Cinderella

Cinderella

In the three stories examined; “The Cat Cinderella” by Basile, “Cinderella; or, The Glass Slipper” by Perrault, and “Cinderella” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the neglect of Cinderella is much to do with the jealousy of the stepmother and stepdaughter’s. In the openings of two of the three stories the daughter is shown to be the apple of her fathers eye, beautiful among all else after the passing of her mother. Grimm’s version is the only version that does not give praise to the daughter through the fathers’ eyes. The anger in this story seems to be directed more towards the jealous stepsisters. In Grimm’s version the mother passes and tells her daughter that “the lord will always assist you, and I shall look down from heaven and take care of you” (468).

In all of the stories Cinderella stays true to her moral fiber, kind and caring, even through torment, humiliation, and neglect. The version by Basile is very interesting though. Zezolla kills her first stepmother in order for her teacher, whom she admired, to become her new mother. This only spins things back around on Zezolla because not long after her new stepmother was in the picture, Zezolla was treated even worse, and the mother also brought along six daughters of her own who were just as wicked. This could be seen as fates own revenge on Zezolla for killing the first stepmother. Even through their torment, Cinderella worked for them to make them comfortable and was gifted, by no thanks to her family, in the end.

Basile was both a courtier and soldier during the time of his writings, so this story was probably directed away from an audience of children. He may have broken away from traditional writing at his time since this type of written story was very new and different.

Perrault’s version on the other hand, shows the kindness of Cinderella even through her unfortunate chain of events. Cinderella helps her sisters prepare for the ball and “any other person would have messed up their hairdos, but she was good-natured and dressed them to perfection” (450). Then, once Cinderella made it to the ball, looking better than anyone, with thanks to her godmother, she sat with her sisters and shared gifts with them that she received from the prince. Finally, she marries the prince and finds two noblemen for the stepsisters to marry, even though they were completely undeserving. Cinderella acts very blasÐ"©

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