Comparative Analysis of the Cinderella Folktale Across Cultures

Introduction: The Cinderella Story as World Folklore

"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 in 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 of tales 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 single germinal version of the tale — though some particular instances are most heavily contested — the comparative approach is put to good use in 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 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.

The Aarne-Thompson Framework: Two Major Branches

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 belong the more popularly familiar versions of the tale, exemplified in Charles Perrault's "Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper." The second type Cox calls "Cap o' Rushes" or "Cat-Skin," the two designations referring to differing but closely related branches of the tale.

The essential construction of both 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, (c) by a supernatural being, (d) by birds, (e) by a goat, sheep, or cow, or (f) when the goat or cow is killed, there springs up from 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 some manifestation of 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 essay does not reach beyond the bounds of Eurasia — nor comprehensively throughout that region — but its observations can be logically extended beyond its scope.

Javanese and Afghani Variants: Cultural Transformation in Action

Turning 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 element VI, every other plot element identified for type 510 by Aarne-Thompson is present. Kleiting Kuning (meaning "yellow water jar," Cinderella's local name) is persecuted by her birth mother and birth sisters. Her magical helper comes in the form of a stork, who typically bestows Kleiting Kuning with magical fetishes to assist her journey. The interesting cultural addition to the tale is the incorporation of Hindu and Muslim religious motifs, the two religions being most prevalent 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 attributes magical help to ancestral spirits — the dead mother, a tree growing on her grave, a cow or goat 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 supernatural help must come from other sources, namely the gods of 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 answered by the stork who later reveals himself to be "the messenger of the gods" (Danandjaja, 1976). A further religious dimension appears in the method of proof of identity: the token is maintained sexual purity, evidenced by Kleiting Kuning's refusal to acquiesce 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 Prince Ande-Ande Lumut, as "the one I have been expecting for days and nights" (Danandjaja, 1976).

Intermediary to the Javanese adaptation — tracing the story as it traveled westward across Eurasia — one may consider the example retold by Margaret A. Mills and 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 in Giambattista Basile's "The Cat Cinderella," the Afghani story begins with the main character — named Moon-brow in this version — participating in a plot against her true mother's life. Compare the murder of the true mother in Basile:

"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 and tribal ritual known as the Ash-e Baba Murad, which is open only to women. Men of the region appear to consider the story the sole property of 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 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 at 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-role reversal is common to much folk mythology, and Mills notes that the few exceptions — wherein a gender-role reversal is cast in a favorable light — exclusively involve females somehow taking on male aspects.

Yet another element endemic to a wide range of Cinderella tales may be examined in the Afghani version. The magical help comes through a cow 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 worldwide 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. The vehicle of the true mother's inhabitation need not be a cow, or even an animal, however. In a popular Chinese version, "Yeh-Shen," the vehicle is a fish; in the well-known Russian variant "The Beautiful Wassilissa," it is a toy bear given to the child by her mother before her death.

Conclusion: What Remains Grave and Constant

Today's popular versions of the Cinderella tale — Disney's in particular — recast this drama as a sort of coming-of-age for an oppressed young woman. It is notable, however, that Cinderella does not change in character throughout the tale; there is no coming of age so much as a realignment of fortunate circumstances. Yet neither cloaks of swine-hide, nor animated musical numbers, nor a thousand permutations of the same tale told across as many societies, can change truth — they can only veil it.

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