What Is The Archetype In Cinderella

The fairy tale is a genre of literature that has been around for hundreds of years in cultures all over the world; some stories have a surplus of versions from different cultures one of the most popular among these stories is, Cinderella. Children usually hear about fairy tales from a very young age whether their parents read stories to them, or they watch a movie about the stories. These stories give children an open mind about circumstances that will never happen to them. However, over the years these stories have changed, some have had a dramatic change meanwhile others remain almost the same with minimal changes. The story of Cinderella is probably one of the most famous fairy tales of all time, and the most common story in a book of fairy …show more content…
At the beginning of the story we find out that her mother is dead since the author says that “ Every day the maiden went out to her mother’s grave and wept.’’ Since her mother 's death she now lives with her father and her stepmother, who treats her incorrectly. The stepmother has Cinderella “pick up lentils from the ashes” everyday without a break and with very little food; when she married Cinderella’s father she made her turn in all of her beautiful clothes, and gave her worn out dirty maids clothes to wear. On the day of the ball the stepmother has Cinderella pick up lentils three or four times, with each time that she finishes instead of letting her go to the festival like she wants to she makes her pick up even more lentils. The stepsisters are also a bad archetype along with the stepmother, because they are also extremely awful to Cinderella. In the story they have her do various actions which they could have done themselves, Cinderella’s stepsisters treated her as if she was their slave, in the text it says “comb our hair for us, brush our shoes and fasten our buckles, for we are going to the wedding at the king 's palace.” A Helpful archetype to Cinderella would be the prince because he sees through Cinderella’s eyes and finds true beauty or true love. He is the “cliche” prince in every princess fairy tale because he is the resolution to Cinderella’s problems, and he “saves the day”, or goes to great heights to find his desired one and only love which always seemingly happens to be the main archetype of the story. With Cinderella having all of these archetypes it truly gives it a unique message that readers all around the world