Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper, is a folk-tale that portrays the unjust oppression of a woman

and her triumphant reward at the end. The word Cinderella mainly comes from the word cinder,
which means partially or mostly burnt material that results from incomplete combustion of coal or
wood. The word Cinderella has a lot of meanings like:

 A mistreated and impoverished girl.

 Rising unexpectedly from obscurity to success.
 Neglected and denied resources.
 A stamp or stamp-like label issued for purposes other than postal administration, not
issued by a central government, or not listed in most general catalogues.
 A woman employed to clean, especially to remove ash from stoves and fireplaces.

There are a lot of variants around the world, but the Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm’s
version are the most popular. In this we’ll center on the Brothers Grimm’s version. This version
was written in the 19th century and in the original language is Aschenputtel, but the translation to
the English, independently of the original language, is always Cinderella.

Brothers Grimm’s Cinderella is about the daughter of a widowed man that, after marrying another
woman years later, is forced by her stepsisters to do all kind of chores against her will. One day her
father plants a tree over her mother’s grave and in the years, it turns into a huge tree where the
girl always go three times a day to pray, there she meets a bird that gives her everything she
wants. After a festival is organized by the king, Cinderella wishes to go and begged to her
stepmother for permission, but she denies it and leaves the house with her husband and her two
daughters. Cinderella, crying, runs to the tree and ask to the bird for a silver dress and silk shoes,
the bird throw them and Cinderella goes to the ball, there she meets the prince and dances with
him, the prince falls in love with her, but she never let him know her identity. The same situation
happens the day after and the day after, until the festival comes to an end, but in the last day,
Cinderella, trying to escape, leaves a shoe behind her and the prince promise himself that he’ll
marry the girl whose foot fits in the shoe. The next morning, the prince goes to Cinderella’s house
and tries the shoe to the eldest stepsister, but her toes are way too big for the shoe, so she cut
them off in order to her foot to fit the shoe, but the prince notices this and keeps trying. Then, the
turn of the other stepsister arrive, she tries the shoe but her heel is way too big for the shoe so she
cuts it off in order to her foot to fit the shoe. The prince notice this and keeps trying, this time
around with Cinderella, whose foot fits perfectly with the shoe, after this the prince knew she was
the girl she was dancing with during the festival. In the end, in Cinderella’s wedding, the bird,
whom always made Cinderella’s wishes to become true, pecks out both of the stepsister’s eyes as
a punishment for all the bad things they did to Cinderella.

Cinderella’s contribution to popular culture is undeniable and is almost ridiculous to talk about the
mark it has had around the world. Cinderella is a story that marked everyone’s childhood, it
marked ones because of the tale and other because of the movie.

Valeria Laura Mateo