THE MANY FACES OF CINDERELLA

Note: Rossini's story of Cinderella is very different from the Disney version, the one best known to American children today. There is no fairy godmother, no pumpkin coach, not even glass slippers. In fact it is not even a fairy tale but a comedy of manners written for adults. However, neither is Disney's like most of the over 700 known versions of the story. The Cinderella story and its history has been studied more than almost any other work. The different versions have been analyzed, categorized and commented on in many books and in articles on the internet. The material below gives summaries of some of the most important and representative versions. See the bibliography for sources of the full versions.

China
Italy
France
Germany
Other Countries
The United States
Shoes

A claim has been made that the story of Cinderella dates to the Ice Age, but that is too ancient. There is a two thousand year old Greek story by Strabo which tells how an eagle stole the sandal of a beautiful woman and dropped it by a pharaoh. The pharaoh was so taken with it, that all Egypt was searched for its owner so he could make her his wife.

The oldest true Cinderella story comes from the China of 850-860 A.D.

CHINA
The Chinese Story of Yeh-hsien (yea-shi-en) by Tuan Ch'êng-shih (duan chi-eng shi), although written and set in China, has roots which are probably more ancient and from some other oriental source, possibly Indochina. There are several incidents which could not have taken place in the China of the time. It is presented by the author as an old story handed down from long ago by a servant.

A man named Wu married two wives. The first had a daughter, Yeh-hsien (or Sheh Hsein), who was intelligent and good at making pottery, but she was ill-treated by her stepmother. One day she caught a fish, only two inches long, with red fins and golden eyes, and she put it in a bowl of water where it grew so big that she had to put it back in the pool. It always greeted her when she came to feed it but ignored everyone else. Yeh-hsien's mother tricked it by putting on her step-daughter's clothes; the fish appeared, she chopped its head off (it was now ten feet long), served it for food, and buried the bones. When the poor girl couldn't find her friend, she sat down and cried. An old man came down from the sky and told her where to find the bones. She was to hide them and pray to them for whatever she wanted. In this way she was able to get some nice clothes. It happened that the stepmother and stepsister went one day to a festival, leaving Yeh-hsien at home. She dressed in her fine clothes and gold shoes and followed them. When they recognized her she fled, losing a shoe as she ran. The shoe was sold to the king of a nearby country who was enchanted by its small size*. The king ordered all the women in his country to put it on but it was too small for all of them. He searched even farther afield and finally found Yeh-hsien. When it fit, he took her and her fish bones back to his country where she at first served him, and eventually became his wife. However, after awhile the king got greedy, kept asking the fishbones for gold, jewels, etc. and they stopped answering his requests.

*Among the Chinese, wives were often chosen by their foot size. A small foot indicated that it had been bound and that the girl who permitted this was obedient and dependent, traits highly desired in a wife. Long after its significance was forgotten, the small shoe size remained an essential feature of the Cinderella story. Modern Chinese versions are more like our Western ones. Only the step-child and slipper are retained. For more on the shoes see below .

One of the earliest known written European versions, referred to in 1501, is Of a Young Girl Nicknamed Ass Hide and how she got married with the help of little ants".

ITALY
The first complete European version, the Italian La gatta cenerentola (The Cat Cinderella), was recorded by Giambattista Basile (1575-1632). It was translated into German in 1846 with an introduction by Jacob Grimm. who was surprised so many of their stories had been recorded in Naples 200 years earlier.

Zezolla (Cinderella) killed her stepmother at the instigation of her governess (who wants the father for herself) by dropping the lid of a chest on her neck. Of course the governess became just as mean as the first stepmother, pushed forward her own six daughters and ignored Zezolla who soon fell to being a scullery maid and was called the Cat Cinderella. A dove appeared to her and told her if she ever wished anything, she should ask the dove of the fairies of the island of Sardinia. When her father took a trip to Sardinia and asked each of his six stepdaughters what they would like him to bring back, they asked for expensive gifts, but all Cinderella requested was that he ask the dove of the fairies to send her something. The father forgot, so the fairies prevented his boat from leaving. He visited a grotto where a beautiful girl gave him a date tree, a spade, a watering can and a silk napkin for his daughter and the let him leave. He took these home, and Zezolla planted the tree and watered it carefully every day. In four days, the tree was the size of a woman. A fairy came out of it and asked her what she wanted. The girl answered she wanted to leave the house without the sisters knowing it. The tree said that whenever she wanted to leave she should ask, and the tree would give her something beautiful to wear. One feast day she did, was outfitted like a queen, and given a white horse with twelve pages to accompany her to the festival. The King was bewitched by her beauty and, when she left, had a servant try to find where she lived. She managed to elude him and returned home where the tree helped her change back into her rags. This happened on two more feast days, but on the third, in her haste to escape from the servant, she lost her shoe. The servant picked it up and took it to the King who ordered another big feast, but Zezolla did not attend. Although the King tried the shoe on all of the women, it fit no one. He told everyone to return the next day and make sure every woman in the kingdom came. Again the shoe was tried on everyone, but when it got near Zezolla, it danced to her on its own and placed itself on her foot. The King made her his Queen immediately and the sisters crept home in despair.

This story contains all the essentials of a true Cinderella story:

• A noble, intelligent and independent-minded girl is degraded, usually by a wicked stepmother and made to do menial tasks.
• She is helped by an animal or a fairy or some other agent such as a tree to dress up and attend a festival of some sort.
• There she usually attracts the eye of a prince or king and loses a shoe trying to get away. (Or without seeing the king,
she loses the shoe and it is brought to him.
• The King orders a search for the owner of the shoe. It fits only the heroine whom he marries. The sisters meet various fates.

FRANCE
Charles Perrault's (1628-1703) Cendrillon ou La Petite pantoufle de verre (Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper) followed sixty years later (1697) and introduced many of the elements familiar today. No other known version contains all the now familiar trappings such as the pumpkin coach, so it is usually thought that he invented these and did not simply record known stories. Some do think that he had another source but did not reveal it.

This story is basically the one we know today with the stepmother and two stepsisters. Her father was a noble and the King's son gave two balls. Cinderella offered to help the other girls dress for the first ball. After they left, she started to cry and her fairy godmother dressed her in silver and gold and in glass slippers and outfitted her with the pumpkin coach, the mice turned horses, the rat turned coachman, and lizard footmen. At the first ball, Cinderella heard the clock strike eleven and three quarters, made a courtesy to the company, and went away as fast as she could. As soon as she got home, she went to find her godmother ... and told her she wished to go the next day to the ball. When her sisters returned, she made believe she had just awakened and acted amazed when they told her all that happened. She asked the younger stepsister if she could borrow one of her dresses and go with them the next day. Of course the sister refused, which made Cinderella glad. What would she have done if her sister had agreed? The next night she did lose track of the time ran from the ball but purposely left behind one of her slippers. (This is clear in the original French but is often missed in translation.) The rest of the story follows as we know it. After the shoe fit, the fairy godmother appeared and again dressed her regally. The stepsisters begged pardon for the way they had treated her. She forgave them and was taken to the Prince (He was not present at the trying on of the shoe and thus never saw her in her rags, often an important element and emphasized by Rossini.) She married the prince, gave her sisters rooms in the palace, and found them great lords to marry.

During the eighteenth century, fairy tales fell out of favor. They were thought to be beneath enlightened people with rational minds and fit only for the nursery. This feeling is exemplified by the changes Ferretti made to the story for Rossini's opera. However, that changed when they became the subject of antiquarian research.

GERMANY
The brothers Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) were scholars who collected and recorded stories from the oral tradition. Although they often had to choose between many different versions of a given story, they seldom attempted to impose their own embellishments. Their works remain faithful to the original folklore. The tales are filled with good and evil characters from which it is possible to derive a lesson. However, while Perrault ended each of his tales with a moral, the Grimm brothers never did. They let the stories do it for them. Their work was the beginning of the study of fairy tales as a worthy subject for scholars. Far different is their version, still best known in Germany. Aschenputtel (or Aschenbrödel), summarized below, is this telling of the Cinderella story.

The wife of a certain rich man died after telling her daughter that she would watch over her from heaven. Every day the girl visited her mother's grave, and she was always pious and good. After a while, her father married a widow with two daughters. They were beautiful outside but ugly inside and treated the poor girl very badly. They took away all her nice clothes and turned her into a kitchen maid. In addition to making her do all sorts of dirty jobs, they would tease her by throwing peas and lentils among the ashes and make her pick them out. Since she had no bed, she had to sleep by the fire. Always dusty and dirty, they named her Aschenputtel.

One day the father went on a trip and asked his daughters what they would like him to bring them. The step-sisters asked for fine clothes and jewels, but poor Aschenputtel merely asked for the first twig that struck him as he rode. She planted the hazel-twig he brought her by her mother's grave, and it soon grew big, watered by the tears she shed. She visited the tree three times a day and every time a white bird in the tree asked what she wished for and brought it to her.

The king decided to give a three-day festival and invited all the young women from the country so that his son could choose a bride. The excited sisters begged Aschenputtel to help them dress, but when she begged to be allowed to go with them, her stepmother said, "What, you Aschenputtel! In all your dust and dirt! You have no dress and no shoes!" When the girl persisted, the stepmother threw a dish-full of lentils into the ashes and told her that if she could pick them all up in two hours, she could go to the party. Aschenputtel asked her white bird for help and soon a flock of doves came and, in less than an hour, picked out all the lentils. The happy girl brought the dish to her stepmother but was again told that she had no clothes and couldn't dance. If she went to the ball, she would be laughed at. Poor Aschenputtel protested so much that the wicked woman threw two dishes of lentils into the fireplace with the same instructions and promise as before, thinking, as the task would be impossible, she was safe. Once again the birds did the job, this time in half an hour, but, again, the girl was told she could not go with the others.

After they left, Aschenputtel went to her tree and asked the bird, "Little tree, little tree, shake over me, that silver and gold may come down and cover me." The bird gave her a beautiful dress which she wore to the ball. No one recognized her; they thought she must be a foreign princess. The Prince was so enchanted that he would dance with no one but her. When it was time to go home, the Prince wanted to go with her, but she refused. He followed her anyway, and he escaped by jumping into the pigeon-house, and then going out the other side. When the others came home, she was again by the fire, dressed in her own clothes. The next night the bird gave her an even more beautiful dress. Again the prince would dance only with her and, again, she escaped from him, this time by climbing into a tree. In each case the prince told her father about the disappearance of the beautiful girl and, thinking the girl might be Cinderella, he helped try to find her.

The third night, the Prince decided that she would not escape him again. During the party he had tar spread on the steps. Once more he danced only with her. She was now dressed in a dress of such splendor and brilliance that none had seen anything like it. Her slippers were made of gold! This time, when she fled, one of her slippers got stuck in the tar and was left behind. The Prince took it to the house where he had lost her the other times and told the girls' father that he would marry the daughter whose foot it fit. The eldest tried it on but her toe wouldn't go in. Her mother said, "Cut it off, when you are queen, you will never have to go on foot". She did and, as the Prince rode off with her, two pigeons on the hazel tree cried, "There they go, there they go! There is blood on her shoe; the shoe is too small — not the right bride at all." Sure enough, there was blood on her foot so the Prince took her home, and the second daughter tried the shoe. This time the heel would not go in. She cut her heel off, but once more the birds warned the Prince. Disappointed, he asked the father, "Have you no other daughters?" "Only poor stunted Aschenputtel", he was told. In spite of the stepmother's objections, the girl was sent for and, of course, the shoe fit perfectly. (Before she appeared she washed her hands and face so the prince would recognize her.)

As Aschenputtel and her prince rode off, two birds flew after her, perched one on each shoulder, and stayed with her. The wicked stepsisters came to the wedding, hoping to be reconciled. As they entered the church, the pigeons picked out an eye from each and, as they left, plucked out the other. Because of their wickedness, they were condemned to go blind for the rest of their days.

This story is much more representative of most of the extant Cinderella stories, particularly the punishment of the sisters, which was completely changed by Perrault who adapted the stories of "civilized consumption". Most of the folk tales have unpleasant themes. Murder is common, as is evil of all sorts. In many, instead of a wicked stepmother and stepsisters, Cinderella has a widowed father who wishes to marry her himself. She runs away, is helped by an animal or a tree (only Perrault has a fairy godmother), finds her prince and eventually marries him. Seldom does Cinderella forgive those who hurt her as she does in Perrault's version and in the Rossini opera.

OTHER COUNTRIES
When story traveled to other countries they added their own cultural touches. While a shoe is most common means of recognition, there are others including a ring or a dress, a rose or Rossini's bracelet. In a Russian version her dead mother arises from her grave to help. In Scotland she is helped by little black lamb. There is an African story, possibly due to colonial influence, in which the heroine and the chief's son live in huts not palaces. A frog is the magical agent; there is still the slipper test. In Java the girl has to pound meal and make food but is never allowed to eat it. Helped by a stork, she had a magic coconut-palm leaf. She does not get shoes or fancy clothes until after she marries. Communist countries changed the story to reflect Marxist doctrine. For example, in East Germany, the fairy sponsor was eliminated; the king was decadent and the prince a revolutionary who found out he was a working class child adopted by the king.

Certain things need to be noted about the Cinderella of literature. While the phrase 'Cinderella story' often refers to a rags to riches tale in which a poor drudge is magically transformed into a princess. — The movies Pretty Woman and Maid in Manhattan are cited as examples. — This is wrong. The girl from folklore is always well-born, sometimes of a noble family; she deserves a prince. Moreover, while pictured as good, she is not passive, but takes an active role in bettering herself. She shows initiative and intelligence. Rossini's Cinderella is charitable to Alidoro when she thinks he is a tramp. Cinderella is not a story about wishes coming true, it is about trial and judgment. Cinderella passes the tests to which she is put. She is not a waif; she has a natural dignity and performs her dreadful tasks without making a martyr of herself. Unfortunately, modern versions often turn her into a crybaby. The subtitle of the opera is La bontà in trionfo (Goodness in Triumph). Truly Cinderella triumphs because of her own goodness and spunk, not simply because she is lucky enough to have a fairy godmother. This is especially important in the opera.

THE UNITED STATES
Many versions have appeared in The United States. The musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein written for TV and staring Julie Andrews also was made into several movie versions. This sticks fairly closely to Perrault and has some depth. For example, when Cinderella first asks for a pumpkin coach she is told that it is impossible. She can't get things just by wanting. When she really believes in herself, then she gets it. The best known example is that of Disney which unfortunately is sugar coated. Cinderella waits passively for her rescue and shows no initiative of her own. Even the mice help her. She does nothing but wish and her wishes come true. All of the moral values stressed in the earlier stories have disappeared. Heavily commercialized, Cinderella has become a beautiful, helpless puppet. The rise of feminism led to criticism of Cinderella as a role model, but the debunkers did not understand the real Cinderella. In Disney, everyone lives happily ever after. We are never told what happens to the stepsisters. We can assume they did not come to a bad end, but there is no element of forgiveness as in some of the other versions. The philosophy expressed in Disney's Pinocchio has become pervasive. "When you wish upon a star ... anything your heart desires will come to you ... no request is too extreme". If you want something, you don't have to work for it because: "Wishing will make it true".

THE SHOES
As noted above, the small size of the shoes, so important to Chinese culture, remains in most of the other versions. The glass slippers are unique to Perrault. Some have hypothesized the verre (glass) of the title was a mistake for vair (fur). The Encylopaedia Brittanica printed this and many have quoted it since. However, most scholars believe that glass was really intended. It is important that the slippers be rigid and unstretchable, and fur could stretch to fit other feet. Glass would also allow the fit of the shoe to be seen. The Grimm version uses gold slippers, equally inflexible but equally unsuitable for dancing or even walking because of their weight. At the time of Perrault, glass was very rare and valuable, worth even more than gold.

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Revised 2005
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