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    A Psychoanalytic-Feminist Analysis of Cinderella

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    CassandraRhys 0311
    This document provides a psychoanalytic-feminist analysis of the classic fairy tale Cinderella. It argues that beneath the surface of an innocent love story, the tale actually promotes the patriarchal ideology of its time. It examines how Cinderella is mistreated and forced into traditional female roles by her stepmother and stepsisters. Her only chance of escape is by marrying well, which only occurs because the prince is attracted to her beauty, emphasizing that beauty is most important. The prince falls in love with her despite not knowing anything about her character. The analysis concludes that Cinderella represents women's dependence on men for escape and the story exhibits the patriarchal control and oppression of women.

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    A Psychoanalytic-Feminist Analysis of Cinderella

    Uploaded by

    CassandraRhys 0311
    247 views2 pages
    This document provides a psychoanalytic-feminist analysis of the classic fairy tale Cinderella. It argues that beneath the surface of an innocent love story, the tale actually promotes the patriarchal ideology of its time. It examines how Cinderella is mistreated and forced into traditional female roles by her stepmother and stepsisters. Her only chance of escape is by marrying well, which only occurs because the prince is attracted to her beauty, emphasizing that beauty is most important. The prince falls in love with her despite not knowing anything about her character. The analysis concludes that Cinderella represents women's dependence on men for escape and the story exhibits the patriarchal control and oppression of women.

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    This document provides a psychoanalytic-feminist analysis of the classic fairy tale Cinderella. It argues that beneath the surface of an innocent love story, the tale actually promotes the patriarchal ideology of its time. It examines how Cinderella is mistreated and forced into traditional female roles by her stepmother and stepsisters. Her only chance of escape is by marrying well, which only occurs because the prince is attracted to her beauty, emphasizing that beauty is most important. The prince falls in love with her despite not knowing anything about her character. The analysis concludes that Cinderella represents women's dependence on men for escape and the story exhibits the patriarchal control and oppression of women.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    247 views2 pages

    A Psychoanalytic-Feminist Analysis of Cinderella

    Uploaded by

    CassandraRhys 0311
    This document provides a psychoanalytic-feminist analysis of the classic fairy tale Cinderella. It argues that beneath the surface of an innocent love story, the tale actually promotes the patriarchal ideology of its time. It examines how Cinderella is mistreated and forced into traditional female roles by her stepmother and stepsisters. Her only chance of escape is by marrying well, which only occurs because the prince is attracted to her beauty, emphasizing that beauty is most important. The prince falls in love with her despite not knowing anything about her character. The analysis concludes that Cinderella represents women's dependence on men for escape and the story exhibits the patriarchal control and oppression of women.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    MINI PERFORMANCE TASK 1

    A Psychoanalytic-Feminist Analysis of Cinderella

    The classic tale, Cinderella, on paper, just seems to be an innocent love story all about a

    girl whose dreams come true and falls for a prince. But, if we view it from a psychoanalytic-

    feminist criticism, the representations of the story become clear as day. Like most fairytales that

    were written across the past centuries, the story sets up the ideologies of a patriarchal society.

    There are about thousands of versions of the Cinderella around the world. Although the

    titles and characters vary among different countries and eras, the storylines, themes, and motifs

    are mostly similar. In general, you have a mistreated young woman, forced to do menial work,

    cast out and unloved by her family. She has an opportunity to marry well and escape her

    situation, but she gets this chance only because she was mistaken for a person of higher-status, so

    she has to get the man who may marry her to recognize her in her low-status form, which often

    happens via a shoe.

    Focusing on the more commonly known version, the first detail that immediately catches

    your eye, is the abuse Cinderella experiences from her stepmother and stepsisters, forcing her to

    carry out tasks that conform to the traditional roles of women. She lives in an attic in huge house

    they live in and wears rags. She is now established as an innocent personage in desperate need

    for an escape. Then, out of nowhere, the fairy godmother arrives and changes her clothes, which

    then also alters her entire appearance. The fairy godmother is enforcing the idea that men are

    only attracted to women who are presentably beautiful, well-dressed and put together.

    The story goes on and she finally gets to the ball and is immediately noticed by the prince

    because of her beauty. While they dance through the night, the prince “falls in love” with her,
    which points out the irony that has never said a single word to her. He seems enamored by her

    appearance, pointing out that beauty matters to him. They then start to drift from the hall, away

    from all the other men who pose a potential threat to the prince if they ask Cinderella to dance,

    and end up in the garden. By now the clock strikes twelve, she flees the hall, and conveniently

    leaves a shoe behind. This shoe is the prince’s only way to find his “true love”, when in truth he

    doesn’t even know her name and how she really looks like, by letting her put on the glass slipper

    and decides to marry her because “the shoe fits”.

    Cinderella’s acceptance of the prince’s proposal isn’t because she is “in love” with him, but

    because is her only escape from her abusive life in that house with her step-mother and sisters.

    She could not have fallen for a man she danced with one night, without saying a word. She is just

    looking for a way of escape and so resides in the prince for it. On the other hand, the prince is

    more in love with Cinderella’s beauty than anything else. At the ball he takes her away from the

    other men who could take her from him and now marries her, marking her, his property.

    Cinderella is not just the fairytale most of us grew up with, know, and love. It is a story

    that plainly exhibits the control and power of the patriarchy. The story line also plays in the

    beliefs behind the dependence of women on men for escape. By evaluating the fairy tales such as

    this one, we can see that these stories show the underlying ideologies and the oppression of

    women.

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