Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper

Summary

Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper is the sixth of the eight prose tales in Charles Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités (Paris, 1697), where it is titled Cendrillon, ou la petite pantoufle de verre. The library stores the tale alone, in Robert Samber's English translation of 1729 as revised by J. E. Mansion for the 1922 Harrap edition illustrated by Harry Clarke, so the heroine is spelled Cinderilla throughout. A gentleman marries, as his second wife, the proudest woman ever seen, who brings two daughters just like her. The stepmother cannot bear the goodness of the gentleman's own daughter and sets her to scour dishes and sleep on straw in a garret while her stepsisters sleep in inlaid rooms with full-length mirrors. Because the girl sits among the ashes of the chimney corner, the elder sister calls her Cinder-breech; the younger, less rude, calls her Cinderilla. When the King's son gives a ball, Cinderilla irons her sisters' linen and dresses their hair perfectly, though they mock the idea of her going. Left behind in tears, she is visited by her godmother, a Fairy, who tells her to fetch a pumpkin from the garden, scoops it out and turns it into a gilded coach; six mice from the trap become dapple-grey horses, a bearded rat becomes a jolly coachman, and six lizards from behind the watering pot become footmen. Her rags become cloth of gold and silver, and she receives a pair of glass slippers, with the warning to leave before midnight. At the ball the dancing stops at her beauty, the old King himself admires her, and she sits by her sisters sharing the Prince's oranges and citrons, though they do not know her. She leaves at a quarter to twelve, then teases the returning sisters by asking to borrow Miss Charlotte's yellow dress. On the second night she forgets the time, flees at the stroke of twelve and drops one slipper. The Prince proclaims that he will marry the woman whose foot it fits; the sisters cannot force their feet into it, but the gentleman sent with the slipper lets Cinderilla try, and it goes on as if made of wax. She draws the matching slipper from her pocket, the godmother restores her finery, and the sisters fall at her feet. Cinderilla forgives them with all her heart, marries the Prince, gives her sisters lodgings in the palace and marries them that same day to two great lords. Two verse morals close the tale: the first says that grace of bearing is worth more than beauty, and the second, in this English version, warns against disobeying godmothers and fathers.

Plot or Argument

• The stepmother's house

  A widower remarries a haughty woman with two daughters; his own gentle daughter is put to the meanest housework, sleeps in a garret on straw, and is nicknamed Cinder-breech and Cinderilla for sitting among the ashes.

• Preparations for the ball

  The King's son invites all persons of fashion; the sisters plan velvet suits and diamond stomachers, starve themselves for a slender shape and break a dozen laces, while Cinderilla dresses their heads and endures their jeers.

• The Fairy godmother

  Her godmother turns a pumpkin into a gilded coach, six mice into horses, a bearded rat into a coachman and six lizards into footmen, clothes her in gold and silver, gives her glass slippers, and orders her home before midnight.

• The first ball

  The court falls silent at the unknown princess; she dances with the Prince, shares his oranges and citrons with her unknowing sisters, leaves at eleven and three quarters, and afterward asks Miss Charlotte to lend her a dress.

• The second ball and the lost slipper

  Forgetting the time, Cinderilla flees at twelve in her old clothes, leaving one glass slipper; the guards saw only a poorly dressed country girl pass the gate.

• The trial of the slipper

  The Prince's messenger tries the slipper on princesses, duchesses and the sisters in vain; Cinderilla asks for a turn, it fits, she produces its fellow, and the godmother dresses her more richly than before.

• Forgiveness and the morals

  The sisters beg pardon and are forgiven and embraced; Cinderilla marries the Prince and finds noble husbands for both sisters. Two verse morals praise grace above beauty and warn against disobeying godmothers and fathers.

Characters

• Cinderilla, protagonist

  A gentleman's daughter of unparalleled goodness and sweetness of temper, made a servant in her own home, who forgives her stepsisters at the end.

• The godmother, Fairy

  Cinderilla's godmother, who transforms pumpkin, mice, rat and lizards and sets the midnight condition.

• The stepmother, antagonist

  The proudest and most haughty woman ever seen, who governs her husband and resents his daughter's virtues.

• The elder stepsister, stepsister

  The ruder of the two, who calls the heroine Cinder-breech and plans her red velvet suit for the ball.

• Miss Charlotte, younger stepsister

  The less rude sister, who calls the heroine Cinderilla but refuses to lend her yellow dress.

• The King's son, the Prince

  Host of the ball, who keeps the dropped slipper and proclaims he will marry the one it fits.

• The father, Cinderilla's father

  A gentleman entirely governed by his second wife, to whom his daughter dares not complain.

Lessons

• Patience without bitterness

  Cinderilla bears scrubbing, the straw bed and the nickname Cinder-breech without complaint, and she still dresses her sisters' hair perfectly when they mock her. Perrault's narrator notes that anyone else would have dressed their heads awry; her goodness shows in work done well for people who do not deserve it.

  • What jobs does the stepmother give Cinderilla, and where does she sleep?
  • Why doesn't Cinderilla tell her father how she is treated?
  • Why do you think she does a good job on her sisters' hair even after they tease her?

• Grace is better than beauty

  The first moral says plainly that the godmother's best gift was not the gown or the coach but grace of bearing. At the ball Cinderilla's grace shows in how she treats her sisters, sharing the Prince's oranges and citrons with them and showing them a thousand civilities.

  • What does Cinderilla do for her sisters at the first ball?
  • According to the moral, what is the fairies' gift of greatest worth?
  • Can a person be beautiful and still lack grace? Can a plain person have it?

• Forgiveness with all her heart

  When the slipper fits, the sisters throw themselves at Cinderilla's feet, and she lifts them up, embraces them and asks them always to love her. She then gives them rooms in the palace and finds them husbands, repaying unkindness with generosity instead of revenge.

  • What do the sisters do when they discover who Cinderilla is?
  • How does Cinderilla show that her forgiveness is real?
  • Is it harder to forgive someone in words or in deeds?

• Keeping a promise about time

  The godmother's one condition is to leave before midnight. Cinderilla keeps it on the first night, but on the second she forgets herself in the Prince's compliments and runs home in rags. The lost slipper comes out of that lapse, and the second moral in this translation draws a lesson about heeding the advice of godmothers and fathers.

  • Why does Cinderilla forget the time on the second night?
  • What happens to the coach, horses and clothes at midnight?

Context

Perrault's tales appeared in the 1690s, when literary fairy tales were a fashion in Parisian salons; Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy and other writers, many of them women, published contes de fées in the same years. Perrault shaped old oral stories into polished prose for a courtly audience, adding the manners of Louis XIV's France (the sisters' double-pinners, patches and red brushes, a ball with violins and a collation) and closing each tale with ironic verse morals. Versions of the persecuted-stepdaughter story were already old: Giambattista Basile's Neapolitan La gatta cenerentola appeared in Lo cunto de li cunti (1634–1636), and a Chinese tale of Ye Xian was written down in the ninth century.

Composition

Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités was published in Paris by Claude Barbin in 1697; its frontispiece carried the phrase Contes de ma mère l'Oye (Tales of Mother Goose). The dedication to Élisabeth-Charlotte d'Orléans was signed by Perrault's young son Pierre, and scholars have long discussed how much the son contributed; the tales are now generally credited to Charles Perrault. Robert Samber's English translation, Histories, or Tales of Past Times, appeared in London in 1729. The library text is Samber's version as revised by J. E. Mansion for George G. Harrap's 1922 edition illustrated by Harry Clarke (Project Gutenberg #29021). Mansion's footnote in the text repeats the older theory that the slipper was once of fur (vair) and became glass (verre) by a mishearing; many later scholars hold that Perrault's glass was deliberate, and the question remains debated.

Reception

Perrault's Cinderella became the standard version in France and England, supplying the pumpkin coach, the mice and lizards, the midnight deadline and the glass slipper that later retellings, pantomimes, ballets and films took for granted. Andrew Lang printed it as the Cinderella of The Blue Fairy Book (1889), and Rossini's opera La Cenerentola (1817) and Prokofiev's ballet Cinderella (1945) are among its many stage descendants. The Grimms' harsher Aschenputtel (1812) stands beside it as the best-known alternative version.

Comparisons

• perrault-sleeping-beauty

  The first tale of the same 1697 collection, also built on a fairy's gifts and a timed enchantment, and also closed with ironic verse morals addressed to young ladies.

• beaumont-beauty-and-the-beast

  Madame de Beaumont's 1756 tale, written for girls' instruction, also contrasts a good youngest daughter with proud, jealous sisters, but it punishes the sisters where Perrault's heroine marries hers to lords.

• grimms-fairy-tales

  The Grimms' Aschenputtel replaces the fairy godmother with a hazel tree planted on the mother's grave and helpful birds, and ends severely for the stepsisters; reading it beside Perrault shows how a courtly writer and folk collectors shaped the same tale.

• the-blue-fairy-book

  Andrew Lang's 1889 collection includes a lightly revised Samber-tradition Cinderella, spelled Cinderella and Cinderwench, which made Perrault's version the one many English-speaking children first heard.

• andersen-fairy-tales

  Andersen's literary tales, such as The Ugly Duckling, also turn on hidden worth recognized late, but in a nineteenth-century voice without Perrault's courtly irony.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The two nicknames, Cinder-breech and Cinderilla, and which sister uses each.
• Each animal or garden thing the godmother changes, and what it becomes.
• What Cinderilla does for her sisters at the first ball while they do not know her.
• The joke Cinderilla plays when she asks to borrow Miss Charlotte's yellow dress.
• How the story ends for the stepsisters, and the two verse morals at the close.

Key terms and names

Godmother

A woman who promises at a child's baptism to help bring her up; Cinderilla's godmother is also a Fairy.

Garret

A small room right under the roof, where Cinderilla sleeps on a straw bed.

Equipage

A fine coach with its horses and servants; the godmother makes one out of a pumpkin, mice, a rat and lizards.

Collation

A light meal served at the ball; the Prince is too busy gazing at Cinderilla to eat any of it.

Moral

The short poem at the end that tells the lesson; this tale has two.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why is the heroine called Cinder-breech by one sister and Cinderilla by the other?
2. Comprehension What does the godmother turn the pumpkin, the mice, the rat and the lizards into?
3. Comprehension How does the Prince find out who owns the glass slipper?
4. Interpretation The godmother says she will help if Cinderilla is a good girl. What has Cinderilla done to show she is good?
5. Interpretation Why does Cinderilla share the Prince's oranges and citrons with sisters who have been unkind to her?
6. Interpretation Why do you think Perrault lets the sisters be forgiven and married to lords instead of punished?
7. Big Question Is forgiving someone the same as forgetting what they did?

Faith Connections

• Luke 6:27-28 (Scripture)

  Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you: Cinderilla dresses her sisters' hair well, shares her oranges with them, and blesses them at the end.

• 1 Peter 3:3-4 (Scripture)

  Peter prefers the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit to braided hair and gold; Perrault's first moral likewise puts grace above a handsome face.

• Genesis 50:15-21 (Scripture)

  Joseph's brothers fall before him and he answers with kindness and provision, much as Cinderilla lifts up her sisters and gives them lodgings in the palace.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Goodness that endures mistreatment patiently will at last be recognized; and the best proof of goodness is not the reward but the forgiveness the good person shows once rewarded.

Rhetorical device: dramatic irony. At the first ball and the next morning, the sisters praise the unknown princess to Cinderilla's face, and the reader knows what they do not; see the quote about the godmother's promise for the beginning of the secret.

Debate: Resolved: that Cinderilla was right to give her stepsisters places in the palace.

Memory Work

The fairies' gift of greatest worth Is grace of bearing, not high birth;

Cinderilla took them up, and as she embraced them, cried that she forgave them with all her heart, and desired them always to love her.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain what the godmother's best gift to Cinderilla really was, using the first moral and two scenes from the ball.

Comparison with Household Stories (Grimm's Fairy Tales): Compare Perrault's Cinderilla with the Grimms' Aschenputtel: who helps each girl, and how does each story treat the stepsisters at the end?

Medical Lens

The tale has almost no medical content. One small period detail is worth noting for a history-of-medicine reader: before the ball the stepsisters go almost two days without eating for joy and break more than a dozen laces trying to be laced up close for a slender shape, a comic glimpse of the tight lacing and fasting that accompanied late seventeenth-century court fashion.

• Preparations for the ball

  The stepsisters fast for nearly two days and break laces in tight-lacing for the ball.

  Starvation Nutrition

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Make a two-column chart of the godmother's transformations: pumpkin, mice, rat, lizards and rags on one side, what each became on the other. Then add what each turns back into at midnight.

• Fiction

  Retell the trial of the slipper from the point of view of the gentleman sent to try it on, who decides that it is only just to let Cinderilla have a turn.

• Essay

  Perrault's first moral says grace is worth more than beauty. Using the first ball and the ending, show where Cinderilla's grace appears in what she does, not only in how she looks.

• Adaptation

  Compare Perrault's ending with the Grimms' Aschenputtel, then stage the forgiveness scene as a short play with a narrator reading the moral at the end.

Further Reading

• The Classic Fairy Tales, Iona and Peter Opie

  Prints standard English texts of Cinderella and other famous tales with notes on their history.

• The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim

  A psychoanalytic reading of fairy tales, including a long chapter on Cinderella; an interpretation, not a historical study.

• The Blue Fairy Book, Andrew Lang (ed.)

  The 1889 collection that carried Perrault's Cinderella to generations of English-speaking children.