Cinderella Again

I may be dirty, but I'm still pretty!

Hello, dear reader. This week, we'll look at the story of Cinderella, which was the first fairy tale I analyzed on this blog. If you want a refresher on this story, or if you know there's more than one version and want to see which one I'm referencing, read Cinderella as told by Perrault.

Every time I read this story, I'm astounded by Cinderella. Usually in a bad way, but this version is worse than some others in that respect. Not only is Cinderella inexplicably nice to her stepsisters while they're all at the ball, but once Cinderella is revealed to be the beautiful princess, she immediately forgives her stepsisters for everything and gets them married to lords. What is wrong with this girl? There's a line between being nice and being a doormat and Cinderella took a running jump over that line. Maybe that's why the prince liked her so much, because she would go along with whatever he said. It would be mean to disagree with him. Or something.

I am also surprised at the stepsisters. They must have really never looked at Cinderella in all the years they lived together. It would definitely make a difference in Cinderella's appearance to have her washed and dressed up, but she didn't try to hide herself. She even talked with her stepsisters and gave them food. From the sounds of the story, this was a definite conversation. Even after they got home and Cinderella was all clean from her usual ashes, the stepsisters never put it together that they had seen her at the ball. If Cinderella goes too far with being accommodating, then they go too far with not recognizing people. It's actually kind of worrisome. The only explanation I can go for here is that they either willfully ignored that this was the same woman, or the godmother put a spell on Cinderella so her stepsisters wouldn't recognize her.

This fairy tale is yet another one in which it's mostly just women interacting with each other while the men are on the sidelines. That being said, I am surprised the stepmother plays almost no role in this story. In some of the other versions, she is the one leading the charge to put Cinderella down. In this story, she's there to put in a word of disapproval, and then she vanishes. It's really just Cinderella versus her terrible stepsisters. I have to wonder about how this strange household survived. This was in the days when three women living alone wouldn't have been possible unless they were under someone else's protection. I'm just going to assume that Cinderella's dad traveled all the time and that was good enough for everyone else.

The moral of this story is that even doormats can find true love. Alternatively, if you're set up to be the mean stepmother, do the minimum amount of work and then go find a fairy tale where you can be happy.

Have a different moral? A suggestion for a story you want to see here? Want to talk about your favorite Cinderella movie? Comment below!