Cinderella: Social Monster in the Closet

Cinderella: Social Monster in the Closet

          Black, grimy, lurid, and murky, these are just a few of the words we use to describe evil. When a person is described in these terms; condemnation, damnation, and doom are advocated and applied by society. The connotation of dark as evil is prevalent in many stories throughout the history of western civilization. Fairy tales “emanate from specific struggles to humanize bestial and barbaric forces, which have terrorized our minds and communities in concrete ways” (Zipes) and as such they affect far more than may be initially assumed. Colette Dowling, author of The Cinderella Complex theorizes that the tale of Cinderella addresses the issue of the continued oppression of women. She argues “a network of largely repressed attitudes and fears that keep women in a kind of half-light, retreating from the full use of their minds and creativity” (595). She goes on to explain “Like Cinderella, women today are still waiting for something external to transform their lives” (595). Contrary to Dowling’s claim passivity is not prevalent in this fairy tale. However actions performed by women are constantly associated with darkness. It is this overpowering association with the color black and its implications that truly keep women in a “half-light.” While Dowling contends, Cinderella sits around waiting for an “external force,” we see this simply is not the case in at least two versions of Cinderella: “Ashputtle” by the Brother’s Grimm and “When the Clock Strikes” by Tanith Lee. The women representing Cinderella Ashputtle and Ashella are independent and once their minds are made up nothing can stop them.
Ashputtle decides immediately she wants to go to the ball. She makes every effort to do so. She prepares her stepsisters and “[begs] her stepmother to let her go” (533). She secretly calls upon magical birds that she controls, to perform her assigned work; when this fails to get her to the ball, she resorts to the use of magic again to produce a stunning gown. Upon her arrival, the prince is immediately enamored with Ashputtle. Though the prince is perhaps not the brightest man, he is most definitely a valuable and powerful asset for any woman to have at her side. After placing the prince under the spell of her womanly charms, Ashputtle fearlessly uses magic to inform the prince he has retrieved the wrong bride. He selects the wrong woman again, yet she does not despair. There is no need. In this situation a little determination and some more magic can rectify the bumbling prince. Once more, Ashputtle puts her birds to work. Finally, she is rewarded for all of her action and the crafty Ashputtle has snags her prince. She is far from a girl waiting around; constantly, she pursues her desires.
          Likewise, Ashella is fully aware of what she wishes to accomplish. It is important to note, Tanith Lee’s version of Cinderella is inverted; as such Cinderella is a witch who vows to take revenge on the royal family that murdered her own. In order to do so, Ashella fools everybody around her to secure her survival. She allows the men in her society to believe that her mother “bewitched her” (539). This distortion of the truth saves her life. For many years, Ashella hides her true potential. She secretly enhances her own power “saying her prayers to Satanas in the black of midnight” (541). Ashella, like Ashputtle decides to attend the royal celebration. In secrecy, again, like Ashputtle, she summons all of her power and readies herself for the ball. Immediately, the prince is under her spell, yet she bides her time, waiting for the moment in which she will be able to exact her revenge. At midnight, when her powers are strongest, she casts a mighty curse on the prince and he is driven mad. Thus her mission is accomplished. Ashella pursues her desires, much like Ashputtle, but to a completely different end.
         In these versions of Cinderella the girls do not fit Dowling’s definition of women waiting for an external force to transform them. Women modeling themselves after these Cinderella’s would hardly be representational of Dowling’s claim that females today are “retreating from the full use of their minds and creativity” (595). Still, there is something in these variants of the fairy tale that keep Cinderella’s true nature as an activist hidden. She is dirty. Unfortunately, the women within her family are the ones who label this darkness as shameful to society. By portraying Cinderella covered in soot and ashes combined with the actions of the stepfamily her work becomes a symbol of shame.
          The women around both Ashputtle and Ashella are filled with contempt. All are concerned with how Cinderella’s appearance reflects upon their own standing in society. The irony is that these are the very same women setting the social standards. Ashputtle is constantly reminded of her place: “How can you go to a wedding when you’re all dusty and dirty?” (533) asks her stepmother. When Ashputtle insists, she is reminded of how society sees her covered with grime “No Asputtle…; the people would only laugh at you” (533). It’s not just Ashputtle’s family who are shackled by this standard of society, the prince himself falls victim to the perception that dirt is shameful. He sees Ashputtle twice “lying in the ashes in her filthy clothes” (534). He never considers that she could be fit for a social occasion such as the ball she just attended. No woman in a “grey dress” (534) could be the amazing, intelligent, resourceful, seductive woman that just slipped from his grasp. The prince eventually realizes his folly and demands the “puny kitchen drudge” (535) be allowed to try on the slipper. Now, the stepmother makes a last ditch effort to remind the prince of the place darkness holds in society, “Oh, no, she’s much too dirty to be seen” (535-6). This tale is teaching our little girls intelligent women who bear the marks of hard work just aren’t valued by society. Ashputtle provides the only acceptable solution; she “[washes] her face and hands, and when they were clean” (536) she goes to the prince. Only now, when all traces of her toil and trouble have been removed is she accepted by society and by association the prince.
         Identical to Ashputtle’s family all of the women in Ashella’s stepfamily “came to resent her moping greyness” (540). The stepmother worries, “People will say that I and my daughter’s are responsible for her condition and that I ill-treat the maid from jealousy of her dead mother” (541). In both stories the women are labeling Cinderella’s appearance as a burden. They are so concerned with the ashes they fail to recognize anything of true value like intelligence, determination, or the will to transform oneself. At the heart of Dowling’s thesis is the point of view that women are not pursuing their own desires, however here we see they do; the problem is women do not value these characteristics.
         Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the same type of imagery to depict the evil physician Chillingworth, in the The Scarlet Letter as Lee and the Grimm Brothers use to delineate Cinderella’s actions. Tantamount to Chillingworth, Cinderella is depicted covered in darkness; her ashes serving the same purpose his sooty, smokiness does. The Grimm brother’s describe Ashputtle in her “old gray dress and wooden shoes” and how she must “do all the work” therefore she becomes “dusty and dirty” (532). It is vital to observe that hard work is the cause of the girl’s dirtiness.
          Ashella’s character is a far cry from Ashputtle, yet the same darkness surrounds the description of her. She wears a “robe of sackcloth” and she purposefully “poured ashes over her red-copper hair” (540). She is relying on the stereotypical views of dirtiness as a thing of shame that should be hidden in order to remain under the radar as she formulates her plan of attack. Ashella is seen with “dirt smeared on her cheeks” (540) and she is always located “by a smoky hearth” (540) therefore “People forgot her beauty” (540). This Cinderella knows the power of her disguise, soon people “found it hard to call to mind who she was exactly, as she sat in the ashes, or shuffled unattended about the streets like a crone “(540). Notice the comparison to a witch simply because of her appearance. This type of imagery is present in many works of literature, particularly in the western cultures and there is no doubt as to the implications of blackness and witchery being undesirable traits. During the culmination of Ashella’s plot we learn “Dusk gathered and the shadows thickened,” (541) more allusions to the crepuscule nature of a woman with a mission. Even the process of her getting ready for the ball is “depicted [as] the attendance upon a witch of her familiar demons” (543). Indubitably, it is not acceptable in society for a woman to choose her own fate. Only a witch is free to choose her path. In this version of Cinderella, where Ashella’s ultimate goal is revenge, she is labeled “A devotee of Satanas, she has doubtless worked plentiful woe in the world” (547). Women, the major story-tellers in society chronicle men in comparable situations as exalted heroes; Achilles is renowned for his murderous rage and he is considered a hero. It is this type of murky imagery that “terrorize[s] our minds and communities in concrete ways” (Zipes).
All of the women in Cinderella are actively attempting to transform their lives. The stepsister’s and mother through either suppression or oppression and Cinderella by merely acting on her desires. Therefore, it can no longer be argued that, “women are still waiting for something external to transform their lives” (595). Now, there is a “network of largely repressed attitudes and fears that keep (women) in a kind of half-light” (595), yet Dowling misnames it the “Cinderella Complex.” The Step Complex is a far more accurate name as the stepsisters and mother are the ones holding this network in place. Though it is tempting to label the stepfamily in these variants of Cinderella ominous, damnable, horrible or evil, dirty, shameful women it would only cement in place a lower position in society for all women. As fairy tales continue to evolve, as they ever will, let’s keep in mind the words of another piece of literature “let there be light.”





Works Cited

The Bible. King James version.
Dowling, Colette. “The Cinderella Complex.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed.
Laurence Behrens and Leonard J Rosen. 8th ed. New York: Longman, 595.
Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm. “Ashputtle.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Eds.
Laurence Behrens and Leonard J Rosen. 8th ed. New York: Longman, 2003. 531-536.
Lee, Tanith. “When the Clock Strikes.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed
Laurence Behrens and Leonard J Rosen. 8th ed. New York: Longman, 2003. 536-553.
Zipes, Jack. Spells of Enchantment. New York: Viking, 1991.