"Cinderella"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that "Cinderella" is so much a part of our collective conscious that just the word Cinderella conjures up a life magically transformed. The author points out that certain values, built into Perrault's version, have been carried forward through the centuries: (1) For "proper" young women, who aspire to the nobility by attracting "The Man", the proper thing to do is to be "nice", docile and servile to those with power regardless of their treatment of you and (2) there is nothing Cinderella can do to change her unpleasant situation, to get a fair deal within her newly expanded family. The paper relates that, today, psychologist use the term Cinderella complex to describe the assumption that if a person puts up with great difficulties and abuse at the hands of those "who know what is best for her or him", she or he ultimately will be 'discovered', 'rewarded' or 'rescued' by the film industry, heaven or a prince or princess.

From the Paper:

"Cinderella, in its western form, has consistently been rewritten and analyzed since Perrault first published "Cendrillon" in France in 1697. Robert Samber first translated it into English in 1729. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm included it in "Kinder- und Hausmarchen", the first edition of which was published in 1812, the last in 1857. The composer Gioachino Rossini turned it into the opera "La Cenerentola" in 1817, Rodgers and Hammerstein into a musical theater production, and it has been the subject of many films, most notably the 1950 Disney animated film "Cinderella", a 1955 film "The Glass Slipper" starring Leslie Caron, and a 1960 gender change in "Cinderfella", starring Jerry Lewis. "

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