The Fairy tale adaptation essay I had to write for my Children's Literature class. First I want to start out by saying that I love Cinderella and my intent was not to totally bash Perrault. I love his works. But, it was supposed to be a "beyond the surface" analytical and critical paper. The title is a bit of a joke. As I was waiting outside my professor's door to meet with her about my draft, I over heard her make a comment to a fellow classmate about "At least yours is different from the hundreds of other Cinderella papers I am going to get." This bugged me because the last thing I ever want a professor to be when reading one of my papers is BORED, but it was too late to start over. I'm hoping I compensated for the jadedness of Cinderella papers in other ways.
Another Cinderella Analysis
Cinderella is one of the most popular fairy tales around the world and there are hundreds of different versions of the tale. The Egyptian version of Cinderella is about a Grecian girl named Rhodopis who was kidnapped by pirates and sold in Egypt as a slave. This story was recorded by a Roman historian named Strabo in the first century BC and is one of the earliest versions of the story (Climo 29). In 1697, the French writer Charles Perrault published his own version of the tale that included the fairy godmother, glass slipper, carriage pumpkin and animal servants that have become iconic in America and Europe (The History). Though Perrault changed many details of the story, the overall message of these two Cinderella tales is still expected to be the same. They are both supposed to be tales of a heroine who proves that she is genuinely good natured and kind throughout being persecuted. Her heart of gold makes her worthy to be in a position of power and to have a happily ever after. So she receives some help in reaching that position which saves her from her persecution. On the surface, Cinderella and Rhodopis do follow the same formula. However, the details of the story that Perrault changed have taken the story in a very different direction. Perrault’s use of magic and emphasis on material wealth in his Cinderella takes away from the original moral of the story and instead teaches that materialism is more important than having a good personality.
In the Egyptian story, Rhodopis was sold to a kind old man that spent most of his time sleeping under a tree. He did not notice the cruelty that the other servant girls showed to her because she looked so different from them; they were all Egyptian and she was not. One day her owner saw her dancing and thought that she deserved to have shoes. He gave Rhodopis a pair of rose red gold slippers to wear. Then came the day that the Pharaoh was to hold court, there was to be a large banquet and the entire kingdom was invited. Rhodopis wanted to go but the other servants gave her too many chores, so she could not. While she was doing her chores, a falcon swooped down and took one of her shoes. Rhodopis knew that it was the god Horus who had taken her shoe. The falcon took it to the Pharaoh and dropped it into his lap. The Pharaoh then went searching for the girl to whom the shoe belonged. When he found Rhodopis, he married her. The overall message of this story is that because Rhodopis was kind, the god Horus gave the Pharaoh a sign that she would be a suitable wife for him and although she was a servant and she looked different, the Pharaoh accepted her for who she was (The Original).
One of the many details that Perrault changed in his version of the tale is that instead of having a god help the heroine, he used a fairy godmother. This change and the effect that it has on the overall outcome of the story may be easily over looked, but the truth is that the change to a magical being has an adverse effect on the original moral of the story. The early Egyptian story of Rhodopis is partly based on fact. There was really a Grecian slave girl named Rhodopis who married the Egyptian Pharaoh Amasis. Rhodopis was friends with another slave named Aesop, who later became famous for his collection of fables (Climo 29). No matter what other parts of the story are true and what parts are not, the story of Rhodopis is valued because it is believable. Rhodopis’s kindness made her a worthy wife for the Pharaoh and so he was given a sign from the god Horus. Gods are very important to the Egyptians as they are in almost every culture and so a “sign” or a card of favorability from a god is very believable. The possibility of this story being able to really happen or come true makes this aspect of the moral more effective. Little girls can be encouraged to be nice if they really think it will make them worthy of good circumstances. The problem is, Perrault’s use of magic and the fairy godmother in his version of the story automatically makes the story fantasy. One of the intended morals of the story is that if a person is always kind and good, good things will eventually happen to them. Because the reader knows that if one is kind and good, a fairy godmother is not going to show up and make good things happen, the addition of the fairy godmother creates a disconnect between the intended moral and Cinderella’s kindness. It allows little girls to think “that cannot happen to me” and that being nice will not pay off. Perrault’s choice of using fantasy in the story over a god might have been merely due to a cultural difference in the value of religion, or maybe it was because he thought it would make a more entertaining story. No matter what his reasons were, his choice caused the story to have an unattainable goal which rendered Cinderella’s kindness useless in teaching an effective moral.
In many of Perrault’s fairy tales can be found the concept of an ideal woman being one of “upper-class society, the composite female, is beautiful, polite, graceful, industrious, and properly groomed,” and his Cinderella is no exception (Zipes 40). In Cinderella there is a strong emphasis placed on material wealth and achieving the appearance of higher class status. This is evident in Perrault’s detailed descriptions on how Cinderella and her two stepsisters got ready for the ball. In Cinderella, the ball was a grand two-day event. Perrault specifically tells the reader what items the sisters selected to wear, like a “gold-flowered manteau” and a “diamond stomacher;” the sister said that she chose to wear these because they were “far from being the most ordinary…in the world” (The Annotated). The girls went to great lengths to look wealthy and beautiful in order to impress the Prince, as if their status and the way they looked were not already good enough. When Cinderella could not go, she sat down and cried. Then the fairy godmother showed up and gave Cinderella everything she needed to be accepted by the Prince at the ball. The godmother’s gifts go far beyond just being enough to get Cinderella into the ball. She is given a “fine [pumpkin] coach gilded all over with gold,” six horses, a coachman and six footmen (The Annotated). Cinderella ended up with an entourage of thirteen animal servants. This number alone is outstanding and is a perfect example of the emphasis on materialism. One or two, or even three footmen were not enough for Cinderella, she needed six. Then Cinderella’s clothes were turned into “cloth of gold and silver, all beset with jewels” and she was given “a pair of glass slippers, the prettiest in the whole world” (The Annotated). Throughout the rest of the story, Cinderella’s dresses became even more extravagant, to the point where the reader is not given a description; they are just told that her dresses were more magnificent than before. There is some controversy over a possible translation error and whether or not Perrault really meant a glass shoe, because the idea of dancing all night long in glass shoes is rather absurd (The History, Einfeld 134). However, the very absurdity of the glass slipper fits very well into the rest of the ostentations gifts that the fairy godmother gave Cinderella. The message that Perrault sends to readers through Cinderella’s transformation is the importance of materialism. Perrault’s Cinderella is not nearly as simplistic as the Egyptian’s version nor does it reflect the same values. Cinderella demonstrates that having a lot of nice things is more important and more effective than being oneself.
On the surface, the fairy godmother’s role is that of “a magical substitute for a mother who might aid and counsel the daughter in the matter of winning the man of her dreams” as she shows up and uses her magic to provide Cinderella with everything needed to gain the Prince’s attention and favor (McGlathery 125). However, in Perrault’s fairy tales, the role of fairies is to fulfill the wishes of the heroine but, “such kindly magical older women thus has something of the character of a dream experience; and…tend to be not so much persons in their own right as reflexes of the psychic state of the maidens who receive their aid” (McGlathery 122). The fairy godmother was not acting on her own by lavishing Cinderella with markers of extreme wealth; her gifts to Cinderella were based on Cinderella’s own feelings and desires, whether they were stated in the story or not. This brings to light another theme that is demonstrated in Perrault’s Cinderella. Cinderella and her stepsisters fell into the trap of believing that who they were and their natural beauty was not enough to impress the Prince. Only, Cinderella left for the ball having much more than her sisters left with, sending the message that kind and caring Cinderella needed much more grandeur than her sisters needed to catch the eye of the Prince. The godmother’s trick worked. When Cinderella showed up at the ball the Prince assumed she was a princess. Even “the King himself, old as he was, could not help watching her” and the Prince gave Cinderella the most honorable seat at the ball (The Annotated). Cinderella was kind to her sisters and made sure that they noticed her, then later at home, “Perrault’s heroine bantered with her stepsisters, asking them leading questions about the ball” and the beautiful girl so she could hear them, unknowingly, complement her (Einfeld 138). The second night that Cinderella went to the ball, she was “dressed more magnificently than before” and the Prince officially fell in love with her (The Annotated). Cinderella had to go through all of that in order to get the Prince to notice her and fall in love with her. Even in the end of the story when she revealed she owned the other glass slipper, the godmother changed her clothes again before she was presented to the Prince. He never sees Cinderella in her rags or in her lower class status, only in all of her shining glory that was given to her by magic.
The whole persona that Cinderella is given is based on a lie. Cinderella was not confident about her own identity and so she became a victim to the idea that material possessions and wealth would make her more desirable, and she was right. In contrast, Rhodopis never did go to court to see the Pharaoh. When the Pharaoh went looking for the girl who owned the slipper and found Rhodopis, the other servant girls objected because she was a servant and she was not Egyptian. The Pharaoh’s response was that “She is the most Egyptian of all, for her eyes are as green as the Nile, her hair as feathery as papyrus, and her skin the pink of a lotus flower” (The Original). The Pharaoh accepted Rhodopis for who she was, despite the fact that she was a servant and she looked different, he valued her because of those things. In Perrault’s story, Cinderella used magic to become something that she was not in order to get the Prince to fall in love with her and it was not until her sisters saw that she was the girl from the ball that they showed her love and kindness. This ending teaches that the real value of a person is in their wealth and possessions instead of their personality. On the surface, Cinderella “demonstrate[s] the well-bred seventeenth-century female traits of gentility, grace, and selflessness” but Perrault has really created a heroine who uses material wealth to disguise who she really is in order to capture love (Einfeld 133). In actuality, Perrault’s story has very little to do with Cinderella’s goodness, grace or selflessness.
Cinderella’s kind nature only serves two purposes. It makes her a more likable character and it allows her to forgive her stepsisters in the end of the story, as opposed to other versions of the tale where she allows her sisters to meet a more violent fate.
Just by changing a handful of details, Perrault has created a Cinderella story of an entirely different breed. Many of Perrault’s fairy tales have a moral that “stresses in importance of possessing industrie,” and his Cinderella is no exception (Zipes 41). Overall, Perrault’s use of magic and the message he sends about the value of materialism gives his story a different moral code than the earlier versions of Cinderella tales like that of Rhodopis. His version does not teach the value of having a good heart or that people should be accepted and loved for who they are. Instead, his version demonstrates how the appearance of wealth, possessions and high social status will make one more lovable and more desirable; that in order to win love, one must at least look as if they are wealthy.
Works Cited
Climo, Shirley. The Egyptian Cinderella. HarperCollins Publishers, New York. 1989.
Einfeld, Jann. Fairy Tales. Greenhaven Press. San Diego. 2001.
“The Annotated Cinderella” SurLaLune. 3/23/10. http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/cinderella/index.html#FORTY1RET
“The History of Cinderella” SurLaLune. 6/23/07. http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/cinderella/history.html
“The Original Cinderella Story” Per Ankh Trading. 11/17/10. http://www.perankhgroup.com/cinderella.htm
Zipes, Jack. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion. Routedge, New York. 2006.
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