From The Court of King Mark:
Creepy Fairy Godmothers
I looked at the illustrations of Cinderella on the Sur La Lune website. After looking at many of the different drawings done to accompany Cinderella I noticed that there were many different depictions of the fairy godmother. Some of the illustrations showed the godmother to be rather evil looking, almost as if she appeared as a witch. But we all know that the fairy godmother is good and actually helps Cinderella so I thought it was interesting to portray her in this dark, ominous way. For example in Arthur Rackman’s drawing the godmother appears darkly cloaked and boney, almost as one would picture the witch in Hansel and Gretel to look like. She does not appear jolly and bright like the Disney fairy godmother.
There is another illustration done by Paul Woodroffe which shows the fairy godmother with a black witch’s hat on. She is wearing a red cloak and a tight black dress. Her face is very pale and almost skeletal looking and she hovers creepily over Cinderella. She really does appear more like an evil sorcerer than a gift bearing godmother. I wondered why the illustrators chose to draw the godmother in this way. If I were a child reading these stories and viewing these pictures I would immediately associate the pictures of the godmothers as evil due to the way the illustrators drew them. Perhaps these artists were hinting at the moral that Perrault highlights at the end of his story, that beauty isn’t everything, but rather graciousness and a good heart. Although these fairy godmothers appear wicked, they have inner goodness and grant dear Cinderella’s wishes.Posted by Holly Meehl
From The Swindlers’ Cave:
Fair, Brown, and Trembling
Fair, Brown, and Trembling is a story from Ireland. It begins as a seemingly normal "Cinderella" tale, but has some strange deviations throughout in the text. One interesting aspect is that it concentrates on color throughout the story. Trembling (the Cinderella character) goes to mass (ball) three times, and each time, her attire is described in a full paragraph. Colors are included in every description, even insignificant parts. Not only are colors described in detail, but other small aspects o the story are intricately explained (for example, a specific mark of the belly of a whale...). Also, after the wedding of the prince and Trembling, the story is only half complete. There is an entire second story-line where the prince fights for the hand of Trembling and saves her from an enchanted whale. Yeah, I know. Weird. She is swallowed by the whale after her sister pushes her into the ocean (her sister is in love with her husband) and a little cowboy must alert the prince to rescue her. Finally, the story doesn't include a parental unit of any sort, which deviated from normal Cinderella stories, where the evil stepmother is a key player in the plot. This eliminates any oedipal ties that some Cinderella tales have and make it more about clear-cut good versus evil.
Posted by Emily Hogan
Conkiajgharuna, the Little Rag Girl (A Georgian Tale)
This tale is quite a departure from Perrault and Grimm's versions of Cinderella, although it has the element of the cow as a guardian seen in many of the Asian versions of Cinderella we read in class for this week. First, it is interesting to note that the tales including the cow as the mother-like provider of food and comfort were from Asia and the Middle East because many of those cultures saw the cow as a symbol of wealth and, in the case of the Indian version, as a sacred animal. Second, the story is not a riches-to-rags-to-riches tale as the Cinderella figure is the daughter of a poor peasant, not a gentleman. Cinderella is also not emphasized as the "most beautiful creature ever seen" like in many of the other Cinderella versions- she is not the slender female of the courtly French Cinderella. Rather, she is described as plump because of her nourishment from the cow, and her virtues rest in her ability to cope with her stepmother's abuse, her cleverness to get the king to notice her (by pricking him with a needle through the basket in which she is trapped), and her kindness to the devil woman (who is by every means a horrifying creature.) This Cinderella's hardiness, not dantiness, is what earns her her freedom from her mother and her rise in rank as a queen.
The effect of all these element acting in concert is that this tale is about a girl learning how to earn her own way in life by appreciating the things in life that will earn her wealth in her culture. When the girl takes care of the cow it is hard work, but she learns that her efforts pay off in nourishment and protection. Therefore, the cow becomes a symbol of wealth that has to be protected. The girl's encounter with the old devil woman is where the girl learns to appreciate the older generation's wisdom. Despite some of its knowledge of horrific events in the course of a lifetime, the wisdom of old women and their knowledge of how to become a successful woman in their culture is worth more than its weight in gold to a girl who has to learn how to become a woman on her own. It is with the old woman's wisdom of the springs that the girl acquires her ability to distinguish herself and to earn her greater wealth through marriage. The girl's cleverness is what enables her to take advantage of her newly aquired appreciation of wealth (from the cow) and wisdom (from the hag) by escaping the wiles of her stepmother through pricking the seat of her eventual husband.
Posted by Marion
From The Tomb of Hermes:
Conkiajgharuna, the Little Rag Girl
I read an Georgian version for my Cinderella version called Conkiajgharuna, the Little Rag Girl. It basically had the same story line as the conventional Cinderella that we are all very familiar with. The characters are similar as well, with a widowed father who lived with his biological daughter. He takes another wife that already had a daughter of her own, whom she loved dearly. And she comes to view the other daughter as something to hate and wanted to get rid of her. She lavished her own daughter and treated her stepdaughter, Little Rag Girl, miserably and tried to starve her. The fairy godmother from the conventional fairy tales is now instead a talking cow. Although the person in the position as the fairy god mother is different, they both still encompass that aspect of magic that helps to grant Cinderella/Little Rag Girl’s wishes. In this version, there is another pseudo fairy godmother, the old woman devi. Little Rag Girl is very much like Cinderella for she was filled with goodness in her heart. Just in like the Perrault’s version where Cinderella forgives her evil sisters and offers them lodging at the palace and even marries them off to great lords of the courts. Little Rag Girl helps the old woman devi clean her head of the worms- the conduct pleased her so she tells Little Rag Girl to washed her hair and her hands. In doing so, her hair and hands became golden. There is a more religious aspect to Little Rag Girl, as they are going to a church instead of a ball at a palace. But she still drops a golden slipper that becomes the standard and way of choosing a wife. Two very different aspects of this version of Cinderella is that it mentions race- the evil step sister becomes dark and African in ethnicity when she is tricked to washed in the black river and Little Rag Girl is more proactive and takes matters into her own hands by pricking the king with the needle- she didn’t just hide in the corner while her step sister tried on the slipper. She made herself known and went for what she wanted.
Posted by vanessayu
