When I suffer from the inability to write, I try to stimulate the good old muse by trying to produce something based on a fairy-tale. I have done Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood and a lesser known tale called The Sugar Prince. However, in the case of Cinderella, I have 2 prose pieces and 3-4 poems. That bespeaks a kind of attraction to the tale that I am trying to figure out. And the catalyst for this topic is the fact that I have just finished reading a Regency Romance which uses the tale of Cinderella as inspiration.

For those who are living in a shell, Cinderella is the traditional story of a motherless girl whose father remarries a woman with two daughters of her own. In some versions, the father dies, a far kinder version; in other versions the father is an effectual fool, too enamored of the new woman to bother with his eldest child. Whichever the case, the eldest daughter is displaced in the household hierarchy and becomes a virtual slave to her new stepmother and stepsisters. The name Cinderella is appended to her because she often sleeps in the cinders of the hearth.

Years later, the King throws a ball for the noble and merchant classes to find a bride for his son. Cinderella is forbidden to go by her stepmother. However, after the stepmother and her children leave, Cinderella manages to go to the ball in a gorgeous gown and shoes with the stipulation that she leave the ball by midnight. She goes and becomes the belle of the ball and wins the Prince's heart. Running away at midnight, she leaves a heartbroken prince, along with her shoe. The prince then uses the shoe to find her by allowing maidens to try the shoe on. The girl whose foot fits that shoe would be his mysterious love. Cinderella is thus discovered and is brought to the palace by the triumphant prince to be his bride.

I love the older, darker versions of Cinderella rather than the purified Victorian and Walt Disney versions. The strait-laced Victorians took out the darker, sexual and bloodier elements of the tale and Walt Disney took it further by adding an insipid heroine, complete with fairy godmother and dancing mice.

In some older, darker versions of Cinderella, the father does not die. Cinderella and the memory of her late mother become subjugated to the other woman. The weak will of the men in the story is thus established at the beginning. The prince is insubstantial and shallow, falling for a pretty face and is quite stupid in retrospective. I suppose this makes sense if you considered the information that most early storytellers were old women. It is probably the bitterness engendered by the knowledge that men hold the reins of power in the world. (Or maybe I am the one paralysed by such bitterness.)

The magical element comes not necessary in the form of gifted fairy godmothers. Often, the heroine has to prove herself some way to gain that magical giver. In the Chinese Cinderella, it is a small fish that she rescues, other tales speak of other animals saved. Some versions use the late mother as the source of the magic. My favourite version has the late mother who speaks to her filial daughter (who remembers her mother, unlike the father) through an apple tree and a white dove. It is a traditional sacred three at work here. Mother, maiden and crone. I suppose such symbolism works only in stories with the fairy godmother. Anyway, the gifts are found under the tree that grows over the grave.

That tree and dove play an important part. When the entourage of the Prince arrives at Cinderella's home, the stepmother locks Cinderella in the kitchen. She then cuts her oldest daughter's big toe off to fit that foot into that shoe. The Prince then rides off with that daughter and passes the apple tree. The dove then croons that the prince should examine the prize he was carrying more carefully. Seeing blood on the front of the shoe, the Prince returns to the house. The stepmother then cuts part of the heel of the younger daughter to fit that daughter's foot into the shoe. Again the whole scenario is played out. The stepmother then proceeds to wear the shoe herself. It fits perfectly and she is carried off by the Prince until the dove croons that the Prince should look more carefully at his intended bride. Of course by then the Prince is more wary and searches the house. He finds Cinderella weeping in the hearth (the symbol of wife, mother and woman) and fits her foot into the shoe himself. And thus there is a happy ending.

In some versions, the stepmother and her two daughters are punished; in other versions, Cinderella forgives them and finds the stepsisters rich husbands. The women in the story are quite insipid I guess, their only function is to marry and to marry well. Maybe it is just wish fulfillment all over again

The father is never mentioned at all after the beginning. Such a turning seems like a covert attack on masculine power. Perhaps, perhaps...

In all cases, the magic always ends at midnight. Why? Because midnight was the time between the old day and the new. Yet the niggling aspect of the whole story is that the shoe remains.

I was told that the French author who first wrote the story down (I forgot his name) used the French word for fur instead of glass for the shoes.

Why glass? Glass tells us that Cinderella embodies the ideal state of beauty. She is not only beautiful but graceful, light on her feet and accomplished enough to be able to dance in glass shoes. She is effectively confined to her role as a dainty little miss.

What about the violent and sexual bits of the story? Well, shoe is an emblem of sexuality because shoe meant the woman's genitals in historical slang. When you fit a foot into the shoe, it is reminiscent of the penis slipping into the sheath of the vagina. The top of the shoe with its opening for the foot to slip in was also an open hole, a round ring shaped opening, a nothing, again alluding to the woman's genitals.

In Cinderella, the shoe is a motif, an object which is accorded a lot of significance. It propels the plot along. It is mentioned over and over again. It is a metaphor who encloses a whole plethora of meanings. Blood and the shoe wraps up this image. The two stepsisters can be said to be Impures, having lost blood to wear the shoe.

The significance of the stepmother wearing the shoe? I am too tired to remember my argument. Oh well, this entry is a little long.

My parting words: I suppose on the fun side, the enduring myth of Cinderella is purely because it is wish-fulfillment of women who love to shop. There is that rare and beautiful pair of glass slippers and the enchanting gowns. In Ever After, Drew Barrymore had shoes made by Versace. High couture. Wish fulfillment doesn't get any better than that.