Cinderella Historical Background

Carine Kessie

Prof: Van De Water

ENG 2010-29

Friday 3, 2017

Cinderella

Once upon a time, there was a lovely girl named Cinderella. She lived with her wicked stepmother and two stepsisters and they treated her severely. One day, they received a letter invited them to a grand ball at the king’s palace and Cinderella was refused the right to go by her stepmother. She needed to do all the chores given to her before she could go. Cinderella felt sad and began to cry. While she was in the kitchen doing her chore, unexpectedly a fairy godmother appeared from nowhere and said to her: “Don’t cry, Cinderella! I will send you to the ball!” (Donahue 1).

The godmother did her magic thing and changed Cinderella’s old dresses into a beautiful new dress,

The prince recognized her from the ball. He married Cinderella and together they lived happily ever after. In the next section, I will relate the origin of this story (its earliest version), its conservative elements, and the moral convey in the story. The story of Cinderella comes a long way from its origin as a tale about the oppressions and the risks of regular cruelty dating back to the first century. People believed this story to be true and based on real personage. The first story was written by Herodotus and was adapted by the Greek historian Strabo. Unlike the stepmother’s scenario we all know, Rhodopis was a young Greek girl who has been kidnapped by pirates and sold into Egyptian slavery. However, while her master was kind to her, the fellow slaves were not, so she became friends with some animals before finding herself in fancy shoes in the Pharaoh’s court, and later then became the princess of Egypt. However, Charles Perrault 's (France) late 17th-century tale Cendrillon (or The Little Glass Slipper) in “Histoire ou contes du temps passé” set the foundation for Disney 's 1950 animated film, with both schemes spinning around a young girl who, after being forced into bondage at the hands of her stepfamily, was eventually rescued by a prince. In addition, China, Italy, Germany, Russia, the United States, and

For example, Cinderella is described as being an “extraordinarily sweet, obedient, and gentle nature. She got this from her mother, who had been the nicest person in the world. The poor girl tolerated everything patiently, not brave enough to complain to her father” (Perrault, 67). This description describes the ideal bride for a man of these times because she not only was beautiful and kind, but also did not complain about having to do other’s work. This plot also reinforces the idea that outer beauty can attract the man and inner beauty to capture his