Games - Cinderella

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	Games - Cinderella

Cinderella is a popular fairy tale embodying a classic folk tale myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward, of which there were hundreds of versions before modern times. The earliest version of the story originated in China around 860 A.D. It appeared in The Miscellaneous Record of You Yang (酉阳杂俎) by Tuan Ch'eng-Shih, a book which dates from the Tang Dynasty. The best-known version was written by the French author, Charles Perrault in 1697, based on a common folk tale earlier recorded by Giambattista Basile as La Gatta Cennerentola in 1634, but, especially in the English speaking world, the animated film from Walt Disney Productions, (see Cinderella (1950 film)) has become the standard contemporary version despite the fact that it somewhat sanitises the original plotline.

Plot

The familiar plot revolves around a girl deprived of her rightful station in the family and given the cruel nickname "Cinderella" by her horrible stepmother and step-sisters. Forced into a life of domestic servitude, hence the nickname, as she was forced to tend the fireplace, Cinderella accepts the help of her attendant spirit ("fairy godmother") who transforms her to attend a royal ball and attract the attention of the handsome prince. In some versions of the tale, there are three balls, though most tellings mention only one.

Unfortunately, the magic comes to an end at the first stroke of midnight. In the three-ball version, Cinderella keeps a close watch on the time the first two nights and is able to leave without difficulty. However, on the third (or only) night, she loses track of the time and must flee the castle before her disguise vanishes. In her haste, she loses a glass slipper which the prince finds. He declares that he will marry only the girl whose petite foot fits into the slipper.

Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters (in some versions just the stepsisters) conspire to win the prince's hand for one of them. In the German telling of the story, the first stepsister fits into the slipper by cutting off a toe, but a magical eagle tells the prince to notice the blood dripping from the slipper, and he returns the false bride to her mother. The second stepsister fits into the slipper by cutting off her heel, but the same eagle gives her away. In all variants, Cinderella arrives and proves her identity by fitting into the slipper (in some cases she has kept the other, as in the Disney retelling). The evil stepsisters are sometimes punished for their deception by having their eyes pecked out by crows, or in other cases forgiven.

It is also worth noting that in some versions of the story there is no fairy godmother; rather Cinderella's dress and shoes come from a tree that grows over her mother's grave. Thus her mother (sometimes represented as a bird) is the supernatural force who assists the girl to find her prince. The midnight curfew is also absent in many versions; Cinderella leaves the ball to get home before her stepmother and stepsisters, or she is simply tired.

Discussion

The glass slipper is unique to Perrault's version; in other versions of the tale it may be made of other materials (in the version recorded by the Brothers Grimm, German: Aschenbroedel and Aschenputtel, for instance, it is gold) and in still other tellings, it is not a slipper but a ring or a bracelet that gives the prince the key to Cinderella's identity. Interpreters unaware of the value attached to glass in 17th century France and perhaps troubled by sartorial impracticalities, have suggested that Perrault's "glass slipper" (pantoufle de verre) had been a "fur slipper" (pantoufle de vair) in some unidentified earlier version of the tale, and that Perrault or one of his sources confused the words; however, most scholars believe the glass slipper was a deliberate piece of poetic invention on Perrault's part.

The original Chinese version of the story emphasized that Cinderella (or Yeh-Shen as she was called) had the smallest feet in the land. Small feet were an important aspect of beauty in Chinese culture, leading to practices such as foot binding. The translation of the story into cultures with different standards of beauty has left the significance of Cinderella's shoe size unclear, and resulted in the implausibility of Cinderella's feet being of a unique size for no particular reason. Humorous retellings of the story sometimes use the twist of having the shoes turn out to also fit somebody completely unsuitable, such as an amorous old crone.

The idea that "Cinderella" embodies myth elements was explored in The Uses of Enchantment (1989) by Bruno Bettelheim, who made many connections to the principles of Freudian psychology. In more recent times, as Freud's concepts have found more support as myth and poetry than as neurological science, it has seemed to mythographers less useful to explain one myth in terms of another myth. Instead, cultural elements ("memes" to some writers) may be disentangled from the Cinderella tale. Each social group, in re-telling "Cinderella," has emphasized or suppressed individual elements and has given them interpretations that are especially relevant within each society. Mythographers return to Cinderella for hints of the social ethos embodied in it, and the familiar story proves to be a useful case example for young students beginning to understand how myth works. Thus serious uses come from what appears on the surface to be a trivial wish-fulfilment narrative.

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Games - Cinderella

Plot

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