Cinderella by the Grimm Brothers is about a king whose wife gets sick and, before passing on, asks her daughter, the princess, always to pray and be patient. After the death of the queen, the king remarries a stepmother who comes with two daughters. They mistreat the princess and sends her to do chores in the kitchen like a maid. One day as the king is going out, he asks his daughters what they want, the stepsisters ask for fancy clothes, but Cinderella asks for a tree branch that brushes against his hat (Dundes, 149). Later he brings them what they asked; Cinderella plants the hazel branch and waters it with her tears, and it grows into a big tree that she sits under when she visits the grave. The prince wants to marry and organizes a ball festive in which Cinderella is denied to attend by her evil stepmother and stepsisters. However, she attends with the help of a dove on the hazel tree at the grave. She manages to attend the festive three times and gets to dance with the prince but escapes in the evening back home. The prince uses her gold slippers to find her. As he marries her, the birds on the tree pluck the stepsister’s eyes as a punishment for their evil (Dundes, 153).
The male version of the Cinderella fairytale is Iron Hans. In the fairytale, there is a king whose palace is located near a forest. He sends people to hunt in the forest in distinct instances, and they never came back until the day a mysterious hunter asked to go into the forest. The hunter found out that a wild man in the forest was responsible for people’s disappearance and bound him (Bricker). The king caged the wild man, but as his son was playing, his ball fell in the cage, and he had no option but to open it for the man. Afraid of being punished by his parents, the boy opted to run away into the forest with the aid of the wild man. After failing on different instances to guard the gold well, he had to find another job as instructed by the Iron man. This landed him in another palace where he worked as the garden boy. He wore a cap to disguise himself and hide his golden hair till the day the princess of that kingdom saw him and wished him to his groom (Bricker). After appearing three times in the organized ball festive, he is picked and marries the princess. The paper addresses the similarity in the plot of the two fairytales and the variations in portraying gender roles, the cause, and how they cope with their challenging situations.
Comparison
In the fairytales, the cause and how the protagonist handles their challenges varies. In Cinderella, her mother dies, and afterward, her father remarries her evil stepmother and daughters (Dundes, 148). She does not run away; she stays and endures the hardship, which shows the virtue of endurance and patience. She is persistent in prayers, just as her mother instructed her, indicating obedience. Even when her stepmother and her stepsisters frustrate her, she does not repay them bad; instead, she does good and even makes their hair well. (David & David, 184). On the contrary, the prince in Iron Hans has both parents, but his tragedy starts when he frees the wild man. The prince runs away from home due to fear of being punished. He does not show obedience when he fails the Iron Hans task of guarding the well and is forced to look for a job. However, he endures challenges in another kingdom where he gets a job.
The roles depicted show variations of gender roles in society. Women are confined to kitchen roles while men are hunters, warriors, and tills the land (Patel). Cinderella is depicted doing only house chores while her stepsisters and stepmother are mainly concerned with beauty and making themselves appealing to men. This indicates how society categorized the role of women. On the other hand, in Iron Hans, the story portrays more men, and their duties are hunting. Again, the prince and the king go to war as warriors and also tills the flower garden. This illustrates how society confined men and women to specific jobs.
Although in Iron Hans it is the princess looking for a prince to marry, and in Cinderella, it is the prince looking for a princess, they both organize a ball festival that is purposely meant to aid in the selection. In both Cinderella and Iron Hans, the prince and the princess get to dance with their bride and groom to be but slips away three times before the actual wedding day. In Cinderella, the prince organized a ball festive to choose a princess to marry; he dances with Cinderella all three times but manages to escape from him without his knowledge until he sets a trap for her, leaving him with her gold sandal (David & David, 183). He later uses the sandal to find his bride and marries her. Similarly, in Iron Hans, the princess organizes a ball festive to select a prince to marry. The prince appears three times and runs away into the forest until the guards hurt him with a sword on his leg. This is what is used to prove he is the wanted prince, and they marry the princess.
The use of magic is also evident in both the fairytales. In Iron Hans, the iron man was bound by a magic spell that only broke when he was helped by the pure heart of the boy (David & David, 185). Also, he uses magic to clothe the prince with iron clothes that he uses to attend the ball festively. Again, when he is headed for the war, the prince seeks help from the iron man, who uses magic to help him. In Cinderella’s fairytale, the dove uses magic to clothe Cinderella with attractive gold dresses as she attends the ball festive. Likewise, how the birds help Cinderella achieve her destiny is magical. Both tales’ plot is similar as it revolves around overcoming challenges and coming out better and rewarded with a happy life.
Works Cited
David, Alfred, and Mary Elizabeth David. “A Literary Approach to the Brothers Grimm.” Journal of the Folklore Institute 1.3 (1964): 180-196.
Patel, Henal. “Gender roles indoctrinated through fairy tales in western civilization.” Retrieved 10.6 (2009): 2013.
Bricker, Mary A. “Literary and Visual Expression of Dual Descent in Iron Hans.” PsyArt 21 (2017).
Dundes, Alan, ed. Cinderella, a casebook. Vol. 3. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1988.
