similar to her in this story, had malicious intentions for the prince, and her purpose throughout the tale was a malevolent one: revenge.

Cinderella is a story of a young and beautiful girl named Ella, who is tortured by her stepmother and stepsisters after her father’s death. She faced many circumstances. She does not have any kind of power and magic skills but because of her honesty and attractive look, her life totally changed. Ella’s Godmother gifts her slippers and she attend the Royal ball, where she dance with Prince and there she loses one of her slipper. Prince wants to find her and marry her, so he orders to the shoulders to find her and finally they find her and bring her to palace, then prince Charming marries her. Cinderella is fairy tale that reflects the power of love, honesty, and patience. There are many other stories those are similar to Cinderella. For example, the story of Yeh-hsien is almost similar to the Cinderella. Yeh-hsien (the modern story of Cinderella) is a girl whose father is passed away and she lives with stepmother and stepsisters. Her stepmother sends her into the woods to collect firewood and one day she found one fish with gold eyes and red fins and she feeds the fish. The fish comes out the pond only when she called and fish knows her from her dress and one day her stepmother trapped her and she kill the fish, second day when Yeh-hsien called the fish she did not see the fish and then there a man appears and he tells the story to her. He advises her to

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

Adults realize that despite Cinderella’s charismatic traits, Cinderella’s behaviour in Perrault’s tale is not acceptable for today’s modern western woman.

Disney makes over $3 billion on their Disney Princess products every year and now have over 25,000 items in their princess collection (Orenstein 2). Disney has played a big role in shaping not only societal viewpoints on what young girls should like, but also what little girls believe they should enjoy as well. Gender stereotypes have been around for a long time, but now with technology advancements, such as media in western society is able to play a bigger than ever role in influencing people’s perspectives. Not only do we see gender roles and stereotypes in television shows, but also in advertisements and in children’s toys. Although many readers of Peggy Orenstein’s “What’s wrong with Cinderella” have argued that the princess culture is corrupting today’s young girls and making them more dependent on men, a closer examination shows that many girls grow out of the princess phase with no negative repercussions and choose whatever passions they want.

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

Both in the traditional setup and in the contemporary advanced world, it would be normal for parents to worry about the environment in which their children grow. Parents would want to know and influence the kind of friends their children keep because to their belief, the company a child keeps would influence her general behavior as they grow into adulthood. This particular concern of parents about their children is usually massively informed by the gender of their children. For girls, parents would want them to grow into women who would be capable of keeping up with the many challenges and gender stereotypes that face them in the society. For instance, parents would not want their girl child to grow with the notion that they would only be successful by marrying men who are well off. In this respect, this paper analyzes the article “What’s wrong with Cinderella?” authored by Peggy Orenstein and whose major argument is that a girl child should not grow up with her mind preoccupied with the flashy life led by princesses.

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

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,

In Bettelheim’s paper he touches on the concept of different psychological problems that come with growing up. In “Cinderella”, Cinderella deals with some of those psychological problems such as; narcissistic disappointments, sibling rivalries, and gaining a feeling of self-worth. Cinderella’s narcissistic problems all start with her step-mother

There are certain similarities in two variants of the story. Main characters are the same and basic plot is repeated in two versions with slight differences. Cinderella is a classical story, which exists, in many different cultures and countries. It reflects the story of poor girls who suffers different privations but finds the way out from different situations and becomes happy. The story about Cinderella is a story of hope and many people are fond of this story. It does not lose its popularity with the flow of time and light changes in the plot and depiction of the characters only reflect cultural and historical differences. The story of Cinderella passes

Even though fairytales are in the realm of fantasy, fairytales like Beauty and the Beast are deemed to be more meaningful than tales like Cinderella because they provide more beneficial information to strengthen relationships, expand knowledge on bullying, and inspire many with an assertive character. Firstly, the relationship between Beauty and the Beast proves that love is only the foundation of a healthy relationship because trust, patience, and other important traits are also necessary in a relationship. In the meantime, Cinderella lacks many essential components of a relationship such as time and communication because the prince falls in love with Cinderella very fast and mainly due to her physical appearance. While Cinderella is portrayed

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.

The most common version of Cinderella provides an example of how the heroine must be delivered by a man of princely matter and helped by outward forces to achieve recognition and gain respect. Cinderella’s experience provides a perfect example, producing and nurturing a psychological dependence in women. In A Modern Cinderella Karol Kelley writes Colette Dowling;s quote that, “Girls, from the time they are quite young are trained into dependence, while boys are trained out of it”. Women live in a dream world thinking that someday a perfect man will come and rescue her from her normal life. They become more and more independent on the man that they can’t seem to go without relying on the men. After watching these princes on Disney movies young girls start to have fantasies about them having more desirable characteristic in a man. Some general qualities women look for in men are strong, good looking, and wealthy husbands. Some girls drop out from school thinking they don’t need to study since a guy is going to come along to take care of her and give her all the luxuries she wants. Even the independent women with career oriented mind are independent loving their job and enjoying their single life but still fail to consider themselves complete because not having a man. Sometime dependence is quite severe that it creates a fear called “counter phobic” or an attitude that is a response to anxiety that not having a man, instead of fleeing the source of