cinderella story essay

A Summary and Analysis of the Cinderella Fairy Tale

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Cinderella’ is, of course, a classic fairy story, a ‘rags to riches’ tale about a kind-hearted girl who suffers various hardships only to marry the prince of the kingdom. Why is Cinderella called Cinderella? Since she is shunned by the rest of her family (especially the stepsisters), the poor girl sits among the ashes in the chimney corner – hence her cindery name.

The ‘rags to riches’ transformation comes about when Cinders, who wishes to attend the royal ball, has her wish granted and subsequently meets the prince. Although she has to flee the ball and return home – losing one of her slippers in the process – the prince searches for and finds her, thanks to what is perhaps the most romantic shoe-fitting in all of literature. So far, so familiar.

The earliest appearance of the Cinderella story in print was in 1634 in the Pentamerone , a collection of oral folk tales compiled by Giambattista Basile, a Neapolitan soldier, poet, and courtier. Here Cinderella is called Cenerentola.

In 1697, French writer Charles Perrault published the story of Cendrillon, a variation on the story. Perrault added several details now intrinsically associated with the story – notably the pumpkin, the fairy godmother, and the glass slipper – to Basile’s version, which already featured the wicked stepmother and the evil stepsisters, as well as the prince figure (though in Basile’s he is a king rather than a prince) who hunts for the owner of a slipper (though it isn’t glass in Basile’s version). Perrault’s version would form the basis of the hit 1950 Disney film Cinderella , which in turn inspired Kenneth Branagh’s 2015 live-action remake.

But in fact the story is even older than these seventeenth-century versions: ‘Ye Xian’ or ‘Yeh-Shen’ is a Chinese variant of the Cinderella story that dates from the ninth century. A detailed plot summary can be found here .

But even this isn’t the oldest version of the story: a tale dating back to the 1st century BC, more than a thousand years before even the Chinese ‘Ye Xian’, is perhaps the earliest of all Cinderella narratives. The story is about a Thracian courtesan, Rhodopis, who ends up marrying the King of Egypt . It even features a royal figure searching for the owner of a shoe, suggesting that it is the progenitor of all later Cinderella stories.

In the nineteenth century, the Brothers Grimm offered a slightly different version of the tale in Aschenputtel . The Grimms’ retelling of the fairy tale is somewhat … well, grimmer than the Basile or Perrault versions.

At the end of the Grimms’ version of the story, the stepsisters’ eyes are pecked out by birds to punish the sisters for their cruelty towards their sibling – a violent conclusion you won’t find in Disney. In order to try to dupe the prince into thinking they are the wearers of the missing slipper, each of the stepsisters cuts off part of her own foot to make it fit, but the blood that fills the slipper gives the game away. Indeed, the Chinese ‘Ye Xian’ telling of the Cinderella story ends with the stepmother and ugly sisters being crushed to death in their caves by stones. In the Disney film they get off lightly, to say the least.

What’s more, in the Brothers Grimm version of the Cinderella story, the slipper is not glass, but gold. There is disagreement among scholars and commentators as to whether the glass slippers that first appear in Perrault’s version (and, subsequently, in many famous retellings and adaptations of the tale) were the result of Perrault’s mishearing vair (French for ‘squirrel’s fur’) for verre (French for ‘glass’).

The majority of experts reject such a theory. The website Snopes.com states that Perrault intended the slippers to be made of glass all along, and wasn’t acting on an error, while another site suggests that the glass slipper was perhaps ‘an ironic device since it is a fragile thing’, so might be seen as a form of artistic licence.

Interestingly, the ‘error’ theory – that Perrault was not inventing an iconic literary trope but simply mishearing one word for another – appears to have been put about by the French novelist Honoré de Balzac. So, although Perrault added the glass slippers, it was most likely not down to a mishearing (especially since the word vair was not in common use when Perrault was writing) but to creative licence.

Roald Dahl updated the fairy tale of Cinderella in 1982 in his R evolting Rhymes. The most significant Dahlian detail in his verse retelling of the tale comes near the end, when one of the stepsisters replaces the glass slipper with her own shoe. But even though the shoe subsequently fits the sister’s foot perfectly (as you’d expect), the prince declines to marry her and instead – cuts her head off.

The tyrannical prince does the same to the other stepsister, and Cinderella’s head would have been done for too, had her fairy godmother not intervened and saved her – granting Cinderella’s wish to be married to an ordinary husband rather than a prince who would, let’s face it, make Prince Joffrey look like Oliver Twist.

So that’s a happy ending, just not the one you find in traditional fairy tales.

Before the Disney film of 1950, and long before the 2015 Kenneth Branagh remake, there were many film adaptations, the first of which (from 1899) can be seen here .

If you enjoyed this post, you might find something of literary interest in our summary of the curious history of ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ , 25 great facts about children’s books and our surprising facts about Aladdin and the Arabian Nights .

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20 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of the Cinderella Fairy Tale”

Reblogged this on Língua Inglesa .

I always enjoy your posts. Just the sort of facts I find fascinating. Thank you. Kris http://www.awritersden.wordpress.com

We just covered the Brothers Grimm and their grusome tales in the Romantic Period of our senior English lit section. Students are mesmerized by the cruelty and violence of the original fairy tales. One of my favorite versions is Ever After with Drew Barrymore. In the beginning of the film the glass slipper is shown and it is golden glass–which solves both theories of the famous shoe.

I love the Ever After version of this tale as well. The Brothers Grimm tend to be too grim for me. :)

Nice post! I love researching this sort of thing. One of my favorite Cinderella adaptions (shadow puppets) is from 1922 by Lotte Reiniger. You can find it on YouTube.

Interesting to see how far back the story goes. But I thought there was a version (though I can’t remember where) where the stepsisters are forced to dance on hot coals until they died?

This ending seems familiar – though I can’t remember which version it was exactly. Maybe I should reread my old fairytale books. By the way, why are so many suprised about the cruelty in the original fairytales? I’ ve grown up with them and especially the Disney version appeared always too nice in my opinion.

You might be thinking of a version of Snow White where the stepmother is forced to dance in red hot iron shoes until she died.

Reblogged this on Getting Lit Fit .

Huh. Interesting as always.

Reblogged this on your worst nightmare and commented: So gosh-darn cool.

Reblogged this on justthetraveller and commented: Well, that’s New to me.

Reblogged this on Wyldwood Books and commented: Yet another interesting and informative post from interestingliterature.com

I knew of Pentamerone from my time at university along with the Grimm version (which I thoroughly enjoyed), but knew little of the earlier versions. Great reading.

Reblogged this on Beyond The Beyond.. .

Such an intersting post. Loved it.

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A Girl, A Shoe, A Prince: The Endlessly Evolving Cinderella

Linda Holmes

Cinderella and her fairy godmother in the 1950 Disney cartoon. Courtesy of Disney Princess hide caption

Cinderella and her fairy godmother in the 1950 Disney cartoon.

"Woman gives birth to a gourd."

This is the opening to the description of an Italian variant of the Cinderella folk tale — or, really, a relative of one of its relatives — taken from a book called Cinderella; three hundred and forty-five variants of Cinderella, Catskin, and Cap o'Rushes, abstracted and tabulated, with a discussion of mediaeval analogues, and notes , written by Marian Roalfe Cox and published in 1893. In this version of the story, the heroine is born inside a gourd and accidentally abandoned in the forest — understandable, given that her mother has just brought forth a squash from within her person , and the last thought she's entertaining is probably, "Hey, I'll take that with me."

Our heroine is discovered by a prince, who finds the talking gourd and takes it home. If nothing else, perhaps it has a future in show business. At some point, she presumably emerges from it — the details offered in the book about this particular folk tale are limited — and she becomes a servant. The prince keeps her at the palace but mistreats her terribly, even beating her and kicking her to prevent her from attending his ball, but she gets there anyway without his knowing it's her (which is one reason it seems certain she's out of the squash by now). They meet and he gives her gifts and so on. Later, when she prepares his breakfast in the guise of his once-ensquashed servant, she slips into the breakfast the gifts he gave her at the ball when they danced. When he finds jewelry in his food, he realizes she is his beloved, and they get married. Ah, the classic "boy meets gourd."

What is the name of this young lady who was born inside a vegetable? Her name, of course, is Zucchettina. (It could be worse to our modern ears: One of the Cinderella variant entries is called "Little Saddleslut.")

In 1812, the Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, published Children and Household Tales , a collection German fairy tales. This illustration accompanied the tale "Cinderella" and shows Cinderella being left by her stepsisters to do the housework. This image is from Grimms Eventyr (Grimm's Fairy Tales) by Carl Ewald, published in 1922. Ivy Close Images/Landov hide caption

This version is an obvious relative of Cinderella but not quite Cinderella; it's presented as one of the variants of Catskin , a related tale that also has a hard-working girl who meets a prince at a ball while in disguise and is then recognized and rescued.

That's not the strangest variant in the book, and it is certainly not the darkest. One begins with Cinderella, her two older sisters and their mother agreeing to a whimsical bet: First one to drop her spinning spool will be eaten by the others. When Mom proves clumsy, the sisters indeed eat her. (A deal's a deal?) Cinderella decides not to eat her mother, but to wait until the killing and eating is over, then bury her mother's bones. You know, out of respect. Fortunately, her mother's bones turn into coins and beautiful magic dresses. It's no fairy godmother, but you don't look your mother's gift bones in the ... mouth, I suppose.

There's a Vietnamese variant called Kajong And Haloek in which the evil foster mother of the Cinderella figure, Kajong, is tricked into eating the flesh of her own dead daughter (who boiled herself alive trying to be as beautiful as Kajong) — punishment for them both.

And here is a direct quote from Cox's book, summarizing a variant called Gold-dice : "King goes to war, leaving three daughters in mound with victuals for seven years. Father slain; princesses forgotten. Dog and cat eaten; elder sisters die. Heroine eats mouse; digs way out."

Kind of makes you think having your eyes pecked out is getting off easy, right?

Lily James is Cinderella in Disney's live-action version of the classic fairy tale, which it helped make famous in a 1950 cartoon. Jonathan Olley/Disney hide caption

Lily James is Cinderella in Disney's live-action version of the classic fairy tale, which it helped make famous in a 1950 cartoon.

As Disney releases another Cinderella adaptation — this one live-action, directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Lily James as Cinderella and Cate Blanchett as her evil stepmother — we see again how perplexingly durable this story is, particularly for something so slight. The film that's coming out this weekend may be bent and polished, stripped of some of its themes and relieved of its bone-burying — and Cinderella may now be an established part of the Disney princess racket — but this is still recognizably a story of which 345 versions could already be found almost 125 years ago.

What Is Cinderella, Exactly?

To try to figure out what exactly that story is and why we still have it, we have to separate out the folk tale that is Cinderella, though, from the turn of phrase that is "Cinderella story." Americans will call almost anything a Cinderella story that involves a good thing happening to someone nice. We slap that title on movies and books, but also on basketball games won by tiny schools full of scrawny nerds, small businesses that thrive and even political ascendancies that upend established powers.

The actual Cinderella tale, while a nebulous thing that can be hard to pin down with precision, is more than that. There's very little that's common to every variant of the story, but in general, you have a mistreated young woman, forced to do menial work, either cast out or unloved by her family. She has an opportunity to marry well and escape her situation, but she gets that chance only after being mistaken for a higher-status person, so she has to get the man who may marry her to recognize her in her low-status form, which often happens either via a shoe that fits or some kind of food that she prepares.

It's partly a fantasy about simplifying the relationships between social standing and coupling — one that makes the most sense in a world in which class differences are an accepted barrier to a good man choosing to marry a woman. If the prince is a man who believes from the outset that love conquers all, the story doesn't really make any sense. It would be hard to set Cinderella on a properly functioning egalitarian collective.

The idea that animates the classic Cinderella is that the prince would not be free to consider Cinderella a desirable mate if he first saw her as she is, but he can meet her under false pretenses and fall in love with her. And, most importantly, once achieved, that love will be durable enough to survive her reversion to her real identity. Getting him to literally recognize her — getting him to look at a woman in rags and realize she's the woman he wants to marry — seems to function as sort of a stand-in for him proving that he can overlook her low status and choose her as a partner. Whether that's more a fantasy of romantic love or a fantasy of economic security, power and rescue from a lifetime of washing floors may depend on who's telling it and who's hearing it and when.

The story means different things at different times — trying to nail down a single origin for Cinderella is somewhat beside the point, since folk tales are narrative mashups done and redone, assembled from existing pieces and experimented upon. The tales Catskin and Cap O'Rushes , mentioned in Cox's title, for instance, are close relatives to what we know as Cinderella, but with characteristics that make their own offshoots easy to group together. (There's actually an entire multi-volume index for folk tales, called the Aarne-Thompson system, which groups tales of similar types together. Cinderella is type 510A. It's under "persecuted heroine." Pull that out at a princess party; amaze your children's friends.)

Disney, Hilary Duff And Other Spins Are Spun

The Cinderella familiar to United States popular culture, though, is most easily traceable, and most commonly traced, to the one published in 1697 by the French writer Charles Perrault, whose version, called Cendrillon , brings together many of the elements popularized by the 1950 Disney cartoon: the fairy godmother, the transformed pumpkin, the glass slipper, the midnight spell.

In lots of other versions, there is no fairy godmother; there is simply Cinderella praying for help, often to her dead mother (as she does in the Brothers Grimm version, written more than 100 years after Perrault's, that resembles Cinderella's story in Stephen Sondheim's musical Into The Woods ). There is often a shoe that proves her identity and her suitability for marriage, but it's not always a glass slipper. In fact, the Cinderella story is sometimes traced all the way back to the Egyptian tale of Rhodopis, a girl who winds up marrying a king after a bird steals her red shoe and dumps it in the king's lap, leaving him to search for her.

Brandy Norwood and Whitney Houston pose with the coach from their version of Cinderella . Reuters /Landov hide caption

Brandy Norwood and Whitney Houston pose with the coach from their version of Cinderella .

But once it's wormed its way into the culture, like any folk tale, Cinderella bends in delightful and vulgar ways to suit the purposes of the high and the low, the noble and the crass.

In 1957, CBS aired a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical — written for the TV broadcast rather than adapted from the stage — in which Cinderella continued the 1950 theme of limitless dreaming as a fundamental piece of the story. In the cartoon, she had sung "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes," and in the TV musical, she sings "In My Own Little Corner," which finds her happy only when she's alone and dreaming of adventure. While the story is still quite similar to Perrault's, her fantasy has evolved a little; rather than simply wanting out , she wants excitement . Whereas the cartoon Cinderella engaged in the rather circular wishing logic that her greatest wish was ... for her dreams to come true, the musical Cinderella started to fantasize about going on safaris and having her own squad of silkworms.

Julie Andrews, then just 21, seven years away from her feature film debut in Mary Poppins and appearing before a staggering reported audience of more than 100 million people, gave Cinderella more personality than she'd had as a cartoon and played up her status as a plucky dreamer. This Cinderella longed for connection ("on the wings of my fancy, I can fly anywhere / and the world will open its arms to me") rather than existing as simply a miserable, put-upon, featureless doormat — a vision that would eventually become a fundamental part of the pop-culture Cinderella as well as heroine princesses in general. In this one, the pumpkin carriage and the mice as horses are her idea , and she's the one who persuades her fairy godmother to do it. There were no bright colors and sumptuous visuals to carry it, either — most people saw it in black and white.

Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray in Warner Bros. Pictures' romantic comedy, A Cinderella Story. Ron Batzdorff/AP hide caption

Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray in Warner Bros. Pictures' romantic comedy, A Cinderella Story.

That production was followed by two more television versions, including a charming one from 1997, in which Brandy Norwood played Cinderella and Whitney Houston played her fairy godmother — one of only a few times the American pop-culture Cinderella has not been white, despite her global ubiquity. In some cases, that's continued to the stage: One incarnation of the show's recent Broadway production, with a new book, featured Keke Palmer as Cinderella. (In the category Trivia That May Or May Not Mean Anything, chew on this: Both Jon Cypher, who played the Prince in 1957, and Stuart Damon, who played the Prince in the 1965 version of the musical opposite Lesley Ann Warren, later became prominent soap opera actors.)

In 1998, Ever After: A Cinderella Story very specifically staged an assault on some of the story's gendered elements, casting Drew Barrymore as a more self-possessed heroine (actually named Danielle, but taunted with the nickname "Cinderella") whose prince came to admire her for her intelligence and independence, rather than simply dancing with her and marrying her because she fit into a shoe (much as the oldest Brady Buncher, Greg, was once hired to assume the identity of singer Johnny Bravo because he fit the suit).

In a sense, the classic tale often treated like our quintessential cultural romance had to be substantially adapted to allow for the existence of romantic love as we imagine it now, which does not occur in the complete absence of communication. If a pure fantasy of economic security and social uplift achieved by magic might have sufficed in the 1600s, romance by the 1990s required conversation and affection and the promise of a partnership, so the rhythms of the love story in Ever After don't come from centuries-old folk tales, but from 20th-century romantic comedy crossed with misty melodrama. (The musical had presaged some of this confusion with the eyebrow-raising song that literally asks, "Do I love you because you're beautiful / or are you beautiful because I love you?" In other words, "Me: Shallow or not?" Great question, that.)

Then there are the others. So many others.

For instance, in 2004, the same basic frame that gave us Zucchettina and the girls who ate their mother was used to cast Hilary Duff as Sam, a high school student working in a diner, opposite Chad Michael Murray as a football player in A Cinderella Story -- which is genuinely one of the worst films I have ever seen. (Sticking each of them inside a gourd the entire time would have been a vast improvement, and the film certainly wouldn't have gotten any less romantic chemistry from two well-chosen acorn squash nicely arranged on a platter.) In this one, instead of losing her shoe, she loses her phone. It is dire, my friends. Dire . It is a film as a result of which someone will one day be stopped at the pearly gates and told, "Look, I'm going to let you in, but," and then given a stink-eye the likes of which heaven has never previously known. Nevertheless, good or not, this, too, is a part of Cinderella's long and complicated story.

On and on she goes: Even the new Netflix comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has a Cinderella homage. All it takes is a girl and a dress and a shoe; people get it. There are countless versions. No matter how many I list here, other people would list others, on and on, forever. That's not a casual use of the word "countless."

Bare simplicity is both the story's strength and its weakness. One of the things that makes Perrault's Cinderella story an unlikely classic is that stripped to its basics — as it is in the 1950 cartoon, for instance — there's barely enough to it to sustain more than a paragraph. Sad girl gets magic dress, goes to dance, loses shoe, is found . The film is only an hour and 15 minutes long, and much of that is stuffed not with Cinderella's story, but with Tom and Jerry -style animal hooliganism involving the mice, the birds, the cat and the dog. Helper animals are common in the folk tale variants, though: That movie comes by those mice and birds honestly, from hundreds of years of history.

The reed-thin story is why usually things are added — all the things that tell you what kind of Cinderella this is and whom it's made for. Cinderella becomes a kind of cultural tofu that takes on the flavor of whatever you're mixing with it. In Ever After , what's added is an actual courtship between the prince and Danielle that's not reliant on a single dance. In A Cinderella Story , it's recycled high-school plotting lifted from other, better movies: the nerdy male BFF, the mean popular girls and an entire side investigation of the tragic ways teenagers had to try to flirt online 10 years ago, when texting the letter "S" meant hitting the "7" key on your flip phone four times.

And, not to find too much sociology in my Hilary Duff vehicles, but it's interesting that this one draws the stepsisters as awkward dorks and therefore has to invent another group of beautiful and popular girls to serve as Cinderella's more aggressive tormentors; it's as if Hilary Duff being presented as conventionally appealing in every way and in possession of a cute white convertible means that no dork could believably make her feel anything she didn't care to feel. Thus we get literal stepsisters who are goats from the beginning and figurative stepsisters — the ubiquitous "mean girls" — who represent an actual threat and can only be bested when the prince doesn't choose them. Tacky and awkward girls to emphasize that Cinderella is beautiful and pleasing; mean girls to show that she's good. (Just about the only justification we are given for Sam's pitifully low status at school, despite her seeming like the kind of girl who would do well socially in high school, is that she has a job, and is therefore scorned by her peers.)

You Should See The Other Guy

This poor girl, this Cinderella. Over and over, in century after century, she has to scrub the floors and slop the pigs and perhaps dig around in the fireplace for lentils. (A development I call: Yet Another Situation In Which We'd All Be Better Off Without Lentils.) Her entire life is defined by her dreams of a marriage that will improve her standing — making her not so different from her stepsisters and stepmother — and in some versions, she has no personality except a vague affinity for animals and perhaps the tiniest hint of impatience with cleaning. But you know who fares even worse? The prince.

In the 1950 cartoon, the prince is, in film terms, a MacGuffin. He is not a person but an object of pursuit, like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction . Or maybe he's the prize, like the trophy at the end of The Karate Kid . Either way, he is not human. (In the musical, he has the great — and utterly earnestly delivered — line, "Whatever your name is, I love you.") If you were putting on a stage play based on that cartoon and you were short of actors, my very first suggestion would be that you obtain a large bag of flour and a toupee, allowing you to dispense with casting anyone at all as the prince. Princes in other versions get a little more to do — though part of the point of Cinderella's Into The Woods story is that fleshing out who a prince really is may not turn out as you hope. "I was raised to be charming, not sincere," he says.

The Stepmother And Stepsisters And The Treachery Of Women

One of the reasons the leading man fades is that Cinderella is, in the American/Disney/Perrault version, a story of treachery among women. There are versions, including the Brothers Grimm telling, in which Cinderella's father is alive and simply indifferent to her suffering at the hands of his wife. (In fact, there are variants of Catskin where the heroine's widowed father wants to marry her , forcing her to flee her own home.) But Disney's Cinderella — and, more broadly, the American pop-culture Cinderella — traditionally features a dead father who leaves her in a household of women only. Women who are entirely untrustworthy and vicious. In modern pop-culture thinking, and with apologies for non-fairy-tale terminology, the very core of this story is that if one man sentences you to live among bitches, only another man can save you.

There are a lot of variations on this story in which the central character — sometimes called Cinderella, sometimes not (she's sometimes called fun things like "Finette, The Swineherd") — plays a role herself in all this treachery. There is, as previously mentioned, that variant in which she ultimately schemes to trick her stepmother into consuming her own dead child's flesh. There are also some in which the prince does the dispatching with equal flair: one of Cox's summaries ends, "The prince sends for his two sisters-in-law, with his own hand, he hews them in pieces, and lives with his wife happily ever after." But the one we tend to get is one where Cinderella and the prince rise above: They live happily ever after even without cutting anybody up in little pieces. You cannot simply defeat your tormentors; you must do it kindly and gently. It is not enough to be victorious; you must also be good, even to those who are not good to you.

In Ever After , which spends most of its running time trying to complicate the way women operate in this story, they change things up so that there is one nasty stepsister and one kind one — the latter is played by the wonderful actress Melanie Lynskey, then only 20 or so, as a sweet girl treated only moderately better than Cinderella (and berated about her weight, an interesting little 20th-century touch on a story about girls made to feel bad about themselves). It makes for an interestingly different dynamic, where Danielle's courage benefits more than just herself, and the horrible behavior she confronts doesn't seem endemic to womanhood outside herself.

Of course, the Disney version (per the Perrault version) also adds the fairy godmother, a kind of stand-in for the mother Cinderella doesn't have — the figure her stepmother could have been. In a lot of Cinderella stories, you cannot have your dead mother, but you can have her magic bones — or in this case, her magic stand-in. The supernatural woman becomes effectively an answer to the shortcomings of all the flesh-and-blood women in her life. Ever After spends a little time with this idea that Danielle genuinely wishes her awful stepmother could have loved her, as well as with the suggestion that her stepmother — played by Anjelica Huston — truly loved Danielle's father and could perhaps have turned out differently had she not been stuck in grief.

Both of these things are more nuanced ways of thinking about that relationship than most versions of the story allow, and both notably take place in the absence of a fairy godmother who comes in to nurture and aid Danielle. Instead, she meets Leonardo da Vinci (really!), who's just passing through France and helps out with the dress and some good advice. The cheeky way the film literally replaces a magical character with one of the great men of science and invention is among its more charming, assertively modern touches, and one of the ones that most emphatically announces its mission to renounce magic pumpkins and tell a story about a girl who works hard, defends the less fortunate, protects her parents' memories, reads important literature, can hold her own in unexpected woodland battles with bands of gypsies, and thus gets to marry a prince who is lucky to have her.

What exactly motivates all the mistreatment of Cinderella shifts, though jealousy is a common theme, particularly in the ones we see in the United States. In lots of forms of the story, the stepsisters aren't ugly; in some, they're specified to be quite lovely — they're just really mean. But our versions tend to make them ugly and tacky, grasping social climbers who can't hope to compete with Cinderella's physical beauty, as if to better distinguish them as undeserving compared to their sister who, after all, wants largely the same thing they do: to meet a prince. In the Disney cartoon, they have protruding noses and funny expressions, contrasted with Cinderella's meticulously indistinct face — the face that would adorn a store-brand box labeled "Girl." Her stepmother's prominent nose and pointed chin, of course, are reminiscent of Disney witches across time.

Disney's Post- Frozen , Post- Tangled Cinderella

As for the new live-action Cinderella from Disney, it retains debts to the cartoon, and it keeps Cinderella on brand: blonde, wide-eyed, corseted to an unsettling degree. It keeps the magic: the pumpkin, the fairy godmother (played in a delightfully breezy performance by Helena Bonham Carter), and that pretty glass shoe (here a heel almost impossibly high).

But while this is still Disney's version of this story, and while it is and will remain a story of a girl saved by marriage from a team of mean harpies, there are signs that this is post- Frozen and post- T angled Disney storytelling, this time in live action. And there are, quite honestly, beats that seem awfully similar to the markedly feminist Ever After . Again, Blanchett's take on the stepmother, while not robbed of any of her wickedness, is informed by a couple of moments that suggest she does have feelings and is as much a scarred stepmother as an evil one.

Cinderella again meets the prince outside the palace before there is any ball. Tather than the sparky rom-com business of Ever After , this is a purer, simpler romantic swoon, and it's pretty effective for what it is. The film protects her from being after a change in status by ensuring that she doesn't know he's a prince when she goes to the ball hoping to see him. These are little touches, but they make her easier to relate to and less stuck in a world in which all she dreams of is brushing up against royalty.

The transformations of pumpkin and mice alike are great fun, and the ball is scrumptious to watch. Making a proper Cinderella ballgown — one that can still impress in an age in which that character has everything including a waffle iron branded with her likeness — is tough, but this one is such a liquid swirl that it's independently pretty to watch how it behaves in a dance.

It's a film that's exactly what it has to be. It's still Disney, it's still extremely safe, it's still about being rescued and married off to gain higher status, it's still another princess movie. Its updated elements are interesting but measured; it has white leads across the board, but Cinderella lives in an intriguingly diverse kingdom. But it's executed so well that in the end, it's probably as good as it was at all reasonable to expect it might be. Branagh knows his scenic lushscapes, and why would you have anyone else as the stepmother if you could get Cate Blanchett?

The frustrations are contained in the ways in which it's traditional, the things they didn't modernize. The frustrations grow from parts of the story that, while they could certainly be altered — there are 345 variants already, after all — have been around for hundreds of years.

In Conclusion: Is Captain America A Cinderella Story?

Drawing precise conclusions about who the cultural Cinderella is right now is so hard, because in a sense, everything has a taste of Cinderella. Despite the fact that My Fair Lady has specific origins in George Bernard Shaw and goes back to Ovid, Time recently pointed out that in one interview , Julie Andrews, who you'll remember had actually played Cinderella, called My Fair Lady "the best Cinderella story, really."

If it's just a rescue of a deserving underdog from an ordinary life and delivery to an extraordinary one, then The Little Mermaid is Cinderella, and Pretty Woman is Cinderella, and — to be honest? — Captain America is Cinderella. Lots of our current stories are. What is a fairy godmother, after all, that isn't also present in the idea of being bitten by a spider and gaining the ability to climb buildings? What is that pumpkin coach but ... the Batmobile? And not to return to the tone of cannibalism and murder, but what consideration of unloved pop-culture girls whose evil mothers won't let them to go dances is complete without Carrie ?

Too far afield? Sure. But this is folklore, and it doesn't end, it just takes new forms. It isn't as if folklore goes up to 1900 and then stops, and everything after that is "pop culture." The production is different and the financing is different, but the appeal of stories that overlap and wind together, and the appeal of stories told and retold in different forms in different voices and variations, is not only a function of greed. It's also a function of instincts to tell and share and revisit stories you've heard before, not because they're new, but because they're not.

The slippery genius of the Cinderella story

Cinderella has endured for hundreds of years. That’s because it gives us a way to talk about families.

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by Constance Grady

The fairy tale of Cinderella has a rep for being a bit retrograde. It’s a story about a girl whose passivity and meekness in the face of abuse is rewarded by a fairy godmother who hands her over to a man, goes the usual criticism. It’s the story of a girl who can’t even make it to a party without magical help.

But like all fairy tales, Cinderella doesn’t actually have an inherent value system or morality. It’s an obliging story that’s been told and retold so often that it doesn’t really have a stable moral anymore. Instead, it can have any moral.

In medieval Europe, Cinderella tended to triumph because she was clever and lucky. In the 19th century, the brothers Grimm, who recorded the version of the story that Americans are most likely to think of as canonical, centered Cinderella’s triumph on her kindness and her beauty. And as the story was told and retold, Cinderella moved back and forth between being the active author of her own fate and a passive, voiceless doll.

Over the past few decades, Cinderella has been repackaged over and over again as a feminist icon. Just this year, Rebecca Solnit, the feminist writer who coined the term “mansplaining,” published a children’s picture book titled Cinderella Liberator . It ends with Cinderella opening her own bakery and forming a lasting platonic friendship with the prince, who gives up his title to become a farmer.

The morality of Cinderella may not be consistent over the centuries, but the basic plot is: In every Cinderella, the heroine is a daughter who is betrayed and abused by her mother or stepmother, and she triumphs at the end because of her innate virtue. The virtue in question changes depending on who is telling the story.

That’s because what gives Cinderella its power isn’t its morality. It’s the way the story thinks about families.

Cinderella parses fundamental family questions. How do we combine two families? And how do family structures survive when children stop being children?

Early Cinderellas were tricksters

Early Cinderellas tended to be wily trickster characters who schemed their way to the top, says Jack Zipes, a professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota and one of the foremost scholars of fairy tales in the world. Zipes traces Cinderella back to ancient Egypt and China, but he says one of the earliest European versions of the story came from Giambattista Basile. Basile called his 1634 version “ The Cat Cinderella ” (“Cenerentola” in Italian, but it translates to Cat Cinderella in English), because his Cinderella was clever like a cat.

Cat Cinderella murders her first wicked stepmother after she gets tired of the abuse, and she repeatedly pokes her father with a pin until he agrees to marry her governess next. The governess eventually proves to be just as wicked as the first stepmother, and the rest of the story continues along familiar lines — except that Cinderella triumphs because she is smart enough to outwit her wicked stepsisters and scam her way to the ball, and because she is lucky enough to have fairy allies. Basile’s moral at the end, “You must be mad to oppose the stars,” nods to the importance of fate in his story.

But the central conflict here is the same one that we know and recognize in modern Cinderellas: Cat Cinderella’s mother is dead, and her father has married a new wife. (Two new wives, actually.) What happens to their family now?

Finette Cendron and her fairy godmother.

In Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy’s 1697 version, “ Finette Cendron ,” our heroine is pointedly the cleverest of three daughters. Her sisters are named Fleur d’Amour (Flower of Love) and Belle-de-Nuit (Beauty of the Night), but the Cinderella figure is named Fine-Oreille (Shrewd Listener) and nicknamed Finette, or Little Clever Girl. Finette’s adventures unspool in a story that reads like a Cinderella/Hansel and Gretel hybrid, and when she eventually triumphs over her wicked mother, her wicked sisters, and the passel of ogres who want to eat her, it’s through her exceptional cleverness.

Finette is also exceptionally kind, but the narrator of “Finette Cendron” hastens to assure us that being virtuous doesn’t make her special. Instead, Finette’s kindness is important because being kind to bad people makes those bad people hilariously angry. “Do favors for the undeserving until they weep,” the narrator advises the reader in the rhyming moral lesson. “Each benefit inflicts a wound most deep, cutting the haughty bosom to the core.” Finette, in other words, was the original troll of the pre-internet world.

Finette’s story isn’t quite the same as the Cinderella we’re most familiar with now. Her wicked mother is her biological mother, her beautiful sisters are her biological sisters, and the mother is targeting all three of the daughters because she believes the family doesn’t have enough food to feed both parents and children. But the bones of the conflict between them is one that we see repeated over and over in fairy tales, including the Cinderella we know best today: What happens when a daughter reaches puberty? How does a mother handle a daughter who might be a sexual threat?

But although the conflict in these early Cinderellas is familiar and universal, the virtues that allow Cinderella her victory aren’t. In these stories, Cinderella may or may not be kind, and she’s usually at least pretty enough to clean up well in a ball gown, but that’s not why she wins in the end. She wins because she’s smart, and because she’s lucky. The moral system in these stories is one of chaos and happenstance, where the best thing you can do is forge powerful allies and be as clever as possible.

Charles Perrault’s 1697 “ Cinderella ” is the one that seems to have influenced the Grimms’ version most strongly — and it was the first to make Cinderella’s fateful shoe a glass slipper. In Perrault’s version, Cinderella is a little more passive than Cat Cinderella or Finette were (at no point does she murder anyone or poke anyone with a pin), but she actively collaborates with her fairy godmother to come up with her scheme, and she takes pleasure in deceiving her wicked stepsisters. In the end, the narrator informs us that Cinderella is victorious because of her beauty and her kindness — and because of her courage, common sense, and good fortune in having a fairy godmother.

Illustration of the Charles Perrault’s 1697 “Cinderella.”

It was with all those literary versions of Cinderella already recorded, and plenty of folklore variations floating through the oral tradition, that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their Cinderella in 1812 in their first edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales . And then revised their stories to publish them again in 1819. And then again and again, revising more and more, until by 1864 they’d published 17 editions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales .

Over time, the old trickster Cinderella loses her voice

Scholars don’t agree on why, exactly, the Grimms kept revising their stories. There’s a general consensus on the Grimms’ tendency to turn wicked mothers into wicked stepmothers, as they did over time for “Snow White” and “Hansel and Gretel”: It seems to be a gentle bowdlerization, an attempt to keep the biological mothers in their stories models of virtue. For the Grimms, says Zipes, mothers were meant to be “nice.” (Cinderella’s wicked stepmother, though, is always a stepmother for the Grimms, and the story goes through few structural changes from one edition to the next.)

But the Grimms continued to fiddle with their stories in other ways as they republished, and the possible explanations for some of those changes are controversial.

Zipes argues strongly that most of the changes the Grimms made to their stories as they revised were in the pursuit of accuracy to the oral tradition, and that they were just editing as they found more versions of Cinderella floating through folklore. But Ruth Bottigheimer, a folklorist at Stony Brook University SUNY, has a different idea.

Bottigheimer argues that the Grimms were necessarily influenced by their position as bourgeois 19th-century Germans when they wrote down the fairy tales they had collected, and that consciously or unconsciously, they edited the stories to correspond to their own moral values. “Who tells the tales?” she asks in her 1997 book Grimms’ Bad Girls and Bold Boys . “That is, whose voice do we actually hear?”

In Grimms’ Bad Girls and Bold Boys , Bottigheimer tracks the speech across the Grimms’ editions of “Cinderella,” looking at which characters get to talk out loud (direct speech) and which characters have their sentences summarized instead (indirect speech). What she finds is a consistent pattern: “Direct speech has tended to be transferred from women to men,” she writes, “and from good to bad girls and women.” In other words, as the Grimms continue to edit the story, the “good” women — Cinderella and her dead mother — start talking less and less. The men and the “bad” women start talking more.

In the Grimms’ 1812 version of the story, Cinderella has 12 lines of direct speech, her stepmother four, and the prince four. But by 1857, Cinderella is down to six lines of direct speech. Where she protests her poor treatment in 1812, she obeys unquestioningly in 1864; where she lies to her stepmother in 1812, she is silent in 1864. Her stepmother, meanwhile, is up to 12 lines of direct speech in 1864, and the prince to 11.

Bottigheimer argues that for the Grimms, silence is both gendered and moral: Good women illustrate their virtue through their silence and passivity. Bad women show their badness by talking, which is unwomanly and hence wicked. Men, who are strong and active, should speak at will.

The Grimms may or may not have erased Cinderella’s direct speech with the intention of making her more passive, but it certainly does seem to have vanished over time. And as the Grimms’ version of the story spread, the trickster Cinderella from 200 years earlier vanished entirely. Now Cinderella wins because of her moral virtue, and part of the way we can see she’s virtuous is that she is silent.

An engraved woodcut of Cinderella by Jonnard from 1894.

But while the Grimms may have altered Cinderella’s personality over time, they kept her family problems fundamentally stable — and they’re the same problems that show up in the Disney version, too. Cinderella’s mother is dead, and her father’s new wife is targeting Cinderella. How can the family survive?

Cinderella endures because it helps us think about our families

Zipes has a theory about why Cinderella has lasted as long as it has, no matter how often it’s edited or rewritten to express new moral lessons. He thinks it’s helping us think about a fundamental problem.

“In our brains, there’s a place that we retain stories or narratives or things that are important to the survival of the human species,” he says, “and these stories enable us to deal with conflicts that come up time and time again that have never been resolved.”

In Cinderella, Zipes says, the conflict is: “How do you mix families?”

Since the 17th century, Cinderella stories have consistently focused on a heroine whose mother has died, and whose father’s new wife favors her biological children over her. Zipes calls the story type “The Revenge and Reward of Neglected Daughters”: The heroine loses status after the death of her mother, but in the end she rises up more powerful than she ever was before. Traditionally, the thing that makes Cinderella win — her beauty or her kindness or her cleverness — is the thing that the narrator points to as important for us to emulate in the moral of the story. But that attribute can be practically anything, and it won’t change the shape of the family story.

Zipes argues that this family story has always been enormously important. The question of how to mix families successfully was a major problem in pre-20th-century Europe, when it was common for women to die in childbirth — and it also became a giant question in a different way starting in the 20th century, he argues, because “there are so many divorces that the Cinderella story is something that we rely on in our brains.”

Cinderella is also a family story on a more universal level. It’s one of a group of fairy tales — “Look at Snow White!” says Zipes — in which the heroine reaches sexual maturity and promptly becomes the object of intense sexual jealousy from her mother figure. The father figure in these tales is either utterly ineffectual in the face of the mother’s abuse or, in a story like the Perrault fairy tale Donkeyskin — a story in the Cinderella vein, which sees its heroine fleeing from her father after he proposes marriage to her — becomes a sexual threat to his daughter.

Depending on how you look at that repeated fairy tale narrative of jealousy and danger, Cinderella is either the classic Freudian family fable or it’s the story of women competing for male attention under a patriarchal system where they know they’ll need that attention to survive. Either way, it is an extremely durable story. We’ve been telling it over and over again for centuries.

We’ve told it with a multiplicity of Cinderellas: with a silent Cinderella and the scheming Cat Cinderella and tricky Finette, with Disney’s pretty and passive Cinderella, with Solnit’s kind and rebellious Cinderella Liberator. They’re all there, and they’re all waiting to talk to us about our families. That’s what Cinderella is for.

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Cinderella Story Structure

Write a story with a Cinderella story structure: try, fail, try, fail, try, fail, life-changing moment.

We’re starting our week of Story Elements prompts with a deep dive into story structure.

Ready? Let’s dive in.

Write A Story With a “Cinderella Story Structure

The Life-Changing Moment

I come to believe that short stories revolve around one life changing moment.

It doesn’t have to be literally life-changing, but it has to change something for the characters (temporarily or permanently).

If you’re writing quiet internal literary fiction, the moment is going to be something small, like realizing you can’t go on in this relationship, or this job.

If the story is a big action thriller then the life-changing moment could be anything from the moment you decide you need to take action, to the moment when you win or lose.

A Cinderella Story Structure

In the story of Cinderella our heroine wants to find happiness. She tries and fails and tries and fails. A lot.

She tries to find it by being nice to her sisters and stepmother, but they just treat her terribly.
She tries to find it by going to the ball, but she’s not allowed to go.
She tries to find it from her fairy godmother. This one almost works, but there are time limits and she fails. When the love-struck prince can’t find her, all is lost.

Eventually, the life-changing moment comes at the end of the story when the prince finds her and Cinderella gets to choose her happy ending.

(In most versions she says yes and marries the prince; in every version, this choice is the first time Cinders has had any power. This is when her life changes.

So, this is where the story ends because the character’s story arc is over: She has her chance to reach her goal, at long last.

How To Write A Cinderella Story

Let you character want something. In Cinderella’s case she wants happiness. Your character might want anything from fulfillment to a piece of chocolate cake!
Start the story with the character in a place where they don’t have the thing they want.
Let us see the character trying to achieve their goal once, twice, three times.
The first failure can be pretty small. (She drops a perfect piece of chocolate cake on the floor.) The second failure should be a little more discouraging. (She goes to the shop and discovers they’re out of cake.) The third failure should seem insurmountable.(The government bans chocolate cake!)
These failures have taught the character how much they want their goal and that the only way to achieve it is through using their unique talents. Now the climax is on. (In my story, for example, my witty and feisty heroine decides to run a political campaign and get elected to office in order to strike down this terrible anti-chocolate cake legislation. Your story could be more serious.)
The story ends when the character realizes what needs to be done and makes the decision to pursue it or to walk away. In a short story you don’t have to show was the rest of the events. The arc, the journey, for the character is over at the moment when they see the path to pursuing their goal.
Of course this is not the case in every story structure but in this story structure, the Cinderella story structure, the character’s journey — and the story — ends here.

22 thoughts on “Cinderella Story Structure”

Oh well. Clearly the month’s theme is on gloominess, even when bringing in Tigger. http://tidbitsbyshannon.blogspot.com/2016/09/just-one-more-bounce-please.html

Just couldn’t resist trying to turn the structure a bit on its ear as a Western. First draft but… Is the adopted Cheyenne girl Abequa or Abigail? Cheyenne Cinderella http://wp.me/p1AR9N-2QQ

Another poignant and captivating story. Thanks for sharing, Joe.

My day 8 story: https://fallonbrownwrites.wordpress.com/story-a-day-september-2016/story-a-day-september-day-8-make-peace/

This one turned out longer than expected. And is probably the end(or close to) of the novella I’m working on. So, if you don’t want to know how that ends(haha. I write Romance. That’s pretty much a given), be warned.

Well done, Fallon. Poignant and it begs the question “Why does family always hurt so much?”

Love these prompts! Had such a fun time writing this. Many thanks! 😀

https://atomicindigo.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/the-favorite-dessert/

My contribution for Day 8 – https://annieswritingchallenge.wordpress.com/may-2016-story-a-day-challenge/day-8-story-a-day-in-may-challenge-my-aunt-joe/

In a writing slump, but I will finish the month on time!

OK. I’ve been playing catch-up, and now I want to share my Cinderella story. This isn’t suitable for work, and it’s more the slicing up their feet version of the story. It’s dark. Very dark. With a light at the end of the tunnel…

https://shanjeniah.com/2016/05/18/choices-stad-kifo-project-for-may-8/

Hope you enjoy this one! https://storiesin5minutes.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/another-cinderella-story-storyaday-post/

Well, I did it. A Cinderella style story. https://theencouragingscribe.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/story-a-day-day-8/

Life sometimes has a way of slapping you in the face and that’s exactly what has happened to me this week…it slapped me good and hard. First we lost our fourteen-year-old Oriental cat, Napoleon, from diabetes and then, three days later, our precious Cavoodle, Cally, lost her sight. I shall most probably be late all this week, but I shall still try to post.

https://vickgoodwin.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/story-a-day-day-8-our-journey/

With Mother’s Day and Graduation day for UK all taking place on the same day, I was late writing my Cinderella Style Story. Following the up and down sequence was harder than the others up until now. We are only on day 8, this is going to be a great exercise in writing.

This is a tough one, especially when you’re banging out a draft in a day, but worthwhile, I think!

Hi All. Followed the Cinderella prompt for today. Created a basic draft of a story that I took from an event I had noticed going on in the neighborhood . It was a quiet mini drama happening under the radar and went on for several weeks. The story will be needing more development later, and the ending needs to be figured out, because the real ending is unknown. it’s now 9pm, so finished up on time. For me, this This was definitely a harder prompt than week one. Just what Doctor Julie ordered. 🙂

Hey, I reckon if you’re still here, you can take it! 😉

I liked this prompt and I liked my story (except for the ending, but I want to work on it): https://notwhereilive.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/story-a-day-may-day-eight/

Ugghhhsss.. this one gave me more troubles than I thought possible. I couldn’t figure out how to work so many failures into a short story without turning it into a novella. So I settled for this: https://promptlywritten.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/the-dilemma-flash-fiction/

True, I may have specified too many try/fails. Or maybe the first one needs to have happened before the story starts…

Story #8 of my Story-A-Day quest. Today’s prompt was for a Cinderella story structure. I tried, failed, tried, failed, tried, failed. I tried, I really did. But this is what eventually came out. Knew it would happen eventually. What was it old Lodge Skins says at the end of Little Big Man? “I was afraid of that. Well, sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn’t.” Today, a different magic happened. Travelogue http://wp.me/p1AR9N-2JJ

This one started out based on the prompt but then it took a turn far, far away: https://only100words.xyz/2016/05/08/what-they-didnt-tell-you-when-they-made-you-janitor-of-the-tallest-building-in-town/

This story ended up not being about what I thought it was about when I started. Love when that happens. http://susan-reads.blogspot.com/2016/05/coffee.html

This one could almost be a true story! I am sure that every writer will be able to relate this one. https://angietrafford.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/story-a-day-day-eight/

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Essay on My Favourite Story Book Cinderella

Students are often asked to write an essay on My Favourite Story Book Cinderella in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on My Favourite Story Book Cinderella

Introduction.

Cinderella, my favourite storybook, is a classic tale of resilience and dreams coming true.

The story revolves around a kind and gentle girl, Cinderella, who lives with her wicked stepmother and stepsisters.

Cinderella, the protagonist, is a symbol of humility and kindness. The antagonists are her stepmother and stepsisters.

Life Lessons

The story teaches us that goodness always triumphs over evil, and dreams do come true.

Cinderella, with its magical and inspiring storyline, will always be my favourite storybook.

250 Words Essay on My Favourite Story Book Cinderella

Cinderella, a timeless classic, has been my favourite storybook since childhood. Its enchanting narrative, captivating characters, and underlying themes of resilience and hope have left an indelible impression on me.

The Enthralling Narrative

The story revolves around a young girl, Cinderella, subjected to harsh treatment by her stepmother and stepsisters. Despite her circumstances, she remains kindhearted and patient. The narrative’s magic lies in its transformative arc, where Cinderella’s life changes dramatically through an enchanted pumpkin, mice, and a fairy godmother.

Resilience Personified

Cinderella’s character is a testament to resilience. Her ability to maintain her kindness and optimism amidst adversity has always been inspiring. She teaches us that no matter how bleak the circumstances, one should never lose hope or compromise one’s goodness.

Symbolism and Themes

The story of Cinderella is replete with symbolism and themes that resonate even today. The glass slipper is a symbol of Cinderella’s true identity, which cannot be hidden or altered. The striking of midnight signifies the transient nature of materialistic allure. The story also underscores the themes of justice and karma, where the good is rewarded, and the wicked are punished.

Cinderella is more than just a fairy tale. It is a narrative that encourages its readers to remain hopeful and kind, even in the face of adversity. This storybook has greatly influenced my outlook towards life, making it my favourite. In essence, Cinderella is a beacon of hope, resilience, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

500 Words Essay on My Favourite Story Book Cinderella

“Cinderella,” a timeless classic, has been my favourite story book since childhood. The enchanting tale, brimming with hope, resilience, and magic, has been a source of inspiration, providing valuable life lessons that have shaped my perspective on various aspects of life.

“Cinderella” is not merely a fairy tale about a girl who becomes a princess. It is a profound narrative that explores themes of resilience, kindness, and the transformative power of hope. Cinderella, the protagonist, symbolizes the human spirit’s resilience in the face of adversity. Despite her harsh circumstances, she remains kind and hopeful, demonstrating that adversity should not define one’s character.

The story of Cinderella imparts crucial life lessons. It teaches us that kindness and humility are virtues that can overcome the harshest of adversities. Cinderella’s character embodies these virtues, and her story serves as a reminder that these qualities are often rewarded. The story also emphasizes the importance of hope. Cinderella’s unwavering hope, even in her dire circumstances, is a testament to the power of positive thinking and the belief in better days.

The Element of Magic

The element of magic in “Cinderella” is an essential component that adds charm and allure to the story. The fairy godmother, the magical transformation, and the iconic glass slipper serve as metaphors for the unexpected possibilities that life holds. They symbolize that magical transformations can occur in our lives when we least expect them, provided we remain hopeful and resilient.

Impact on Readers

“Cinderella” has a profound impact on its readers. It serves as a beacon of hope, teaching us to remain hopeful and resilient in the face of adversity. It encourages us to believe in the possibility of a better future, no matter how bleak the present may seem. This timeless fairy tale has the power to inspire and motivate, instilling values of kindness, humility, and resilience.

In conclusion, “Cinderella” is my favourite story book not just for its enchanting tale, but for the profound life lessons it imparts. It is a narrative of hope, resilience, and magic that continues to inspire readers of all ages. The story of Cinderella remains a timeless classic, reminding us of the transformative power of hope, the virtue of kindness, and the magic that lies in believing in oneself.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on Cinderella
Essay on Church
Essay on Christianity

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Happy studying!

An Analysis of Anne Sexton's "Cinderella"

Categories: Cinderella Fairy Tale

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, do yourself a favor -- skip 'cinderella story'.

Now streaming on:

Ernest Madison says he swore off movie critics when they panned " Dragonslayer ," one of the favorites of his childhood. "I stopped paying attention to critics because they kept giving bad reviews to good movies," says Madison, now 35.

Fourteen-year-old Byron Turner feels the same way. He turns to the Web for movie information and trailers, then shares what he's discovered with his friends, his sister Jasmine, even his mother, Toni.

"I used to watch Roger Ebert but now I get most of my information from Byron," Toni Turner says. "I don't really pay attention to critics anymore."

--Story by Bob Curtright in the Wichita Eagle

Dear Byron,

I know what your mother means because when I was 14, I was also pummeling my parents with information about new movies and singing stars. I didn't have the Internet, but I grabbed information anywhere I could -- mostly from other kids, Hollywood newspaper columnists and what disc jockeys said. Of course that was a more innocent time, when movies slowly crept around the country, and there was time to get advance warning of a turkey.

Your task is harder than mine was, because the typical multiplex movie is heralded by an ad campaign costing anywhere from $20 million to $50 million. Fast food restaurants now have tie-ins with everyone from Shrek to Spider-Man; when I was a kid we were lucky to get ketchup with the fries. Enormous pressure is put on the target audience to turn them out on opening weekends. And Hollywood's most valued target audience, Byron, is teenage males. In other words, you.

So I am writing you in the hope of saving your friends, your sister Jasmine, and your mother Toni from going to see a truly dismal new movie. It is called "A Cinderella Story," and they may think they'll like it because it stars Hilary Duff .

I liked her in " Cheaper by the Dozen ," and said she was "beautiful and skilled" in "The Lizzie McGuire Movie," but wrote: "As a role model, Lizzie functions essentially as a spokeswoman for the teen retail fashion industry, and the most-quoted line in the movie is likely to be when the catty Kate accuses her of being an 'outfit repeater.' Since many of the kids in the audience will not be millionaires and do indeed wear the same outfit more than once, this is a little cruel, but there you go."

That's probably something your mother might agree with.

In "A Cinderella Story," Hilary plays Sam, a Valley Girl whose happy adolescence ends when her dad is killed in an earthquake. That puts her in the clutches of an evil stepmother ( Jennifer Coolidge , who you may remember fondly as Stifler's mom in the " American Pie " movies, although since they were rated R, of course you haven't seen them). Sam also naturally has two evil stepsisters. Half the girls in school have a crush on Austin ( Chad Michael Murray ), a handsome football star, but Sam never guesses that Austin is secretly kind of poetic -- and is, in fact, her best chat room buddy. She agrees to meet him at the big Halloween dance, wearing a mask to preserve her anonymity; as a disguise, the mask makes her look uncannily like Hilary Duff wearing a mask.

Anyway, this is a lame, stupid movie, but Warner Bros. is spending a fortune, Byron, to persuade you to see it and recommend it to your mom and Jasmine. So you must be strong and wise, and do your research. Even though your mother no longer watches my TV show, you use the Internet as a resource and no doubt know about movie review sources like rottentomatoes.com , metacritic.com and even (pardon me while I wipe away a tear) suntimes.com/ebert . Even when a critic dislikes a movie, if it's a good review, it has enough information so you can figure out whether you'd like it, anyway.

For example, this review is a splendid review because it lets you know you'd hate "A Cinderella Story," and I am pretty much 100 percent sure that you would. So I offer the following advice. Urgently counsel your mom and sister to forget about going out to the movies this week, and instead mark the calendar for Aug. 24, when " Ella Enchanted " will be released on video. This is a movie that came out in April and sank without a trace, despite the fact that it was magical, funny, intelligent, romantic and charming.

It stars the beautiful Anne Hathaway (from " The Princess Diaries ") as a young girl whose fairy godmother ( Vivica A. Fox ) puts a spell on her that makes her life extremely complicated. She has the usual evil stepmother and two jealous stepsisters. Will she win the love of Prince Charmont ( Hugh Dancy )? "A Cinderella Story" is a terrible movie, sappy and dead in the water, but "Ella Enchanted" is a wonderful movie, and if Jasmine and your mom insist on Cinderella, you can casually point out what Ella is short for.

As for that guy Ernest Madison, he was about 11 when "Dragonslayer" came out. He must have been a child prodigy, to swear off movie critics at an age when most kids didn't even know they existed. If he still feels the same way, I hope he goes to see "A Cinderella Story." That'll teach him.

Your fellow critic,

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

A Cinderella Story (2004)

Rated PG for mild language and innuendo

Hilary Duff as Sam

Jennifer Coolidge as Fiona

Chad Michael Murray as Austin

Dan Byrd as Carter

Regina King as Rhonda

Julie Gonzalo as Shelby

Lin Shaye as Mrs. Wells

Madeline Zima as Brianna

Andrea Avery as Gabriella

Directed by

Mark Rosman
Leigh Dunlap

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The Cinderella Story Film Analysis Essay

The Cinderella Story is one in which virtually every child, more so girls cut their teeth on romance literature, film, or animation (Kelley 87). The fairy tale has been immortalized in numerous versions that exist as children’s books, and it would be difficult to imagine a girl in the western world who has not at least had some contact with the story by the time she is in her teens (Kelley 88).

Like a typical fairy tale, it is fairly predictable as far as the action goes. Nevertheless, this does not steal the glamour from the overall story, it has been made and remade in numerous versions of children’s books, movie/s, and animations and with each generation, new culturally adjusted and technologically enhanced versions are produced (Kelley 89). The book is archetypical of old school romance, involving an unfairly treated girl who is, however, appear more attractive and interesting than her cruel stepfamily.

By the description alone, the reader has automatically routed for Cinderella as underdogs have always occupied a soft place in the hearts of most readers. Many of the clichés one finds in the movie and the animation rendition of this and, indeed, numerous other fairy tale romances, can be traced back to the written version of Cinderella (Kelley 87). The idea of a poor princess looking for her prince charming, evil stepfamily and fairy godmothers may appear iconic and universal, but they only exist because the story brought them to life (Weiner 47).

The book version, which is also the original published version, is one of the stories in the Grimm’s Fairytales collection. It is from this that all the other spin-offs ranging from the movies in the 50s to the 90s and most recently the Cinderella story was created. The original story gives details about her mother’s illness and subsequent death and gives a solid background to how badly she was treated by her stepsister and mother who took away her nice clothes and dressed her in rags before putting him in the kitchen to slave all day.

In a sense, the book version is not really of a low-class girl who beats the odds to leap from over her upper-class step-siblings, who lacked beauty or brain. She was essentially a highborn aimed at recapturing her position from the lowborn that had taken over her home. Despite the fact that the story is popularly seen as one where the poor can rise if they have the drive to achieve, the original book version was essentially produced from a stratified cocoon (Kelley 87; Philip 98). The book version also focuses on magical elements, which are largely absent from subsequent productions, more so in the modern film genre.

For example, when Cinderella is told to sort lentils from the ashes among other impossible tasks in a way to stop her from attending the ball. She calls upon the birds in the air to lend their assistance, although for what reason they would obey her is not clear. However, it is worth noting once again that in the ex-post factor setting, using magic to get antagonist out of problems was an acceptable way of straightening out kinks in the plot without losing authenticity as it were.

The origin of the fairy godmother in the story is explained in a “logical” albeit magical way as she is seen to have sprung from a branch that Cinderella planted on her mother’s grave (Philip 121). Quintessentially, the audiences are made to understand that the bird (fairy godmother) is Cinderella’s late mother extending a helping hand from the grave to even out the scores for her child (Philip 29).

The ball scene in which she makes a stunning appearance at the dance is, however, largely unvaried in the different editions and renditions as the nexus of the story are often based on her impressing the prince then disappearing, leaving him yearning and eventually looking for her. The Disney animation of the story in 1950, on the other hand, was not very different from the book version and too many critics, it was simply a portrayal of the book on the screen (Kelley 90).

It is, however, highly critiqued on the basis that Cinderella is too passive and subjective and seemingly without a will of her own and only out to get love and waiting to be rescued from a situation by the prince. The animation probably managed to reproduce the book so closely owing to the fact that using technology Disney could render all the magical elements such as the appearance and disappearance of the fairy godmother the conjuring of the golden carriage and glass shoes as well as the manipulation of birds to aid Cinderella (Kelley 91).

This version, despite criticism by adults, was very popular among children who were happy to accept the book version as their reality (Kelley 92). Therefore, children did not ask difficult questions about where her father was and how he left her to her plight, or how come the prince did not recognize her after spending half of the previous night dancing with her. From a psychoanalytical point of view, modern critics may associate Cinderella’s apparent dependence on a male figure for rescue from her situation to be linked to a Freudian Electra complex (Dalal 29; Roland 132).

This is because, in the story version, her father was present, but he did little or nothing to save her from her plight, which may have indicated a poor relationship between them. Therefore, Cinderella may actually be viewed as needing the prince to provide herself with a father figure and respite from her matriarchal upbringing, which is an important psychological aspect (Roland 29). Despite the cold reception from the critics, the animated film went on to become one of the most recognizable princess icons of all times, the character captured the imaginations of many Americans, and with her iconic glass heels and makeover, she became an important fashion icon (Kelley 88).

However, the negative reception by critics served to caution future produces of the story not to stick too close to the original version since there were too many inconsistencies that may be tolerable in a children’s book, but would not go down well with an adult audience. This is especially based on the feminist perception since Cinderella, despite being an important female lead character, is perceived in the original story as one-dimensional and too much of a victim.

This perception did not auger well with many who thought she made a poor character to emulate. In response, later versions of the film were done in such a way that she was more proactive and multi-dimensional. An example of this departure from the traditional plot is evinced in the 2004 Warner Bros rendition of Cinderella, which the producers tried to make a realistic Cinderella film retaining the underlying themes (Kelley 87).

The Cinderella Story is one of the more recent remakes of Cinderella created in 2004 and themed on modern romance interposed with the trappings of the 21 st century, such as cell phones and with the challenges adopted for modernity such as the search for an identity, and the pursuits for higher education (Kelley 87). Some themes remain unchanged from the original story, such as the pursuit of true love as well as the oppression of the weak by the strong and evil (Kelley 89).

In this case, the prince is only the ruler in the traditional capitalist America sense, his parents are wealthy, and he is a gifted and attractive ballplayer who all girls swoon over, but he is not happy with his life. Sam, on the other hand, is born into wealth like Cinderella, but denied her inheritance and is living in relative poverty given that she cannot afford to pay for her college education, although her cruel stepfamily clearly lives in the lap of luxury on her inheritance. The film has been culturally adjusted such that the “prince” meets the princess in a school Halloween dance, although they had been corresponding for several years through the mail.

These changes stem from the fact that modern audiences would likely be hostile to a 21st century rendition of the film where a couple falls in love at first sight or even worse if the boy could not recognize the girl except through her shoe, which in any case is unlikely given that numerous women wear the same size of shoe. Even if he were to go around checking which would be put down to a shoe fetish, he would find dozens of women to wear the mythical glass sandal unless the princess who had extremely small or big feet (Philip 65).

While the concept of fairy godmother has been preserved in Rhoda’s guidance for Sam, there is no magical connotation, and she only provides guidance. Instead, the couple is seen as being responsible for their destiny, and Cinderella’s power is not in solving complex riddles or being unworldly beautiful. She is powerful because of her courage, which helps her confront her stepfamily and take what is rightfully hers and inspiring the prince to do the same with this father, and demand that he be allowed to go to Princeton instead of living out his father’s dream of playing ball for the rest of his life (Kelley 91). She has a superego, which she utilizes to dominate in the story (Bollas 120).

Nevertheless, even with the modernized version, the capitalistic subtext is just as dominant since the only way their “happily ever after” was going to materialize as if both of them were on equal or relatively similar social, economic footing. In the book version, she had a fairy godmother (Kelley 87). Similarly, the film version has her father extending financial help posthumously after his death. This can be viewed in the context of social-cultural psychoanalysis, which suggests that individuals could think that the dead could help them (Dalal 89).

Annotated bibliography

Aron, Lewis. A meeting of minds: Mutuality in psychoanalysis . Vol. 4. London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Aron provides readers with updated information about psychoanalysis, which he argues that it thrives at all times. To understand psychoanalysis, it is important to comprehend the various aspects of models and theories. One of the key theories that have been proposed by the author is the Freudian theory, which is characterized by diverse concepts.

Bollas, Christopher. Being a character: Psychoanalysis and self-experience . London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Christopher analyzes aspects that are involved in being a character. The book discusses concepts of self experiencing, the evocative object, being a violent character innocence, homosexual arena, and psychic genera, among others with a view to applying theories in understanding the psychology of human beings. Christopher argues that self-experiences are important in comprehending the psychological aspects of individuals.

Dalal, Farhad. Race, colour, and the processes of racialization: new perspectives from group analysis, psychoanalysis, and sociology . London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Farhad uses the book as a platform on which to discuss issues of race and color in racialization as viewed from a psychologist and/or sociologist. It is important to note that race, culture, and ethnicity are related aspects that are viewed differently by psychoanalysts — the author discusses how theses aspects could impact an individual to think in a certain way. The book chapters are arranged so well that there is a high level of transition from one chapter to another.

Horney, Karen. New ways in psychoanalysis . Vol. 16. London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Horney’s book is based on the premises of advancing psychoanalytical strategies that could be applied in a broad range of human science. One of the approaches analyzed in the book is Freud’s thinking, which forms the central platform of psychoanalysis. Other updated theories and concepts discussed by the author include the following: the libido theory, feminine psychology, the death instinct, the Oedipus complex, and the concept of transference. The ego and id are also discussed in detail. The piece of work is quite captivating.

Kelley, Karol. “A modern Cinderella.” Journal of American Culture 17.1 (1994): 87-92. Print.

The author discusses several aspects of modern Cinderella, which is important in the contemporary world. For example, the use of cell phones and other modern technologies is mentioned. The article is important in viewing the transition of movies and stories on the premises of time.

Philip, Neil. The Cinderella story . London, United Kingdom: Penguin Books, 1989.

Neil narrates the story of a beautiful girl who does not get the right protection from her father, who eventually dies, leaving her with a cruel stepfamily. However, the poor girl uses her analytical thinking skills to know how to relate with her family members. She is talented about behavior to the extent that she influences the prince to her thinking. Neil takes readers through a narration that could be analyzed on the premises of psychoanalytical aspects.

Roland, Alan. Cultural pluralism and psychoanalysis: The Asian and North American experience . London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Alan’s book approaches psychoanalysis from a holistic perspective, which is based on comparative analysis, the Asian and American interface, and clinical issues. Each part of the resource is divided into several chapters that aim conclusively discussing concepts in line with the psychological aspects. Alan argues that the study of Asian and American patients suffering from psychological conditions could provide perfect examples of how people are influenced by their thinking processes to develop unhealthy states.

Weiner, Bernard. Human motivation . Oxford, United Kingdom: Psychology Press, 2013. Print.

Weiner’s book offers support to the importance of motivation in human psychoanalysis. Two approaches are proposed for the study of human motivation. First, the experimental stratagem is focused on identifying determinants of behavior, after which mathematical computations are applied to assess the relationship among variables. Second, the non-experimental approach seeks to comprehend behavior without applying mathematical calculations. Weiner offers sane advice for people interested in knowing why individuals are motivated to behave in a certain manner.

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