Cinderella Research Paper

817 Words4 Pages
Our culture is full of fairy tales. These fairy tales start out as entertaining stories, but they slowly became more than that. One such fairy tale is Cinderella, on the surface Cinderella may seem like an innocent love story about a girl whose dreams come true when she finds her prince charming and they live happily ever after. Or so it seems. Cinderella is an irresponsible text when analyzed through the feminist lens as it perpetuates gender roles on women's behaviour/goals, and portrays a matriarchal and patriarchal society. Cinderella seems to be a story about a young woman whose wishes come true. However, the story also perpetuates gender roles depicting the behaviours and goals women in this society should have. Marriage is every…show more content…
Even Cinderella wants to meet the prince, she is even willing to do the list of chores her stepmother gave her as a requirement to attend ball. The story implies that Cinderella’s only way to get away from the abuse in her life is to marry someone like the prince. This makes girls think that marriage is the only way in living “happily ever after”. The women in the story strive to be picturesque. Cinderella and her sisters spend numerous hours dressing for the ball because they feel that their only value is in their appearance. Prince Charming falls in love with Cinderella “at first sight” not because of her personality but because of her beauty. This is evident because of his reaction to Cinderella before they even spoke. The message that is shown is a woman’s worth is in the way she dresses and the way she looks. Little girls who listen over and over again to Cinderella’s story may grow up thinking that the way they look is everything. Cinderella also portrays behaviour norms for women. The story shows us that society expects women to be…show more content…
Close to the end of the movie Cinderella goes to a ball to meet the prince to potentially have a chance to dance with him. When they continue to dance throughout the night the prince “falls in love” with her without even saying a word. She accepts the prince’s proposal not because she is “in love” but because she is just looking for a way out of her sadistic home life and uses the prince as an escape. This story makes women believe in only depending on men to escape their problems and not getting through it themselves. Matriarchy in shown through the stepmother. In the beginning of Cinderella you see that she is being abused by her stepmother and stepsisters and being forced to clean the house, and cook for her family. She lives in the attic of their enormous mansion and wears rags. The stepmother is evil and pushes Cinderella around taking advantage of the fact that she’s the only thing close to a family that Cinderella has. Cinderella can’t stand up for herself seeing as how the stepmother is the head of the family and she is the supreme authority in the family. This shows little girls that its okay to be pushed around and that you shouldn’t stand of up for yourself. This story plays into the beliefs behind patriarchy in making women depend on men to escape their problems and by not

More about Cinderella Research Paper

Open Document