Publication details
Finding Agency in Modern Adaptations of Cinderella
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | Cinderella is a fairy tale known worldwide. The best-known versions of this story, for example, Charles Perrault’s 1697 “Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper”, are often viewed with scepticism because the protagonist needs to be saved by a male hero. Ranging from versions where Cinderella’s stepmother is the protagonist to one where Cinderella is tormented by unprocessed grief, the story has been adapted by many contemporary authors to provide a more independent protagonist for the readers and to subvert the idea that a woman cannot find a happy ending without a man’s help and subsequent marriage. This paper focuses on one such re-writing of the fairy tale, a parody called “Cinderella & The Glass Ceiling” by Laura Lane and Ellen Haun (2020) with the aim of analysing how, the intertwined aspects of class and agency of the protagonist, this version subverts the idea that a ‘happily ever after’ can only be achieved in marriage. This is established by comparing the heroine in this re-writing to the ones in traditional versions of the story, specifically, Giambattista Basile’s 1634 “Cenerentola”, Charles Perrault’s 1697 “Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper” and Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm’s 19th century “Cinderella”. Resembling more a twenty-first-century working-class-family American woman than a traditional fairy-tale protagonist, Lane and Haun’s heroine shows awareness of how difficult it is for somebody in her situation – being poor and a woman – to improve their position in society, especially without an external boost. Realising that the Prince is not exactly the husband she had in mind, she not only decides not to marry him to get away from her stepfamily, but she also decides to get an education and start her own company to improve her social standing on her own, breaking the glass ceiling and challenging a variety of norms and expectations in the process. All the while seeming like a girl next door any woman could relate to than an abstract fairy-tale princess. |
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