Growing up, all of us probably have read fairy tales where there is a stepmother who is seen as a witch for treating her stepdaughter so poorly. We associate the stepmother with ideas of evil. When many of us hear of the words black, cold, jealousy and evil we often times think of stepmothers from fairy tales who devised plans in order to stop their stepdaughters from gaining anything. These arrogant stepmothers have different moods relating to the setting and symbols, they have developed the idea of dramatic irony and also have their own point of view for their actions throughout different fairy tales.
The types of moods that go along with a character such as the evil stepmother is shown in these fairy tales. In the version of the Grimms
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The object is a representation for beauty and how she is self obsessed with looking at herself and thinking she 's the most beautiful person in this world. The mirror, in other words, influences the stepmother to do things to no extent. She tries to kill her own stepdaughter about three times just in order to be the prettiest in all of the land. The mirror tells the stepmother about Snow White still being alive and living with the seven dwarfs in the forest. The stepmother reacts as such, "The blood froze in her veins when she heard those words. She was horrified, for she knew Snow White was still alive" (Grimm, 87). Then she makes plans in order to destroy Snow White. These sudden changes in the mood and the repeated act of killing Snow White is all due to the mirror telling the stepmother about her being alive. Therefore, the mirror has a huge influence on the stepmother which leads her to want to destroy Snow White. The mirror is another object that influences the mood of the stepmother throughout the fairy tale of Snow White, and therefore plays a vital role in the …show more content…
The story starts off saying, "The elder was very beautiful, and everyone called her Beauty. But the younger had a face covered with pock marks, so that everyone called her Pock Face" (Lin Lan, 127). The stepmother knew that her own daughter was not worthy of marriage because everyone looked at her face, while Beauty got so many proposals. Pock Face did not have the choice, so for that reason the stepmother mistreated Beauty and would not talk to her. The stepmother is not at fault here, her only intentions were to make sure her daughter stays happy and for that she kept ignoring and treating Beauty poorly. And before she could realize it she had turned into an ungrateful stepmother who did not like her stepdaughter at all because she was so involved in her daughter 's happiness. Since the entire neighborhood knew about Beauty and Pock Face it was evident that one was looked upon as pretty while the other addressed as ugly. Any mother cannot tolerate the consistent rejections of proposals that Pock Face got. Therefore the stepmother took this step and chose Pock Face over Beauty in
Step Mother (second wife of fathers and mother to the youngest children) was only a young girl when her parents were killed. After a series of unfortunate events she was bought from a village clan and sold to become someone’s “companion”. None of this was her choice. “She was taken to a mission house, then taken away again, reclaimed by the village clan, and eventually sold into fathers canton merchant family” (13). Objectified and forced to be what someone else wants, stepmother is told to be exactly how the father wants her. She is forced to be submissive, and acts as a mother to the children, a wife to the husband, and a servant to the grandmother, or Poh-Poh. Throughout the novel her life is not hers to live, and her children are taught to treat her differently because of it. She is father’s second wife and not his first and because of this the children-even those who are biological- are expected to call her stepmother: “Poh-oh insisted we simplify our kinship terms in Canada, so my mother became “step mother.”… What the sons called my mother, my mother became… Father did not protest. Nor did the slim, pretty woman that was my mother seem to protest, though she must have cast a glance at the old one and decided to buy her time” (15). Stepmother is forced to be a third party in the raising of her children. She is only able to step out of
Jessica was suspicious of the queen, and rightfully so. When the queen entered the black room, the ghastly sight caused Jessica to faint in disgust. Suspicious, black, ghastly. These are just a few of the words an author can use to imply evil in a character. The connotation of dark as evil is prevalent in many stories throughout the history of western civilization. Fairy tales “emanate from specific struggles to humanize [forces initially perceived to be evil], which have terrorized our minds and communities in concrete ways” (Zipes), and their usually-heroic endings make us forget on a conscious level the lessons they’ve taught us. However, their impact remains on our subconscious views of the world. Because of this, fairly tales often address issues far more serious than one would think to teach to a young reader. The Brothers’ Grimm tale “Ashputtle”, the basis of our modern-day Cinderella archetype, takes advantage of this to address the issue of the continued oppression of women.
This characterization of the woman shows how she overpowers her husband, as opposed to the first wife (Snow White’s mother) who is characterized as being obedient and “sitting and sewing by a window with a black ebony frame” (Grimm 249). This characterization contrasts starkly with the dominant woman who plays the archetype of the evil stepmother. The original mother’s wishes came true as she wished for “a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window frame” (Grimm 249). In this imagery, we are given a color palette that represents a beautiful woman (pale white skin, red rosy cheeks and black ebony hair). Anne Sexton never offers a description of Snow White’s real mother, perhaps showing the reader how it is less important whether the mother is evil or good, but rather how the stepmother and daughter relationship became muddled by the fear the stepmother had to have beauty surpass her own.
Both concrete similarities between the characters of the stepmother and Meroe and metaphors in the story of the stepmother that are meant to represent the magical elements in the story of the witch connect the two stories. Initially, there are several concrete similarities between the stepmother and Meroe. The first likeness the stepmother bears to the witch is her position of power. After she decides to kill her stepson, she enlists “the aid of a villainous slave, part of her dowry” (174). The fact that she has resources of her own makes her powerful and all the more dangerous. Her possession of a slave and her ability to procure poison, though also metaphors of the deadly spells Meroe casts upon Socrates, are most prominently concrete representations of her status of power. A second similarity is that the stepmother and Meroe are both notably older than the younger men they prey upon. This detail helps to accentuate the i...
In “Cinderella” by the Grimm Brothers, the moral is that one should never lie or be wicked to others. In the story, Cinderella’s mother passed away and a year later her father gets remarried to an evil woman who has two daughters. The wife and daughters torment Cinderella, making her complete tedious chores. Eventually, Cinderella attends a ball for the Prince and they fall in love. However, she runs away every night and he cannot find her. The Prince finally takes one of her slippers and sets out to find the love of his life. He then goes to her household and asks all the sisters to try the slipper on. The stepsisters try to deceive the Prince but “the blood was streaming from” their feet and they are eventually caught. When Cinderella tries on the shoe it fits perfectly and the two get married. At the reception, two birds peck out the stepsisters’ eyes, punishing them “with blindness as long as they lived.” The archetypes in the story are Cinderella who is the damsel in distress, the Prince who saves her and the evil stepsisters and mother who are the villains. A convention is that true love always...
(Cheryl 1) I love how she always refers back to the stepsisters as ugly instead of evil. This (re)telling is absolutely my favorite and I would encourage anyone with a mind to read it. Another (re)telling that really caught my attention, like I know it did many others, was the one written in France in 1697. An author named Charles Perrault proved, yet again, that Cinderella is not who everyone expects her to be. According to this article, “scholars think Perrault may have confused vair (French for “fur”) with the word verre (French for “glass”).”
In the article, “Fairy Tales and a Dose of Reality,” Catherine Orenstein attempts to show the contrast between the modern romanticism of marriage and the classic fairy tale’s presentation of them (285). She looks at the aristocratic motivations for marriage and the way these motivations are prominent in Cinderella. She then looks at the 20th century to highlight the innate difference of our mentalities, showing a much more optimistic and glorified relationship. In the article, “Cinderella: Not So Morally Superior,” Elisabeth Panttaja claims that Cinderella’s success can be attributed to her craftiness (288). She shows her and her mother as an equal to the stepfamily, analyzing each family’s goals and values. She attempts to show their similarities,
Jacqueline Schectman is a therapist who has focused on the psychological pattern finding archetypes brought out by stories that resonate with the readers own experiences. She attempts to bridge the connection between the reader 's imagination and real life. In “Cinderella” and a Loss of Father-Love, Schectman takes what her clients take from Cinderella, and uses it to understand their case better. Their interpretation of the story Cinderella reveals what they tend to relate with in their personal lives. While in The Truth about Cinderella, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson explain the statistics of stepparent domestic abuse towards children, sexual and domestic violence. While both authors use Cinderella and her wicked stepmother as the analogy between children and their stepparents, Jacqueline Schectman focuses more on emotional abuse, while Martin Daly and Margo Wilson emphasize physical abuse.
A lot of the fairy tale stories that we have seen as young adults and even as adults are original folk tale stories that have been modified and rewritten to accommodate our new cultures. Cinderella happens to be one of these stories that have been changed over the years. There are many different versions of Cinderella, an African Cinderella, a Hungarian Cinderella and even a Chinese version. All of the Cinderella’s are similar in plot, but the author dictates the story’s theme based on the people whom he is writing for which completely changes the story’s tone, mood and other elements. While Perrault's version stresses the values and materialistic worries of his middle-class audience, Grimm’s' focus is on the harsh realities of life associated with the peasant culture. Perrault’s and Grimm’s Cinderella’s have the same plot, but their writing style is different which completely modifies the tale.
In a society unbridled with double standards and set views about women, one may wonder the origins of such beliefs. It might come as a surprise that these ideals and standards are embedded and have been for centuries in the beloved fairy tales we enjoyed reading as kids. In her analytical essay, “To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tales”, Karen Rowe argues that fairy tales present “cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues.” Rowe presents an excellent point, which can be supported by versions of the cult classics, “Cinderella” and “Snow White”. Charles Perrault’s “ The Little Glass Slipper” and the Brothers Grimm’s “ Snow White” exemplify the beliefs that females are supposed to be docile, dependent on the male persona and willing to sacrifice themselves. In many cases, when strong female characters are presented they are always contradicting in these characteristics, thus labeled as villainous. Such is the case of the Cinderella’s stepsisters in Perrault’s “Cinderella” and the stepmother in the Brothers Grimm’s “Snow White.” These female characters face judgment and disapproval when they commit the same acts as male characters. With such messages rooted in our beloved fairy tales it is no wonder that society is rampant with these ideals about women and disapprove of women when they try to break free of this mold.
There is obvious competition between Cinderella, her step-mother, and her step-sisters. The conflict between them began because they both want the father’s/ husband’s love and attention; this explains the step-mother’s cruelty toward the step-daughter. Cinderella 's stepmother declared “No, Cinderella..../you have no clothes and cannot dance./That 's the way with stepmothers”(li.53-55); this statement reveals the step-mother’s abiding envy towards Cinderella because even after she had picked up the lentils the step-mother had thrown, she still made up excuses to keep Cinderella at home and isolated. Although there were two step-daughters, “Cinderella was their maid./She slept on the sooty hearth each night/ and walked around looking like Al Jolson(li.30-32). This line refers to how Cinderella walked around the house with dirt and sludge on her all day and slept on the fireplace each night while the two step-sisters walked around the house clean and slept in comfortable beds. This shows the contrast between the two step -sisters and Cinderella and how they are treated differently throughout daily life. Obviously, there is no reason the step-family should envy Cinderella; however, they do anything in their power to make sure they receive the most attention from the rich father/husband to get whatever they
Perrault’s “Cinderella” begins with a young maiden and a set of stepsisters who treat the maiden badly (Perrault 236). The young maiden, called “Cinderella,” responded with kindness to this harsh treatment (Perrault 237). Cinderella could
Fairytales, the short stories that most children heard as they went to bed, are actually folktales from previous decades. The fairytales today are primarily adaptations of older versions recreated by Disney— the pioneers of this generation. With that said, the modern versions consistently display good triumphing over evil, a prince charming that constantly came to the rescue, and a happily ever after ending. However, the original folktale version didn’t always come with fortunate events, but often were more violent and gruesome. With the fairytale Cinderella, Disney maintains a similar theme as its Grimm version; however, the conflicts, events, and characters that support this idea are rather different.
Setting the tale in Nazi Germany creates an atmosphere of fear and anxiety, and establishes a set of circumstances in which it is possible for people to act in ways that would be unacceptable under other circumstances. The stepmother is a good example of this. She is the force in the family – it is she who decides that everyone in the family will have a better chance of survival, if they split up – the children going off alone together and the parents going in another direction. Unlike the portrayal of the stepmother in the Grimm fairy tale, this stepmother is not wicked. She is strong willed and determined, but not evil, although she is protecting herself and her husband by abandoning the children.
Cinderella’s mother passed away and her father remarried a woman who had two daughters from a previous marriage. A few weeks passed and a prince is holding a three day festival and all the beautiful young girls in the town were invited. Cinderella wanted to go but her evil stepmother gave her two impossible tasks to complete before she could attend the festival. Cinderella completes the two tasks with the help of her bird friends and her mother’s grave. Cinderella goes to the festival and she dances with the prince all three days. Finally, the prince has fallen in love with her and eventually they get married. Fairytales and Disney productions threaten gender politics and women’s role by portraying women in certain areas like domestic behaviors