Compare And Contrast The Grimm Brothers Versions Of Cinderella

Improved Essays
Perrault version of Cinderella Vs the Grimm brothers’ version of Cinderella.
“Fairy tale” is the term also used to describe something containing unusual happiness, like “fairy tale ending” a happing ending, or “fairy tale romance”, though not all fairy tales have a happy ending. According to Arthur Schlesinger, classical tales “tell children what they unconsciously know-that human nature is not innately good, that conflict is real, that life is harsh before it is, happy-and thereby reassure them about their own fears and their own sense of self” (229). Despite the fact that both Perrault and the Grimm brothers versions of Cinderella are fundamentally similar to each other, but the differences between them show two different moral universes.
…show more content…
Cinderella had a fairy godmother in Perrault version, while she had a dead mother in form of a magic tree in the Grimms’ version. In Perrault version, the king invited all the young girls in the kingdom to the ball and in the Grimm’s brother’s version, the king invited all of the young girls to a festival for his son to be able to choose a bride. In Perrault version, Cinderella’s fairy godmother made all her dreams come true, turning huge a rat into a fat coachman with “the finest mustache and whiskers ever seen”, mice into fine horses in “beautiful mouse-colored dapple gray”, lizards into a carriage, and her rags turned into cloth of gold and silver all decked with jewels. In the Grimm version, Cinderella had to lay on her mother’s grave beneath the hazel-tree and cry to her mother before the birds threw down a “gold and silver dress and slipper embroidered with silk and silver”. In the Perrault version, when the two stepsisters tried the slipper on and it didn’t fit them perfectly, they were disappointed. Their mother told them to cut off their toes for the slipper to fit, in the Grimm brothers’ …show more content…
Even though Cinderella two wicked step-sisters were heartless and arrogant, “she still embraced them and forgave them with all her heart and married them to two great lords of the Court”. In the Grimm’s brother’s version, the folktale ended violently and fiercely because “the two step-sister’s eyes were pecked out by pigeons for their wickedness and falsehood” and they were blind as long as they lived. According to Maria Tatar the author of numerous articles on fairy tales and also ten scholarly books, “fairy tales have modeled behavioral codes and development paths, even as they provide us with terms for thinking about what happens in our world”

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    According to Catherine Orenstein, people today have been fantasizing over the storybook romance because they are obsessed with finding their own happily ever after. Our infatuations over fairy tales have been strongly shaped by romance-based reality television. In “Fairy Tales and a Dose of Reality,” Orenstein argues that reality television gives a false sense of hope of what love actually is: the television shows promote that love is based off status and appearance. According to Orenstein, in the original Cinderella story, Prince Charming falls for Cinderella’s gown and slippers but fails to recognize her face (285). Society’s expectations on what love and romance should be contradict the original fairy tales’ meanings.…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fairy tales affect people in all kinds of ways. They leave people with different interpretations of what they could mean. Elisabeth Panttaja wrote “Cinderella: Not So Morally Superior”, an article describing the role of Cinderella's mother in the classic tale. Panttaja takes a stand on a view point most people have not considered before. The author gives countless examples of how Cinderella’s mother is still with her despite being dead.…

    • 763 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The story of Cinderella is well known all around the world but not all of these 700 stories are the same. Each of these stories are culturally diverse and have different themes and ideas. Still many of these tales also share similar magical elements, characters, and endings. All these similarities create suspicions because most of the stories were written when communication was almost impossible from country to country. One main subject shared between these tales is the stupidity that the men have.…

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cinderella The Folk Tale

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Cinderella is an all time classic tale kept alive by tradition passed it down from generation to generation. Older versions of Cinderella come as a surprise to many since it does not always have a happy ending. Modern children's literature does not compare to older revisions as it leaves traces from other cultures, provide invaluable lessons, the writers were great storytellers, and the ability for children to dream. Older people have a beloved book that has touched them in some way whether that be reading it when they were young or recalling their parents telling them. The heartbreaking news to find out the younger generation are not reading what helped shaped society, by their powerful meanings.…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    However, not many have heard this familiar story from the wicked stepmother’s perspective. Sara Maitland offers this opposing point of view in “The Wicked Stepmother’s Lament,” which significantly changes the meaning of the tale. Traditionally, Cinderella…

    • 2228 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Responding to the Critic’s idea: Young girls tend to imagine and dream of being whisked away by a charming and wealthy prince because of fairytales like Cinderella that show and encourage it. I agree with Jack Zipes’ analysis on the decisions that women in fairy tales make. This supports the fairytale Cinderella and the decision that Cinderella made. Jack Zipes says that “comic endings call upon young females to value communal stability over individual needs.” meaning that the women in fairy tales made the decision to chose communal stability which is marrying a wealthy and handsome prince instead of individual needs, which is being an independent woman who looks after herself, provides her herself and creates her own wealth instead of…

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ye had became a lowly servant her guileful stepmother and envious stepsister. Cinderella was forced to do all tiring and dangerous work for her stepsisters, and dress shabbily by her stepmother. Second,both got divine power help through animals. Ye’s fish bones and Cinderella’s blue birds would give anything she wanted, when they were seriously in need. Third, Both of them met the main male character in banquet (Ye met the king in the Spring Festival; Cinderella met the prince in the feast).…

    • 1363 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    she he took her back. Cinderella's father did not want her to try on the shoe but the prince demanded that she did, but before she could the stepmother broke the slipper. Cinderella had the other shoe and once the prince knew it was her they left and lived happily ever after. While some similarities between Disney's Cinderella and Grimm's Cinderella are evident, the differences are salient.…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Brother Grimm’s version of Cinderella has hidden meanings in the stories that teach us about how the story resembles or symbolize our society. The first symbol in the story that stood out to me the most is the stepsisters representing society 's cruelness and greed. The second symbol was the stepmother’s envy of Cinderella 's beauty, because Cinderella was more beautiful than her daughter 's. The stepmother thought that her daughter’s were not as beautiful as Cinderella and as a result she was envious of Cinderella, this represent a society dominated by envy and hate. The third symbol is the hazel tree that provided Cinderella with the wisdom and inspiration to overcome the abuse she was going through, this represents how society rewards…

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    They are both living with families that are not their natural families and forced to serve those families. Cinderella serves her stepfamily while Rapunzel serves the witch that she believes to be her mother. Both desire to leave their situations and imprisonment. Both escape and marry the man of their dreams. However, Cinderella is not an active participant in her own story.…

    • 1540 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The difference with Cinderella’s women were that they were portrayed as evil. This difference in the way women are shown can influence the bias that comes later with the assumption of women being sub par to men. Overall, the difference in the depiction of women is evident between these two stories as the view of woman as wicked and virtuous were different as well as the influence of the mother…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Two popular versions of this tale were written by the Grimm Brothers in in 1634 and Charles Perrault in 1697. The two versions of the Cinderella story by Charles Perrault and the Grimm Brothers differ in the plot and its message to the audience. The plots of the two different folktales of Cinderella differ in type of help the main character receives to overcome the obstacles and hardships in her life. In the version by Perrault, Cinderella is helped…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    During an individual’s childhood, everyone must have heard of numerous fairy tales such as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Peter Pan and etc. A number of fairy tales have a particular message to the audience, such as Hansel and Gretel taught children not wander around, yet we listened to the stories we were told and never questioned them. As we got older and read the stories again, we can perceive that certain fairy tales can illustrate negative messages. One of the pessimistic influences of fairy tales is the portrayal of the women, particularly of the princesses. In this essay, I will examine the Brothers Grimm’s “Snow White and discuss the role of women and how they are portrayed in fairy tales.…

    • 1143 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Should fairy tales be read to children? This is a intriguing topic that is widely cogitated by people around the world,old and young. “The Case Against Fairytales” and “10 Reasons Why Kids need to Read Non-Disney Fairy Tales” by Arielle Schussler and Melissa Taylor respectively illustrate the negative and positive effects of fairy tales for children. Fairy tales, are they commendable, or pernicious? I argue that they are essential to a child’s everyday life, worthy of the praise that I think they deserve.…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Cinderella Research Paper

    • 2157 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The story of the poor, but beautiful girl, Cinderella was meant to teach children a moral. In every culture, we can find some type of Cinderella, with different cultural backgrounds, however the message still remains the same, no matter the language, or alteration of the story” (Baum). As Linda Holmes informs in her web article, “There have been various version of the tale of…

    • 2157 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays