The Opposition Of Stepmothers, Hansel And Gretel, Snow White, And The Almond Tree

     In the movie “Cinderella,” Cinderella is a maid to an evil stepmother and two very heartless and obnoxious stepsisters. The only reason that Cinderella still puts up with their orders is an example of the Behavioral perspective. The Behavioral Perspective puts emphasis on learning by experience with rewards and punishments. She knows that if she does not do the chores, she will be punished or thrown out of the household. She does not have anywhere to go because her mother and father have passed away. Because Cinderella is a genuinely kind human being who wishes to please, she usually does not stick up for herself against the others in the household. She is used to taking on the brunt of

Few people can grow up within today's society without knowing the tale of Snow White. From the Grimm Brothers to Disney, it has been told and retold to children throughout the ages. However, what is often overlooked are the true meanings within the story. Fairytales typically have underlying messages that can be found written between the lines, generally in terms of the key themes. Snow White discusses the themes of envy and beauty, and shows how humans' obsessions can lead to their own downfall as well as the harm of others. When focusing on the relationship between Snow White and her step-mother the Queen, it is evident that the combination of these two themes results in a power struggle in which beauty

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

Also, another convention is the idea of karma; what goes around comes around. The stepsisters attempted to lie to the Prince and were also malicious to Cinderella, so in return they were blinded by the birds. This story argues that an ideal child should not act cruelly or deceive people because they will be punished.

Throughout the story, the characterization is heavily influenced by gender roles and sexist stereotypes. The role of the stepmother and stepsisters is to solely use their power as a source of evil in order to bring down Cinderella, while Cinderella is depicted to be beautiful yet weak and

On the other hand, young girls are shown the tendency for females to compete with one another rather than empower each other. Lady Tremaine teaches her daughters to eliminate girls that are better than them. For example, Lady Tremaine locks Cinderella in her room to prevent the Duke from fitting the shoe on her. The film is showing girls to fight tooth and claw with one another in order to get ahead. As a result, women are viewed as only being capable to move up in society by manipulating and betraying others. Women are not capable enough to win positions on their own. Furthermore, Lady Tremaine’s character serves to show how women are incapable of being the matriarch. For example, Lady Tremaine was incapable of handling the family 's wealth, which led to Cinderella becoming the servant for the home. For this reason, girls are taught that they need a male figure to handle the finances of the home, while they tend to the chores. The evil stepmother gender role has caused children since the film was made, to hold a deep-seated hate towards stepmothers.

Bruno Bettelheim, the author of the article “‘Cinderella’: A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts” expresses his opinions on how the fairytale Cinderella causes the views of sibling rivalry and also displays oedipal conflicts. Bettelheim argues throughout his article that the tale Cinderella leads children to feel emotions such as jealousy and envy towards their siblings. He also depicts the belief that the story Cinderella leads children into oedipal jealousy and makes them feel that they need to get rid of the parent of the same sex. Bettelheim expresses his opinions and beliefs to uncover the secrets held within the fairytale Cinderella.

The fairy tale Snow White is a story about two women. One, the evil stepmother, schemes

Negative female antagonist play a very particular role within fairy tales. The female antagonists are often very dominant, they are not married and unable to bare children due to the fact that they are usually old. However there are times in which the antagonist is a beautiful women who’s jealously often overbears her physical appearance. In “Snow White” Snow’s Step mother is constantly looking for assurance about her physical appearance, so she confides in her magic mirror, “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?” (Grimm 54). Snow white’s stepmother is taken aback and enraged after later being told that she is no longer the prettiest woman. “You my queen, are fair; it is

The story of “Snow White” depicts what a beautiful girl has to endure from her evil stepmother, whose vanity and cruelty know no boundaries, is there more to the story though? The Brothers Grimm give us clues here and there, about how they both have similarities. Little by little, Snow White’s character can be seen changing from the pure character at the beginning of the story, to someone that if you look close resembles the evil Queen by the end of the story. Snow White’s and the evil stepmother both share some common traits such as vanity, envy, and at times no remorse among others; in which Snow White can be compared to the Queen.

She did not leave her house; therefore, she did not have many friends to she could talk to or rely on to help her. She mainly socialized with her stepmother and stepsisters. Her stepmother enforced her gender role because she would order Cinderella to cook, clean and get her daughters ready. In addition, her stepsisters constantly reminded Cinderella that beauty was everything and they demonstrated this when they got ready to go out. Same sex siblings influence the younger sibling’s choices and actions a lot (Gender & Gender Identity). If they were not same sex siblings, Cinderella would have engaged in activities that are more masculine (Gender Role Development). She developed a female gender role because she had the stereotypical role in which a woman cooks, clean, sews, sings and obeys authority. This gravely affected her because she did not know a man’s characteristics since she was never around them. If Cinderella were around men more, she would have picked up on the things they do. Since the men at that time portrayed strength and chivalry, Cinderella might have been strong enough to fight back her stepmother. Gender roles carry on as the individual get older and they do the same chores outside their home; therefore, Cinderella is likely to display the same role at her husband’s house. This might result in a problem because the Prince has his own servant and Cinderella will have to adjust to commanding other

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

Cinderella; a young girl required to do everything she was told, without a say in what she wanted. She could not leave and get a job as

In every story there is always a person who everybody considers a villain. A villain isn't always the least favorite character in a story, but in most cases they're the one character most readers dislike. The evil step mother in Cinderella, Lady Tremaine is one of the best villains of all time in my perspective. She's a villain who has always caught my attention. She once said, "You needn't call me that. Madam will do." (Perrault). The evil stepmother had always been cruel even with her own two daughters, and their father. She's a high maintenance kind of women.

Despite gender, living conditions or cultural backgrounds most people grow up reading or hearing stories of heroism and damsel in distress scenarios. Anne Sexton turns stereotypes on their head in her satirical poems of classic fairy tales, including Snow White and The Seven Dwarves and Cinderella. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves tells the tale of a young princess with hair as black as coal and skin as pale as snow, whose life is thrown into turmoil at the hands of her overbearing stepmother. Cinderella tells the story of a young girl who she spends her life is yearning for the prince’s ball, and similar to Snow White, Cinderella’s stepmother is influencing her life, however she is a positive character throughout the story. This sheds light on the stepmother in Snow White’s piece as despite the fact that Snow White’s stepmother clearly does inherently evil things, a re-reading demands a re-examination of why. It is throughout these tales’ where stepmothers are only trying to protect their children from the world around them, however in Snow White an outside motive, the beauty provided by the mirror and the pride manifested by poison, creates a barrier between the queen and her stepdaughter, thus giving her the title “Evil”.