Fairy tales can be interesting but do we really know the message behind them ? Cinderella is about a girl who is trying to achieve her dreams but she has a step mother that is greedy and cruel with her ,whom she treats cinderella as a slave. Cinderella is getting abused by her own sisters and stepmother , but she doesn't say anything. The story shows us that society expects women to be passive. It's not only about the behavior but women’s goals themselves that are being dictated by the fairy tales. The women in this story is expected to be cleaning as a maid for her stepmother although the stepmother encourages her own daughters for marriage so they can depend on a man preferably rich. In the twentieth century the society has changed …show more content…
In the other hand, every girl in the kingdom wanted to marry the prince and be able to marry him . “ The next day the two sisters went to the ball, and so did Cinderella, but dressed more magnificently than before” (9). The message this movie conveys is that the only way to escape from her abusive sister and mother is to marry someone she has only knew for a few short hours. Marriage shouldn't be a choice just because they want to get away from abuse but unfortunately it may be the only option woman may have. Another message behind the story is that to be able to be good , a girl needs to have gender behaviors and also goals for herself . In the beginning of the book , the book states, “Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl called Cinderella and she had two ugly stepsisters who were very unkind who made her do all the hard work (1) .” This shows that Anastasia and Drizella are very evil and very selfish . So there attitudes and behavior make them seem unpretty. In the other hand, Cinderella is different , “the gentleman had also a young daughter, of rare goodness and sweetness of temper, which she took from her mother, who was the best creature in the world” (5). Cinderella had a very good behavior and does everything for her stepsister and stepmother. This shows that she is loved for qualities which are sweet, kind, and gentle. Gender roles can be dangerous
The Disney version of the story, Cinderella, illustrates a different moral than that of the original story. This story believes an ideal child should do what they are told and follow directions and in the end they will reap the rewards. In this story, Cinderella’s mother dies and her father remarries to a woman who has two daughters. While the daughters are pampered, Cinderella must work to keep the house from falling into disrepair. She befriends the animals and they help her to get ready to go to the ball by finishing her chores and making her a dress. When the evil stepsisters discover the dress they become furious because the mice used trimming from their clothing when making the dress. In revenge, the stepsisters rip the dress, leaving Cinderella out of options and out of hope. Just as Cinderella is about to give up, her fairy godmother appears and with a wave of magic creates a dress and turns a pumpkin and the mice into a horse and carriage. The only problem is that everything will turn back to what it was beforehand at midnight. Cinderella and the Prince fall in love at the ball but she must quickly leave because the
Decisions for War, 1914-1917 by Richard Hamilton and Holger Herwig investigates the origins of the First World War detailing individual country’s reasons for entering the war. Historians at War by Anthony Adamthwaite explores how scholars have understood the origins of the Second World War throughout varying times and differing national view points. Both works share a common theme of determinism; a retrospective notion placed on historical events by historians that Europe was inescapably predestined to go to war and that nothing nor anyone could inhibit that. Both remark that this popular approach does a disservice into the explanation of war as it does not accurately depict the economic and social agency present in Europe at the time. In
Disney makes over $3 billion on their Disney Princess products every year and now have over 25,000 items in their princess collection (Orenstein 2). Disney has played a big role in shaping not only societal viewpoints on what young girls should like, but also what little girls believe they should enjoy as well. Gender stereotypes have been around for a long time, but now with technology advancements, such as media in western society is able to play a bigger than ever role in influencing people’s perspectives. Not only do we see gender roles and stereotypes in television shows, but also in advertisements and in children’s toys. Although many readers of Peggy Orenstein’s “What’s wrong with Cinderella” have argued that the princess culture is corrupting today’s young girls and making them more dependent on men, a closer examination shows that many girls grow out of the princess phase with no negative repercussions and choose whatever passions they want.
Cinderella is a fairytale for children that displayed love, loss and miracles; however, when it is further analyzed, it has a deeper meaning. Cinderella is a story about a young girl who became a servant in her own home after her father remarried a malicious woman with two spoiled daughters. She was humiliated and abused yet she remained gentle and kind. She received help from her fairy godmother to go to the prince’s ball after her stepmother rejected her proposal. Cinderella and the Prince fell madly in love but she had to leave at twelve o’clock and forgot to tell him her name but she left her glass slipper behind. He sent his servants to find her and Cinderella was the only maiden in the kingdom to fit into the shoes. She
The Grimm Brothers version of Cinderella is a written down oral story that people passed down from generation to generation, meant to teach a lesson about piety and good behavior. Before the Grimm Brothers ever wrote it down, the story had been told several times by memory. It is thus not surprising that the descriptions of certain events in the story, such as the way Cinderella went to the Ball, are lacking in details. It is obvious that these parts of the story are unimportant to the overall message of the story. Instead, it focuses on the piety of Cinderella and the wickedness of the step-sisters. Through the events of the story, it becomes obvious that the goodness of Cinderella is justly rewarded, and that
The Prince stereotypes the role of women being in need of a destined lover. He is the one that identifies Cinderella as the one in the dress, though excluding behavior, her appearance dazzles him for two nights at the ball. Most importantly, he’s not the hero of the fairytale, but readers can interpret the fairy godmother as the savior of Cinderella’s demise. The role of magic comes in part with the acceptance of achieving the imagery of an elegant woman, impressing the Prince who gains interest in her. The
Cinderella is innocent just as the child, and this allows the child to not feel guilt about his jealous judgements towards siblings. Cinderella’s story helps the child realize how terrible things could be for them and to appreciate how lucky they are instead of looking at the negative side of their life.
Each person in the world has heard of Cinderella, no matter what kind of version it may be. Cinderella is the one fairy tale story that has been popular and will always be the one tale that has to be told to children. Words and story lines might be twist and turn, but in the end the knowledge of the story will be learned in similar ways. As we all know when one story is told another is created, when one is at its best then another is at its worse. One version will always be better than another, but no matter what version it might be the story will be told.
The story that most of us know as “Cinderella” actually has a lot of different versions. These different versions contain several elements that are similar, but yet even more elements that differ from one another. The three main difference between all the different versions of this story are the characters, how others treat the main character, and the setting in which these stories take place.
Cinderella held on to what her mother had told her and put up with everything her step- family was making her do. Cinderella always did what she was supposed to do, not once did she stop short of finishing or try to fight back. Cinderella kept her faith and believed that what her mother had told her was the truth and that life would get better. Eventually life did get better. By keeping her faith Cinderella was able to get all her chores done and get dressed for the ball, with the help from some creatures. If Cinderella wouldn’t have kept her faith she wouldn’t have dance with the prince and the prince wouldn’t have fallen in love with her. Cinderella wasn’t self-centered and believed if she was a good person she would be rewarded and in the end, she was able to live happily ever after with her prince. The exact opposite can be said about the step-sisters. The two sisters were awful people telling Cinderella to do their dirty work. When the prince came looking for the owner of the shoe the two girls would have done anything to fit the shoe. Anything is exactly what they did, one sister cut off her toe and another cut off her heel. The girls “hearts were foul and black” (Grimm 117), because of this they couldn’t have a truly happy life. In the end the two sisters had their eyes pecked out by birds. Cinderella found the deeper meaning to her life by being a self-less person and the sisters did not because of
Have you ever had a dark and gloomy day? Imagine having that feeling every single day. The Grimm’s Cinderella was written in 1812. 1812 was one of the harshest years for America. An event that formed it was the war against Great Britain and the United States. Not only was there a war, but there was also a series of disastrous harvests. Taxes got higher, and more than twenty people who were involved with a Luddite Act were hung. In 1812, there was also the only assassination of a prime minister, who was shot dead in the House of Commons. The Grimm Brothers have put the dark times of 1812 into their stories. Some of their stories contain violence, child abuse, and wicked mothers. They came up with these types of stories after their father died, and when they struggled out of school. That gave them enough time to research and put together a collection of folk tales. Now you can see why the Grimm’s Cinderella was dark and gloomy. Although the plot stayed the same, over the years, the story did get lighter. Disney’s Cinderella came out in 1950. In 1950, learning information was not by fear, but by engaging happiness. Disney’s Cinderella transforms the Grimm’s Cinderella into a happier atmosphere. While some similarities between Disney’s Cinderella and Grimm’s Cinderella are noticeable, the differences are pronounced, especially when referring to the slippers, her father, and the ball.
One hidden message employed throughout Cinderella is that people should be a light within the darkness. Although Cinderella was surrounded by people who constantly treated her with rudeness, she resorted to treating them with kindness. Towards the end of the movie, she even showed forgiveness towards her stepsisters and stepmom, and she told them that she forgave them. Cinderella showed that no matter how bad people treated her, or what rude things people told her, she could overcome the evilness by always showing kindness, gratitude, and love towards every person. She proved today that just one person showing these positive characteristics, could
When I started analyzing Cinderella I noticed some gender roles/stereotypes that are brought to light. One of them being how women are the ones who stay home and perform household chores. They are “housewives” who depend on a man. The father is briefly in the beginning and afterwards we do not hear of him, initiating that he is off working, or on a business trip while the mom and daughters are home. We also see through Cinderella (who is forced to do all the chores) how their are consequences if she (or women) don’t complete or do the chores that are expected of them (like not being able to go to a ball in Cinderella's case). Another theme that is consistent in Cinderella as it is in other princess stories is the value of being beautiful. We see this when the fairy godmother shows up and makes Cinderella beautiful. She transforms her house clothes into a gown and so forth showing us that beauty is in the way you look or your appearance. If we pursue this theme further we see that the prince falls in love with Cinderella based on how she looks (love at first
The author explains early on the initial absence of Cinderella’s mother proposes a sign of disempowerment. This in term changes the events of the story and leaves Cinderella bewildered with her stepmother and stepsister. Cinderella has the advantage that her mother is now a form of power through symbolism and is now a magical figure. The author explains that there are similarities between Cinderella and her mother and the stepdaughters and their mother because each child is trying to perform to impress ones maternal figure. This creates tension between Cinderella and the stepdaughters through competition for the ball to attend with a prince. The author explains firmly that “Cinderella is also a competitor, she plots and schemes, and she wins.
When someone mentions the name “Cinderella”, the first thing that usually comes to our minds is the fairytale in which the fair maiden who works so hard yet it treated so poorly gains her “fairytale ending” with a wave of a magic wand. However, the fairytale of Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers has multiple differences in plot from the fairytale we all usually think of. The plot of the Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers, written in 1812, is that a young female’s mother passes away early in the story, departing with the message to Cinderella to remain “pious and good”. Cinderella remained true to this message given to her by her mother, and she showed this in her work ethic. Because Cinderella had remained pious and good, her mother, in return, watched over her in the form of the birds above her grave that gave Cinderella help and material things that she needed. In the end, Cinderella has her “happily ever after”, for when the prince held a festival to find a new bride, she was chosen due to her insurmountable beauty. The feminist lens critiques how females are commonly represented in texts, and how insufficient these representations are as a categorizing device. These representations of women often include them being passive and emotional—staying back while the men do the work. Cinderella relates to the feminist lens because she fits into the typical representations of women created by men. Feminist criticism is important to recognize because women are often falsely represented as helpless, thus needing a man to come to their rescue. It is common in literature to see helpless women, crying and begging for help instead of being able to work out their own problems and hardships. Others, however, may believe that it is still important to uphold the fundamentals of the feminist lens because it keeps the man in power, which they say is important in keeping the man the head of the household. Cinderella thoroughly represents the feminist lens because it shows how women in literature uphold the representations of passive and emotional, created by the man.