A Two Tale Comparison :: essays papers

A Two Tale ComparisonThinking back to our childhood, we all remember hearing many kinds of fairy tales. Some of them inspired us others confused us, and most of them taught us valuable lessons. Through out centuries tales and stories have been used as a valuable tool to pass on our culture to new generations. There is a strong belief that these fairy tales mirror and influence society. All cultures interpret tales in their own unique way. They amount and subtract various aspects of the tale to fit the needs of their particular society. The same tale in the United States is different from the tale t archaic in Asia. A wakeless example of tale evolution can be seen in one of the most famous tales ever told which is Cinderella. As a professor of womens autobiography Karol Kelley points out in her essay Pretty Woman A Modern Cinderella There are some 700 versions of Cinderella.This fairy tale as many others has been changing for many years, and in recent years Cinderella has come un der some criticism for its depiction of womens roles in society.In present day society, where governmental correctness and equality are at the top of the priority list, by reading essays such as the one by Karol Kelley we find that this might non have been the case in earlier days. Fairy tales such as Cinderella have been found guilty of possessing subliminal socialization traits. Classifying genders as inferior and moulding young girls into the female that society expects them to be. In Charles Perraults version, which is considered the most common, Cinderella is seen as passive, limited, dependent and inferior. As critics argue, these traits can hinder a childs self esteem. Karol Kelley states that the expectations and the promisesof the Cinderella story are psychologically harmful to women. (p648). The fact that Cinderella is a limited character may give the girl an impression that she should be happy with what she has and non have any or aspirations in her life. That is, until her Prince comes to rescue her. Since these comments were made, the Cinderella story has been modified and changed. In order to see how gender roles have changed in fairy tales from the old to the new, lets compare the classic version of Cinderella by Charles Perrault to a recent version which is a movie that was released in 1998 called Ever Afterwhich was say by Andy Tennant.