“Cinderella” Fairy Tale, Essay Example

Cinderella is a celebrated classic tale representing myth-like elements such as unfair domination of evil powers resulting into glorious victory of the good ones. Nowadays there exist thousands of versions of the story celebrated all over the world. At the core of the plot invariably lies a story of a fortunate young girl living in ill-fated conditions which eventually turn into amazing luck.

The Cinderella subject matter has probably been developed from the very classical antiquity. Eventually, number of various versions of the same story appeared in the medieval One Thousand and One Nights, while some of those originated in Japan. The initial European version of modern Cinderella is “La Gatta Cenerentola” or “The Hearth Cat” which was originally included into the book “Il Pentamerone” by the Italian fairy-tale collector Giambattista Basile in 1635. It is believed that this very edition had become the one from which later versions by the French author Charles Perrault and the German Brothers Grimm were derived from.

Celebrated version by Charles Perrault written in 1697 owes its incredible popularity to the author’s innovative additions to the plot meaning the pumpkin, the fairy-godmother and the notable glass slippers. Another legendary version was written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century. The original tale is named “Aschenputtel”. It differs from the one by Perrault by the absence of fairy-godmother character. Cinderella receives help from the wishing tree that grows on her mother’s grave instead. It also includes a number of rather frightening details such as Cinderella’s sisters’ cutting of parts of their feet in order to trick the prince, and their eyes being pecked out by some pigeons, which results in their being doomed to live the lives of blind beggars.

Presently the mere word “cinderella” means a lot. We usually call that way someone whose good qualities are unrecognized and not yet appreciated by others, as well as someone who all at once gets appreciation and respect, or achieves striking success after a period of insignificance and negligence. It seems like the story will never stop being popular. It keeps on having a significant impact on the modern culture worldwide. No need to mention how great a variety of media has already adopted its storyline elements, and we can only guess how many more others are going to follow.

Through the years of existence “Cinderella” fairy tale has acquired a legendary fame indeed. I do not know a single person unfamiliar with at least some versions of the Cinderella story. The creation of thousands of films, musicals, television shows and songs has been inspired by the lucky young woman’s story, as well as hundreds of books have borrowed its plot lines from the original fairy tale in order to get at least the tiniest part of the fame it has accumulated through centuries. This beautiful story, with some details being changed yet the core idea being immutable, has become an inalienable part of the popular culture. And whether we acknowledge this or not, it has had a particular impact on the formation of each human being’s personality in one or another way. Cinderella story is not as simple as it may seem, and it definitely has something worth considering when dealing with lifelike situation. Reading the fairy tale or watching one of its film adaptations has become an important part of experience we gain at the initial stages of life in order to be prepared for living  life of success rather than a life marred by the lack of appreciation and recognition.