Past The Illusions Of Fairytales: Exploring The Dark Origins Of Cinderella

Glimmering glass slipper, evil stepsisters, a dead father and a fairy godmother. We are all familiar with the very sweet Cinderella, and her Prince Charming through the Disney version of the fairytale, however, the origins of this story are way darker from what we would expect, pretty much like how we break out of the bubble of the world being a fairytale as we grow up. So, join me on this very interesting and grim quest to uncover the more relatable and darker origins of Cinderella.

- Dhaanya Thakur

Warning: not very children-friendly content up folks, so please be warned.

While there are various old as well as modern retellings of this story all around the world, I'll be taking the Disney's 1950 animated version and the Live action movie from 2015 as reference points for they are most well-known or at least easily recognizable to most and have picked their elements from the older versions by Charles Perrault and Grimm brothers. Disney's 1950 version is based on the story by Perrault's Cinderella and stays true to the tale in most sense, but also has elements from the Grimm brothers. While I must say that these older versions were kind of representative of the actual circumstances of the society and the way of the world in many ways, they were also quite insane, idiotic, violent and not at all children friendly at times. This is especially true for the Grimm brothers as it is thought that they kept their stories much grim and full of gore, and even heightened it a bit, because it stoked reader's interests. Murder and mayhem sells. That does not sound very right to me, guess their readers were a little disturbed, but well at least the brother's taste suits their name.

Once upon a time a rich gentleman got married to a haughty lady who had two daughters just like her while he himself had a beautiful daughter left behind from his first marriage, we see that Disney stays true to this part of Perrault's version completely except for the fact that Cinderella is the heroines given name unlike any older tales. In the 1950s Disney version the father married only to give his daughter a maternal figure while in the live action it was years after the loss of the first wife that he wished to have a chance to be happy again and well both eventually meet the same fate, that is dying before even the half time of the movie is over.