A hero’s journey can vary, however, each journey shares one main component: trials and tribulations. These are vital components used within fairytales to create emotional connections and comprehension between the characters and the audience to portray certain messages. Hardships can exaggerate human experiences in order to gain the reader’s attention through relatability. How do trials and tribulations shape the hero's character development throughout their journey? Are there any recurring patterns in the types of trials and tribulations heroes encounter across different mythologies or storytelling traditions? The first story that I found an example of is within Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s 1857 final edition of Rapunzel. A father desperate to …show more content…
Cinderella’s hardships began at a young age when her mother died. In fact, “[e]very day the girl went to the grave of her mother and wept” (Norton 148). To make matters worse, her father remarried. “His new wife brought with her two daughters, whose features were beautiful and white, but whose hearts were foul and black. This meant the beginning of a hard time for the poor stepchild” (Norton 148). Even this quote states how hard Cinderella’s life has been. She was treated as anything but a human sleeping in the kitchen, working to earn every meal, dressed in an old gray smock and wooden shoes. “From morning until night, she had to work hard. Every day, she got up before daybreak to carry water, start the fire, cook, and wash. On top of that the two sisters did everything imaginable to make her life miserable” (Norton 148). All Cinderella ever did was work and she asked for nothing in return for the ball. Even then, her stepmother refused to allow her to go because she was supposedly an embarrassment to the family with how dirty she was. Moreover, they refused to give her better clothes to wear to this event. All these trials and tribulations allowed Cinderella to develop into a kind, caring, humble, and beautiful individual. Therefore, when the opportunity arose, she fell in love with the prince at the ball and was able to finally have her happily ever after. This