Cinderella narrative variations across cultures and time periods

¶ … Folklore

ive Analysis of the Cinderella Story

"In the sea of malice envy frequently gets out of her depth; and, while she is expecting to see another drowned, she is either drowned herself, or is dashed against a rock, as happened to some envious girls, about whom I will tell you a story," (Basile, Project Gutenberg Edition, 2000).

The Cinderella folktale is among the oldest and most widely distributed stories of the world. Multiple variants exist across various cultural boundaries -- from Korea to France, from Native American to Javanese -- including tales falling under two major plot structures and a vast body of idiosyncratic permutations specific to local cultures. Around this body has grown up a large field of study, with works by many well-respected anthropologists and folklorists who aim to classify and analyze the multiplicity of the story's forms. While a comparative approach has failed to identify a germinal version of the tale -- though some particular instances are heaviest in the contention -- the comparative approach is put to good use in comparative cultural study, by highlighting what remains "grave and constant" in human culture and psyche. This analysis can provide insight into the differences and similarities between different cultures, as well as into the pathways by which culture migrates from one ethnic region into another. The aim of this work is to survey, with an eye to comparative analysis, some variants of the Cinderella story from widely separated cultural spheres.

It is necessary first to draw a framework by defining the two major branches of the Cinderella tale, as first identified by Marian Roalfe Cox, and later further refined by many comparative folklorists, notably Anna Birgitta Rooth, Antti Aarne, and Stith Thompson, who revised Aarne's work. Aarne and Thompson name the first branch "Cinderella," and to it are appropriate the more popularly familiar versions of the tale, exemplified in Charles Perrault's "Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper." The second type, Cox calls the "Cap o' Rushes" or "Cat-Skin," the two designations referent to differing but closely related branches of the tale.

The essential construction of both of these branches remains the same. Termed story types 510A and 510B by the Aarne-Thompson index, the elements are as follows:

510 Cinderella and Cap o' Rushes.

I. The Persecuted Heroine. (a) The heroine is abused by her stepmother and stepsisters and (a1) stays on the hearth or in the ashes and (a2) is dressed in rough clothing -- cap of rushes, wooden cloak, etc., (b) flees in disguise from her father who wants to marry her, or (c) is cast out by him because she has said that she loved him like salt, or (d) is to be killed by a servant.

II. Magic Help. While she is acting as a servant (at home or among strangers) she is advised, provided for, and fed (a) by her dead mother, (b) by a tree on the mother's grave, or (c) by a supernatural being or (d) by birds, or (e) by a goat, or sheep, or a cow. (f) When the goat (cow) is killed there spring up her remains a magic tree.

III. Meeting with the Prince. (a) She dances in beautiful clothing several times with a prince who seeks in vain to keep her, or she is seen by him in church. (b) She gives hints of the abuse she has endured as a servant girl, or (c) she is seen in her beautiful clothing in her room or in the church.

IV. Proof of Identity. (a) She is discovered through the slipper-test or (b) through a ring which she throws into the prince's drink or bakes in his bread. (c) She alone is able to pluck the gold apple desired by the knight.

V. Marriage with the Prince.

VI. Value of Salt. Her father is served unsalted food and thus learns the meaning of her earlier answer (Ramanujan, 1956).

Most variants of the tale include in some manifestation most of these elements, though commonly one or more may be omitted. Rooth in an essay companion to her more exhaustive work, The Cinderella Cycle, submits that "the important motifs of the Cinderella tale are found over the whole Eurasiatic area," (Rooth, 1956). Yet she distinguishes between "important-motifs" and "detail-motifs" and qualifies that "the minor and the less important motifs, or the detail-motifs, were limited to certain areas within Eurasia," (Rooth, 1956). Rooth's short essay does not reach beyond the bounds of Eurasia -- nor comprehensively throughout that bound -- but can be logically extended outside of its scope.

Turning, then, to more specific examples, a tale of the Javanese collected by James Danandjaja is typical of the cultural transformation process common to Cinderella folktales. With the exception of item VI, every other plot element identified for type 510 by Aarne-Thompson is present. Kleiting Kuning (yellow water jar, Cinderella's local name) is persecuted by her birth mother, in this case, and birth sisters. Her magic helper comes in the form of a stork, who typically bestows Kleiting Kuning with magical fetishes to assist her journey. The interesting cultural adjunct to the tale is the incorporation of Hindu and Muslim religious motifs, the two religions being most common in Java. Kleiting Kuning is reported to have "had a good heart and a virtuous character, her patience earned her a reward from the gods later on," (Danandjaja, 1976). As noted, the central body of Cinderella tales generally applies to ancestral spirits -- the dead mother, a tree which grows on her grave, a cow or goat which her spirit has inhabited, or a fairy godmother -- yet in the Javanese example the "good" mother is never present -- the birth mother is the "bad" mother -- and the supernatural help must come from other sources, namely the gods of the local mythology. Kleiting Kuning prays, "Oh, Allah and the deities, what have I done, that I have to be so wretched," (Danandjaja, 1976). And she is obliged by the stork who later reveals himself to be "the messenger of the gods," (Danandjaja, 1976). A further religious anomaly is the method by which proof of identity is given in this version; the token is maintained sexual purity as evidenced by Kleiting Kuning not acquiescing to Yuyukangkang, a giant crab to whom Kleiting Kuning's sisters give kisses in exchange for safe passage on their way to the prince. The prince rejects the sisters because the girls were already "used," but Kleiting Kuning's adherence to the Muslim and Hindu ideal of sexual purity identifies her, to Ande-Ande Lumut, the prince, to be "the one I have been expecting for days and nights," (Danandjaja, 1976).

Intermediary to the Javanese adaptation, as the story traveled eastward across Eurasia, one might take the example retold by Margaret A. Mills specific to the Iran-Afghanistan region. This variant is clearly more closely related to Charles Perrault's iconic French version, yet is heavily infused with the tribal Muslim imagery and context of its local culture. As per Giambattista's "The Cat Cinderella," the Afghani story begins with the main character, Moon-brow she is named in this case, participating in a plot against her true-mother's life. Compare the murder of the true mother in Giambattista:

'When your father leaves the house, tell your stepmother that you would like one of those old dresses that are kept in the big chest in the closet, to save the one you now have on. As she always wants to see you in rags and tatters, she will open the chest and say, 'Hold the lid.' You must hold it while she is rummaging inside and then suddenly let it fall so that it breaks her neck,' (Basile, ed. N.M. Penzer, 1932).

To the murder perpetrated by Moon-brow in the Afghani tale:

…and she told the girl to tell her mother that she wanted some vinegar, and when she went to get it, to push her in and cover the storage jar (Mills, 1978).

In both cases the plot is devised by Cinderella's governess at Cinderella's own prompting.

The Afghani version is also notable for its gender-centric purview. The story forms part of an important religious/tribal ritual, known as the ?sh-e B-b? Mur-d, which is open only to women. Men of the region seem to consider the story the sole property of the women:

Adult males did not perform the tale spontaneously. One key adult male informant in particular, an accomplished storyteller with a huge repertoire of both folktales and romances, professed not to know the story and refused to perform it despite repeated requests from me [Mills]. His claim not to know it is extremely suspect given its wide currency among women and less adept, younger male storytellers (Mills, 1978).

Indeed, the Afghani version is characterized by a complete diminution of all the male characters common to other versions of the story, as well as a demonization of phallic symbols. The evil stepsister at one point, attempts to steal Moon-brow's blessing -- received through a supernatural old woman living in the bottom of a well -- but is found out and punished: the old woman causes a donkey's penis to grow from the stepsister's forehead, and a snake from her chin. This general abhorrence of gender roll reversal is common to much folk mythology, and Mills notes that the few exceptions -- wherein a gender roll reversal is cast in a favorable light -- exclusively involve females somehow taking on male aspects.

Yet another element may be examined in the Afghani version which is endemic to a wide range of Cinderella tales. The magical help herein comes through a cow which is inhabited by the spirit of the dead true-mother: "Later on, the father found a yellow cow in his stable, 'In place of the murdered mother,'" (Mills, 1978). The general formula found the world-wide is that the evil stepmother concocts a plan to kill the inhabited animal and consume it. Cinderella herself, being filially loyal, refuses to eat of the animal and instead gathers its bones and venerates them, by which means she receives supernatural aid from her late mother's spirit. Yet the vehicle of the true-mother's inhabitation need not be a cow, or even an animal. In a popular Chinese version, "Yeh-Shen," the vehicle is a fish; in a well-known Russian variant, "The Beautiful Wassilissa," the vehicle is a toy-bear imparted to the child by the mother before her death.

A more substantial departure from the core tale is witnessed in Native American folklore, like a tale of the Algonquin tribe called "The Hidden-One"; yet the essential elements remain in place. The Cinderella character -- Little Scarface -- is ill treated and her "rough clothing" are scars inflicted on her by her sister. The magical help comes through the prince's sister in this case who -- rather than the fairy godmother's provision of dresses and carriages for Cinderella -- washes Little Scarface with a salve that removes her scars, lengthens her hair, and makes her beautiful. The proof of identity is similar to that found in the Javanese tale, wherein moral purity is the test.