Cinderella

The wife of a rich man dies and she leaves him with her beloved daughter. On her

deathbed, the mother tells her daughter, "If you are good and say your prayers faithfully ... I shall

look down from heaven and always be with you." The next year the widower marries a woman

with two daughters, who despise the daughter of the house. They dress her in rags and wooden

shoes. They turn her into their servant and force her to sleep in the ashes of the fireplace every

night. Soon the daughter is so grimy that her stepmother and stepsisters start calling her

Cinderella.

One day, Cinderella's father visits a fair. Before he leaves, he asks the three girls what he

should bring back for them. The stepsisters demand beautiful clothes and jewelry, but Cinderella

asks only for the first branch that brushes against her father’s hat when he is returning home. The

father returns with gifts for his girls. Cinderella plants the branch on her mother's grave and it

grows into a beautiful tree. Cinderella visits the tree three times a day to pray. Each time, a white

bird meets her at the tree. Whenever Cinderella makes a wish, the bird brings her what she has

asked for.

The king proclaims that a three-day festival will be held so his son will meet all the girls

in the country and choose a bride. Cinderella's stepsisters are invited to the ball and Cinderella

begs to go with them, but her stepmother refuses. The stepmother dumps a bowl of lentils into

the ashes. If Cinderella can pick out all the good lentils within the next two hours, she may go to

the ball. Cinderella goes outside and asks the birds for their help. The birds peck through the

ashes to help her sort the lentils. But now the stepmother orders her to pick two bowls of lentils

from the ashes. Once again Cinderella asks the birds for help. Again the stepmother breaks her
promise, saying that Cinderella would embarrass them at the ball. Disappointed by her

stepmother's decision, Cinderella visits the tree on her mother's grave. She asks the tree for help

and a gold and silver gown with gold and silver shoes falls at her feet. Cinderella heads off to the

ball, where she far outshines the other girls. The prince sees her beauty and spends the entire

evening with her. At the end of the evening, she manages to slip away and return home, first

leaving her gown and shoes at her mother's grave. On the second day of the festivities, Cinderella

waits until the rest of the family has gone before heading to the tree. This evening she's given

another dress and the second evening passes just like the first. On the third evening, the final

dress she's given far surpasses the other two. Again Cinderella dances with the prince all night.

He asks to escort her home, but Cinderella runs away down the stairs but she does not realize

that the prince has secretly coated it with tar, hoping to spot a clue. One of Cinderella's golden

slippers sticks in the tar, and she has no choice but to leave it there. Now that the prince has her

shoe, he decides that he will only marry the woman who fits the shoe. The two stepsisters are

given a chance to try on the shoe. Both of them cut off parts of their feet to make the shoe fit, but

in both cases the prince notices the blood on the shoe, revealing their dishonesty. The prince asks

Cinderella's father if he has another daughter. The father replies that Cinderella could not

possibly marry a prince. But the prince insists Cinderella be given a chance. The golden shoe fits

Cinderella perfectly, and she and the prince become engaged. On the wedding day, the two

stepsisters come to the church hoping to benefit from Cinderella’s new fortune. But at the

ceremony, two white doves peck out their eyes. As punishment for their cruelty, they will be

blind for the rest of their lives.

The Grimm brothers got their inspiration from a 1697 French version by Charles Perrault,

which inspired the animated version Walt Disney created. The main detail the brothers added
was the stepsisters' cutting off parts of their own feet to fit into Cinderella’s shoe. The Grimms

also portray a more independent Cinderella. She gets to the nightly balls on her own and at her

wedding doves peck out the stepsisters' eyes. The blinding of the stepsisters is the only thing the

reader gets to experience from the wedding.

The protagonists in the Grimm stories also experience suffering that is important. It

strengthens the connection to the reader because they overcome their challenges in life. But

Cinderella suffers more than other princesses. In other fairy tales, the deaths of mothers usually

happen before the story begins. In the Grimms' retelling, the story opens with the mother's last

words to her daughter and Cinderella's visits to the graveyard. Even the fact that Cinderella

sleeps in the ashes hints at her grief. She has no more of the comfort she experienced when her

mother was alive.

Cinderella's piety and devotion to her mother are the keys to her success with the prince.

When her father travels, she asks for a branch as a present. The branch becomes part of the story

when Cinderella plants it at her mother's grave. If she hadn't asked for this bit of nature, the

white dove would never have flown to the tree and made a connection with her. She would never

have had ball gowns or even been able to get to the balls on time. Nor would the birds have

pecked her stepsisters' eyes out.

Cinderella's father's role in these scenes is hard to understand. The fact that the prince

waits for the father after the first ball suggests that he somehow suspects who Cinderella is. This

is hard to imagine, considering that the stepmother and stepsisters do not recognize her.

Cinderella’s father also never intervenes when her stepmother is abusing her. It's important for

readers to see how patiently she bears her suffering. A protagonist that endures suffering is a
popular image in these fairy tales. Realistic characterization is not the point of these stories, it is

the Grimms' desire to make every scene in every story as visually arresting as possible. It does

not matter too much what Cinderella's father is doing there. He is only important to show how

alone Cinderella was and how her own strength and character leads to her good fortune.