The Cinderella Effect: The Cinderella Effect On American Culture

Many fairy tales contain controversial and social issues, such as stereotypes, poverty, and gender biases. For instance, the story about Cinderella describes her life of poverty and servitude due to her evil step family, until the prince fell in love with her and took her to the castle for their "happily ever after." This is a common stereotype about how women need men to support them because of their incapability to defend themselves. Furthermore, it depicts how men usually are wealthier than women. Since these stereotypes can cause children to make assumptions about others, they negatively impact a child’s ambitions and

From generation to generation stories are always changing. Fairy tales like Cinderella go from mean step sisters to nice sisters, fairy god mother to a tree. After reading 5 different versions of Cinderella I had to choose which I would decide to read, above the others to my favorite child. After difficult thinking I have chosen the Walt Disney’s version of Cinderella for many great reasons. I have chosen the Walt Disney’s version because I feel it is the most fitting for children over all the others which are best suitable for older teens.

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 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.

“Fairytales tell children what they unconsciously know, that human nature is not innately good, that conflict is real, that life is harsh before it is happy and thereby reassure them about their own fears and their own sense of self” (Tatar). Many adults wish they had grown up in a fairytale family or childhood seeing this as idea,l but in reality the fairytale family is very similar to our modern mixed families and rings true with the pattern of abuse and change that so many children face in our society. Audiences tend to overlook the abuse and neglect that Cinderella endures at the hands of her evil stepmother and stepsisters and focus on the happily ever after ending with the handsome prince and the glass slipper. However, the struggle

The story of Cinderella can be traced back to a time before books, to the time of oral tradition. Although there are many versions of this story, the main purpose of the story stays the same; it is to teach a lesson about goodness. If you are good, then great things will happen to you, but if you are bad then you will be punished. There are two versions of this story that this essay will look at, the Disney’s version and Grimms’ version. Although there are many similarities, the differences between the two versions are striking and deserve to be addressed.

This villain is usually portrayed as a woman with warts, scars, wrinkles, acne, or other abnormal facial features. For instance, in Snow White, Queen Grimhilde is obsessed with beauty and is angry that Snow White is prettier than her, which drives her to try and kill her own daughter. By showing a less-beautiful woman’s jealousy of a “fairer” woman, Disney conveys the message that less attractive people are evil and jealous of beautiful people. Another example of these traits is shown by the stepsisters in Cinderella, who have large noses and grouchy faces, and are fittingly dubbed the “ugly stepsisters”. These girls are jealous of Cinderella, a prettier girl, so they actively try to hinder her success. This is another example of the false notion that ugly people are jealous of pretty people, which is problematic because it is another inaccurate generalization about an entire group of people. Since many children make assumptions using the information that is constantly presented to them, some might falsely assume that these traits are associated with evil people, which could make girls with these characteristics feel judged for their features. This adds further pressure to these girls because, coupled with already being insecure about not looking like a princess, they now have to worry that they are evil because they possess the same physical traits as the

Fairy Tale Fairy Tales are an important part of growing up for young children everywhere. The mind of a child is one of the most imaginative and beautiful things on Earth and this is what makes fairy tales so appealing to young kids. Fairy tales take a child’s exploding imagination and allow it to run wild with dreams of brave knights, beautiful princesses, and any other entity that fits into their story. These wonderful fairy tales are not only for kids, but grown people as well. A story can carry powerful meanings such as bravery or humbleness that relate to more mature minds.

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.

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 stepmother 's in fairy tales bear negative and repulsive traits, such as vanity, jealousy and pride. The character of the wicked stepmother has gained notoriety as one of the evilest villains found in fairy tales, often set up as a foil to the innocent and virtuous stepdaughter whom she mistreats and who ultimately gains victory over her. Combined with these traits are their knowledge of magic and sorcery. Despite her knowledge of the supernatural, her beauty is a fading trait. Stepmothers are comparable to wild animals and supernatural beings that treat children wickedly. In the past, the stepmother 's role was to replace the child 's biological mother who had died. Many of these bad examples are seen in such stories as "Cinderella"

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

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.

A fairytale is a fictional fantasy fable that passes through generations of children as source of interest to them. Though used for the intent of entertainment, fairytales often indirectly advocate a moral or message to readers (whom are usually children), in hopes that they will grow up to apply these ethics and lead a righteous life. This criteria, however, often originates from the occurrence of a magical transformation; it is this paranormality that introduces the characters of the story to a side of life far from what they have grown to know and learn to adapt to the dramatic amend in their life. This is evident in the characters in world-renowned tales such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast.

Fairy tales are stories that project fantasies, fictional and surreal events that won’t be occurring in reality. Some of the elements that exist in these stories are their extraordinary development of characters such as fairies, monsters, witches, princes, princesses, etc. Why should we take into relevancy something non-existent and read it to our children? Although some folks claim that fairy tales are bad and impractical for them, they’re indeed getting a healthier and stronger mind growth that will stimulate their imagination, creativity, and problem-solving skills. An example of these fairy-tales is Charles Perrault’s Cinderella French version. This narrative consists from some of the mentioned parts above and promises high expectations for the readers. It is the most fascinating version ever written from any other Cinderella’s versions.