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Author
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Comment
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LostBoyTootles
Registered User
(4/15/03 3:38 pm)
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Which ending?
I was just wondering which ending of Cinderella you like better. . . The version where the stepsisters are punished with blindness or the version where Cinderella forgives them?
Personally, I like the version where the stepsisters are punished because it teaches the lesson that if you're bad you'll be punished and if you're good you'll be rewarded. The other version says if you're bad you'll be forgiven.
So, which do you like better?
Tootles~~If I can't be anything important, would you like to see me do a trick? |
Kevin
Smith
Registered User
(4/16/03 1:57 am)
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The nasty version
The interesting thing is that the sadistic punishments meted out to the sisters is an invention of Wilhelm Grimm, at least according to Maria Tatar in _The Hard Facts_.
Various critics (Bettelheim in particular) have noted how much children in particular like violent vengeance acted out on wrongdoers in tales, suggesting that taking these unsavoury acts out diminishes the tales in some way. If Tatar is right, however, the acts don't belong in folklore proper and serve only to reinforce an almost misogynistic punishment regime on wanton women (if you think about it, evil men rarely get the same treatment as evil women. Women are liable to being rolled down the hill in a barrel full of knives, having their eyes pecked out, dancing to death in red hot shoes, or being pushed in an oven while the only memorable male death that springs to mind quite as readily happens to Rumpelstiltskin who rips himself in two).
So, I'm ambivalent about the choice between vengeance and forgiveness. It does seem representative that people don't mind violence in fairy tales, but sex in fairy tales has been edited out for centuries.
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(4/16/03 10:39 am)
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Wolves
Do you really think it's that unbalanced - against women I mean? After all, evil men are often represented as wolves. And those wolves come to a pretty sticky end, getting chopped up with axes, their stomachs ripped open, heads chopped off and what not!
Alison
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JennySchillig
Registered User
(4/16/03 1:20 pm)
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On the other hand...
...the Perrault ending, in which she forgives her stepsisters, is nice in showing the power of compassion and forgiveness to turn people's lives around, since it's implied the stepsisters reform. A nice lesson for children as well. And it shows how truly compassionate Cinderella is.
(Although the movie "The Slipper and the Rose" very nicely split the difference. Cinders announces, "In my happiness...I forgive you all!" The stepmother is left stammering, "FORGIVE us?!...How DARE she?!")
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Gregor9
Registered User
(4/17/03 7:30 am)
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Re: On the other hand...
The cruel ending also hearkens back to the fates of the evil sisters in the Cupid & Psyche tale from Apuleius "Golden Ass".
Greg
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Midori
Unregistered User
(4/19/03 5:58 am)
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cruel shoes
O.K. I'll weigh in on the side of one of those children who really loved the mean endings...my favorite in Cinderella was when those nasty sisters sliced off sections of their feet to fit into the shoe. I have no idea why I found it enjoyable....perhaps I liked the idea that women who were such slaves to fashion deserved the pain and torture they invited on themselves.
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Jess
Unregistered User
(4/19/03 4:42 pm)
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I liked the mean ending too
Probably had more to do with subconscious revenge against my two
older sisters. I know, they were neither evil nor step sisters,
but somehow it still felt good. Of course, if that is supposed to
reflect my feelings, I should like the nice ending now.
Jess
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Richard
Parks
Registered User
(4/21/03 10:48 am)
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Punishments
One reason for the difference in attitude of children and adults can be explained in Chesterton's famous maxim: "Children are innocent and love justice, while most adults are wicked and prefer mercy."
Not entirely true, in my experience, but there's truth in it, as they say.
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