Who does not know Cinderella? Cinderella is a princess, who wears a gorgeous dress styled with a shimmering headband, long white gloves, and of course the popular glass shoes. She overcame the adversity caused by her stepmother and stepsisters. So, to go to the dance and meet the charming prince she was in a rush because she had to get back home before midnight struck and her carriage turns into a pumpkin again. But what is the origin of Cinderella, is that the real Cinderella story or the version of Disney that we all love?
The real Cinderella was not this easily defined and she is a role that weaves several centuries of storytelling and human cultures. As a whole, there are over 500 versions of the tales of Cinderella have been found just in Europe (specifically, France). In this article, we are going to find out where the Cinderella Story originated.
The base of the story of Cinderella is powerful and we can see it almost every month in movies or theatres. Yes, they do not use the same name for the protagonist but the protagonist rises above her social situation through marriage. Does that sound familiar now? Can you name some movies or Books that tell the same story? I am certain you can name a few. One is the decade-old European folk tales that have evolved into a princess with glass shoes and a blue ball gown and the other is the category of women who are going through a similar situation through decades and cultures.
In 6th century BCE Greece, there is a story which is the first recorded story that resembles Cinderella. The story focuses on a Greek courtesan named Rhodopis whose shoes got stolen by an eagle, who took those shoes all the way crossing the Mediterranean Sea and dropped them in the lap of an Egyptian king. Both metaphorically and literally, the king took it as a sign from heaven and he went out on the quest to find the owner of the shoes. When the king finds Rhodopis, he marries her, lifting her from her misery to the throne.
In a 9th century, Chinese fairy tale named Ye Xian, the main character – the young girl named Ye Xian is granted one desire from a magical fishbone, which she utilizes in creating a gown in the hopes of finally finding a spouse. A monarch comes in possession of the shoe, although contrary to the glass shoes of Disney’s Cinderella, this pair of shoes had a gold fish-scale pattern. The monarch after seeing Ye Xian and her beauty were certain that these shoes belong to her, and the king marries her. Ye Xian’s stepmother gets compressed by stones in her cave house.
In the 17th century, Cenerentola was published in a collection of Italian short Stories which resemble the most popular version of Cinderella. Cenerentola has all the features of the modern-day tale – the cruel stepmother and stepsisters, the missing slipper but it is more magical and a little bit darker. Some sixty years later this Italian tale got the French blend and became the story that we know about. Charles Perrault created Cendrillon and gave her the magic, the pumpkin, the fairy godmother, and the glass slippers.
At the very core, the whole story of Cinderella is about the dependency of women on men to determine their existence and place in the world. Several other stories could be compared to Cinderella such as Pride and Prejudice, Pretty Woman, My Fair Lady, and Pretty in Pink. In all of these stories, the emphasis is on the men being attractive because they are wealthy. Some contrary stories are also available where the woman belongs from an upper-class family and the man is from the working class – Aladdin and Titanic. The original story written by Perrault is a lot more blatantly about the social issues since the purpose or the moral was to show that a woman can earn a better life for herself by being kind and beautiful.
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