Throughout time, village elders, parents, or an authority figure have told stories to impart a kernel of wisdom, or to teach a moral code of conduct. To hold the audience's attention, magical characters were invented deeds or quests inserted, villains were defeated, and the boy got the girl. Or in the case of Cinderella, the girl through magical enhancements of grace, patience, and beauty, won the heart of boy. A simple plot written for a simple audience. But according to the article, "Cinderella: Not So Morally Superior" by Elisabeth Panttaja, the author tells us that the sweet-tempered, motherless young woman that we read about as children was an imposter.
Cinderella ends up getting the prize (marriage to the prince) based on looks alone. Most fairy tales follow this general concept: pretty girls who don’t do much get the prize in the end. Lieberman also argues that for boys, it is the bold and active ones that win whatever prize is available, which follows the ideas of traditional gender roles. Lieberman makes a strong point throughout her essay that, “Marriage is the fulcrum and major event of nearly every fairy tale” (325). What Lieberman is trying to stress is that fairy tales always have an emphasis
In this story Panttaja says it is both mothers that are wicked. Panttaja states the real mother “plots and schemes, and she wins” (Panttaja 660) when it comes to fulfilling the wishes of Ashputtle. But actually the two mothers have the same goal in mind; to have their daughters married off and have a joyful life. To be able to do this, the real mother puts a charm on the prince to make him fall in love with Ashputtle instead of anyone else. The prince did not dance with anyone else all night and would always say “she is my partner” (Grimm 630).
Sexton targets this concept of inequality--especially in the enormous gulf between female and male roles--to illustrate how fairy tales are far from “happily ever after.” In the introductory section of “Cinderella,” Sexton derisively conveys formulaic examples of “once upon a time” fairy-tale success stories. She generates humor by creating an outrageous disparity between the before and after in each case. For example, Sexton tells of such improbable transformations as “From toilets to riches,” “From diapers to Dior,” “From homogenized to martinis,” and “From mops to Bonwit Teller” (Sexton 1). Nevertheless, this humor mocks the perception that to be successful, a person must start out as dirt poor and by a stroke of luck, shakes the hand of Midas. Because Cinderella matches this model perfectly, it is, therefore, used as a stereotypical standard.
The fact that most fail to realize, as pointed by the author, is that these two mothers want the same things: they both want the best future for their daughters, and both mothers are willing to do anything to ensure that it happens. It is, however, Cinderella’s mother who surpasses and comes in first place. Panttaja believes Cinderella succeeds in winning the prince’s hand at the ball not because of the goodness of her character, but because she was able to stay loyal to her mother. By doing this her mother rewards her by giving her the most beautiful appearance in the entire kingdom. Cinderella succeeds through her mother’s magic, deceit, lies, and disguises.
A few years ago there were movies such as his examples “Charlie's Angels, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the Powder Puff girls” Where women were very fierce and self defendant. Women could “kick-butt”, and we watched these movies where the women were portrayed as the hero’s. Before that, the fairy tales were pretty much the “back-in-the day” old fashioned versions where the princess was an innocent being who got rescued and swept off her feet by her prince charming. The author explains that drastic change that has occurred, and if you think about it, that is pretty drastic, going from a helpless innocent girl who gets rescued from her dull or evil life by her prince charming. Then it altered to where the “princess” was then a hard core very strong and good fighter who could easily defend herself.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there. In Puck, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, the once-dangerous figure is rendered harmless Puck is Oberon's servant sent by Oberon, who is angry with Titania the fairy queen because he could not have the indian boy/slave, so Puck is sent to fetch the flower that has been hit by cupid's arrows. Puck is then instructed by Oberon to use the love juice to fix the love entanglement occurring between the Athenian lovers who also happen to be running about in the forest. He mistakenly administers the charm to the sleeping Lysander instead of Demetrius. Puck
"Walt Disney's 'Cinderella,'" adapted by Campbell Grant, is the Little Golden Book adaptation of the Disney film. "Cinderella," by Anne Sexton, is a poetic retelling of the "Cinderella" tale that exposes the artificiality of the fairy tale. The last version, written in 1976, is John Gardner's "Gudgekin the Thistle Girl." After the variants, in "'Cinderella': A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts," Freudian psychologist Bruno Bettelheim analyzes "Cinderella's" hidden meanings and asserts that the tale appeals to children because it focuses on the sibling rivalry many children feel at a young age. A Jungian analyst, Jacqueline Schectman, examines the tale to find a sympathetic Stepmother in "'Cinderella' and the Loss of Father-Love."
Close Study of Text – Briar Rose * Briar Rose By Jane Yolen * Sleeping Beauty * Fairytale story Allegory * Good vs. Evil * King and Queen had a child called Aurora * Invited fairy’s to birth * Bad fairy gives baby a curse * Prick finger on spinning wheel * 16th Birthday she falls into a deep sleep for 100 years * A prince tries to save her * Thorns grow all around the tower * Prince kisses her and she wakes up QUOTES: * “And even though to tell a story is to tell some kind of untruth, one often suspects that what seems to be untruth is really a hidden truth” – Ralph Harper * Importance of Storytelling “Stories...We are made up of stores. And even the ones that seem the
In the movie a maid named Marisa gets her happy ending. Marisa is the Cinderella in this movie and has many of the characteristics Yolen says Cinderella should have and once had. For instance Marisa is smart and quick-witted in the movie like Yolen said the European Cinderella was. An example of this is at the beginning when she seems to handle all of her duties with ease and is also able to aid her friend, the butler, with his cut. Marisa on the other hand isn’t as independent as the European Cinderella but more like the American one in that sense.