“Cinderella” in Four Stories From Different Backgrounds
Purwanti Kusumaningtyas
Faculty of Language and Literature Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga
Abstract
Cinderella has been a popular story among kids. Her faithfulness, innocence, submissiveness, and domesticity have eventually granted her with a handsome Prince and a happily ever after life with him. The fairytale has been awe to children and has successfully helped shape girls’ images of a good girl. Modern stories do not seem obviously tell the same idea as what Cinderella does, but they emphasize more on the consequences of opposing Cinderella’s three characteristics. This paper will explicate the idea that when women pursue their wants, they will end up with sorrowful life as found in four stories with different backgrounds, Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace,” Riem Eng’s “The Rising Flood,” Amy Tan’s “Moon Lady,” and Katrione McKenzy’s “Wings.” Those four stories with their different background maintain the idea of “damsel in distress” that Cinderella carries by silencing the women characters.
Shirley Chisholm (2005) said that “the emotional, sexual, and psychological
stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ”It’s a girl.” This just reinforces what the older woman philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir (1956), stated that woman is “simply what man decrees… She is defined and differentiated in reference to man and not he in reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, the Absolute; she is the Other.” (15 – 16). In addition to that, Barbara Welter (1966) in her article “The Cult of True Womanhood:1820 –1860” listed four qualities that define“true” woman, they are piety, purity, submission, and domesticity, which thus inevitably includes
motherhood (151 – 174). They all seem old and out-of-date, but a closer look to the
popularity of the fairytale, the five ideas prevail. Walter has warned in the end of her article that the cult evolve cleverly from “true womanhood” to “new woman” and the society has to be carefully aware that the idea remains around the standard that women are everything about what is “beautiful and holy” (174).
Cinderella is a perfect picture of the cult even though the story does not portray her as a pious character at the first place. The kind, jolly old Fairy God-mother’s all-of-a-sudden availability to help her with her magic wand indicates Cinderella’s piety. It tells that a faithful girl who is quiet, obedient, and submissive will be granted the best.
Her piety enabled her to remain kind and patient to endure all the harsh words and oppressions. She is aware that her duty as a good girl is to do all the house works in happy manners. It emphasizes the idea that domestic matters become the source of a woman’s self-fulfilled-ness.
The ball seems to be the most unbearable problem in her life as it could make her cry in helplessness. Marriage is the most important moment in a good girl’s life. However, she is paradoxically portrayed as passively waiting for the right time instead of actively seeking for a chance to go to the ballroom. In short, a good girl has to be concerned about marriage, but be passive in order to gain happiness. Happiness will come after passivity and domesticity is the center and submissiveness is the key.
Her innocence is told in an ironical way. Despite her sadness in the small room, waiting for miracle to bring her to the ball, she does not seem to be bothered by fame or such. In contrast to her step-sisters who strongly desire to dance with the prince and hope to be chosen to be the prince’s wife, Cinderella’s participation to the ball is always portrayed as just a reward for her being kind, obedient, unselfish, submissive and faithful. In different versions, the mice that have been her true companions are the ones who provide a simple but lovely gown. She has never made herself as the center of her life. In short, the only gate to woman’s happiness is when she does not have any desire.
With all those qualities, Cinderella becomes the angel in the house and thus, she was rewarded with a happily-ever-after life with the prince. Marriage and the prince free her from the oppression. Moreover, such “good” women – pious, pure, submissive, and domestic – will be a happy loved wife whose life is also sufficient materially.
Four short stories of different backgrounds will show how the idea of a “good” woman is strongly held across time and places. Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” (French, 1884), Riem Eng’s “The Rising Flood” (Thailand, n.d.), Amy Tan’s “Moon Lady” (Asian-American, 1989), and Katrione McKenzy’s “Wings” (Aborigin Australia, 1998) do not seem to have the same structure or pattern of story as Cinderella. They reflect the idea of true womanhood by exposing the consequences if women do not meet the qualities.
The story that appeared for the first time in the Parisian Newspaper Le Gaulois in 1884 (http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/the-necklace/context.html) reflects the standard of becoming a true woman by punishing Mathilde Loisel for her self-centered dreams and wishes.
Unlike the other women in her class, Mathilde Loisel, who was born for an artisan family and married Monsieur Loisel, a small clerk in the Ministry of Education, always complained about her life. She was unable to accept her “fate”
“She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her. The sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her little house aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind.”
Different from Cinderella who has to face the ugly step-mother and step-sisters, Mathilde had to face the cruelty of class division in which all was class-based categorized and she failed to endure it as she always dreamed of being in the place where she did not belong.
“She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's envious longings.
When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?" she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food served in marvelous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken.
She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved; she felt that she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after.”
For Mathilde, being poor was so shameful that she even refused to visit an old friend who was rich because her richness would make her suffer and grieve more.
When her husband came home with a special invitation for a ball from the Minister and his wife, Mathilde became anxious because she did not have a good dress to wear. She shed bitter tears for her poor condition so that her husband gave up his 400 franc which he actually wanted to use to buy a gun for hunting for her to buy a new dress.
Yet, she refused to go to the ball unless she could find suitable jewelry.
"No . . . there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women."
She went to the ball and got all she dreamed of, charming look, attention, and recognition from the party’s guests. Even the Minister recognized her. She enjoyed the ball very much.
“Madame Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and quite above herself with happiness. All the men stared at her, inquired her name, and asked to be introduced to her. All the Under-Secretaries of State were eager to waltz with her. The Minister noticed her.
She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the
completeness of a victory so dear to her feminine heart. She left about four o'clock in the morning.”
She made her husband wait as she had fun in the party.
“Since midnight her husband had been dozing in a deserted little room, in company with three other men whose wives were having a good time.”
Mathilde was ashamed of her poverty and she did not want other people to see how poor she was. She run hurriedly from the ball to get home, ignoring her husband who tried to cover her with simple cloth to warm her in the cold dawn.
“He threw over her shoulders the garments he had brought for them to go home in, modest everyday clothes, whose poverty clashed with the beauty of the ball-dress. She was conscious of this and was anxious to hurry away, so that she should not be
noticed by the other women putting on their costly furs. Loisel restrained her.
"Wait a little. You'll catch cold in the open. I'm going to fetch a cab." But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the staircase.”
Her embarrassment of her condition made her forget to respect her husband. She imposed her own material desire and will over her husband’s.
The happiness of the satisfying moment in the ballroom did not last long. Mathilde found out that she lost the diamond necklace. She could only cry in terror as her husband spent the whole rest of the dawn looking for it in whatever possible places they passed from the party place. The necklace was not found and they decided to buy a new one to replace it. Loisel had to give up his 18,000 franc his father left for him and borrowed much more from anyone could give him loan.
“He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did business with usurers and the whole tribe of money-lenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he could honor it, and, appalled at the agonizing face of the future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at the prospect of every possible physical privation and moral torture, he went to get the new necklace and put down upon the jeweler’s counter thirty-six thousand francs.”
Mathilde’s desire to obtain life outside her destined life resulted on sufferings for her and her husband.
on a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the street and carried up the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money.
Every month notes had to be paid off, others renewed, time gained.
Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a merchant's accounts, and often at night he did copying at twopence-halfpenny a page.
And this life lasted ten years.”
A woman who is never grateful for her place would certainly suffer. She should have been quiet and submissive as the other women of her class. Her desire to challenge her fate only gave her double sufferings because had to work so hard that she lost her beauty.
“Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households. Her hair was badly done, her skirts were awry, her hands were red. She spoke in a shrill voice, and the water slopped all over the floor when she scrubbed it.”
Mathilde is surely not an angel in the house because she longed for recognition and admiration for herself. She wanted luxury and did not show any servitude to her husband. This is against the standard of true womanhood. In conclusion, a woman with wants and desire is not a good woman because she will only cause trouble and sufferings to herself and her family.
Riem Eng’s “The Rising Flood”: Brave Woman Has To Be Silenced
This is a story inside a story. The first narrator was on a boat with his wife and they listened to Nai Chune, the boat’s pilot, telling them the story about Chome, a young girl who fell in love with the monk in the monastery. The monk told her to return on the waning moon to hear his decision if he would marry her or not. She came on a piggy boat, crossing the river despite the flood to hear the decision. Her boat was capsized and she disappeared. The monk also disappeared. The boat’s pilot used to be the Abbot who suggested the monk to ask the girl to return on the waning moon.
Chome was a character who had passed away when the story was told. She was known through Nai Chune’s eyes.
Chome fell in love with a monk, who despite his old age attracted the young girl. The monk’s celibacy certainly forbad him to have such relationship with any woman. According to Nai Chune,
“there was no breaking of the Holy Discipline nor of any good customs for that matter. It was all due to the defeat of the girl by her own heart or, to put it more correctly, it was due to the foolishness of a man who did not understand the true nature of woman.”
Nai Chune told that the monk was not interested in her.
“… she, however, was infatuated with him … so infatuated that she was without shame. She would paddle across the river from the plantation to bring food to his cell every day, for the sole purpose of seeing his face and listening to his voice and to be near him. Her conduct became the subject of widespread gossip in the neighborhood.”
“During the few months that he had not seen her, she had lost all her quick youthful movements, her bright cheerful face had changed to something pale and haggard. Her body had become so thin that she appeared to be but skin and bones. But none of these was as moving as that pair of eyes…so deep and vague…eyes that told of great sufferings…eyes that showed clearly the hopelessness and the complete loss of interest of life.”
Chome was so determined that the monk told her to come back on the night of the fifteenth day of the waning moon. He would tell her if he would choose Religion or her.
“She had definitely decided that there were only two ways left for her to choose: either to live with the man she loved or to take leave of this life.”
“Nothing in this world can ever change my decision,” she finally spoke.”
No one expected that Chome would really return to the monastery on the fifteenth day of the waning moon which was terribly bad – windy, cloudy, foggy, cold, and dark in the evening. But, what happened was that:
“The young girl braced herself against the cold wind and went down to the landing to wait for the appointed time. Her eyes seemed to penetrate the cloudy darkness of dusk to fix themselves upon the landing of the monastery on the opposite bank, which was where she had made up her mind to go. She did not notice the coldness of the wind, not the darkness that was upon the water. She had no fear of the dangers that were facing her. Her eyes were fixed and hear heart was ceaselessly calling out the name of her lover. As soon as it was dark, she stepped into her “piggy boat” and pushed it from the bank.”
Nai Chun told that “it was the maddest decision that he ever came across.” Chome disappeared. The people hated the monk because of that, but Nai Chune defended him.
“… But, when you come to think of it, if he made mistake, it was no doubt without intention. He had been a monk for many rains and his disciplinary conduct was beyond reproach. In my opinion, the reason why he made an appointment with her on the night of the fifteenth day of the waning moon was that he felt sure that she would not have the courage to risk her life to keep the appointment. But there again, if you think that it was his fault, then the fault was caused by a man’s ignorance of the true nature of woman!”
For Nai Chun, the girl was just as weird and stupid as a woman could be. She was a creature who could not think logically, so when she had a will, she would not think about that. She would only rely on her emotion.
Chome was not a true woman because she actively fought for her love. Her first mistake was of course to fall in love with the monk. This is certainly against the belief and therefore, it is obvious that Chome was not a pious woman. Her second mistake was her bravery to express her love to the monk. Her bravery to cross the flooded river mirrors her courage to decide and fight for it. It was a threat to the monastery’s supremacy. Tragically, even if the monk was the cause of her death, Nai Chun, the ex-Abbot of the monastery, defended the monk for his innocence. Thus, Chome was silenced in her disappearance.
Amy Tan’s “Moon Lady”: Active Girl Will Be Lost
The “Moon Lady” opens with Ying-ying’s statements about herself, her quiet self. “For all these years I kept my mouth closed so selfish desires would not fall out. And because I remained quiet for so long now my daughter does not hear me.
……
All these years I kept my nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. And because I moved so secretly now my daughter does not see me. (Tan 64)
She was brought up by Amah – her nanny – who always told her to behave like her mother who had other important things to do as the wife of her father, not his concubine.
“Too many questions!“ cried Amah. “You do not need to understand. Just behave, follow your mother’s example. Light the incense, make an offering to the moon, bow your head. …” (Tan 66).
As a four-year-old girl, Ying-ying was active and talkative. She asked questions and she “giggled and wobbled” and run to chase a dragonfly (Tan 67, 70). She also questioned things such as “what kind of day could be worth so much suffering?” in response to the pain she felt as Amah tried to make her look pretty by putting on her silk jacket and making her braid into a tight ball.
She was curious of what day it was and Amah told her about the coming of Mood Lady to whom people could make a secret wish. As Ying-ying did not know it all meant, she kept asking Amah questions.
“Why can’t I ask?”
“This is because … because if you ask it, it is no longer a wish but a selfish desire,” said Amah, “Haven’t I told you – that it is wrong to think of your own needs? A girl can never ask, only listen.” (Tan 68)
She was an active girl and when she chased the dragonfly outside, Amah became terrified to see her untidiness and reminded her to be still. Her mother reinforced what Amah told her.
“My mother smiled to me and walked over to me. She smoothed some of my wayward hairs back in place and tucked them into my coiled braid. “A boy can run and chase dragonflies, because that is his nature.,” she said. “But a girl should stand still. It you are still for a very long time, a dragonfly will no longer see you. Then it will come to you and hide in the comfort of your shadow. …… (Tan 70).
However, little Ying-ying, as any other child does, found another reason for being active. She learned that her shadow moved in interesting ways, following her every move.
“Standing perfectly still like that, I discovered my shadow. At first it was just a dark spot on the bamboo mats that covered the courtyard bricks. It had short legs and long arms, a dark coiled braid just like mine. When I shook my head, it shook its head. We flapped our arms. We raised one leg. I turned to walk away and it followed me. I turned back around quickly and if faced me. I lifted the bamboo mat to see if I could peel off my shadow, but it was under the mat, on the brick. I shrieked with delight at my shadow’s own cleverness. I ran to the shade under the tree, watching my shadow chase me. It disappeared. I loved my shadow, this dark side of me that had my same restless nature.” (Tan 70 – 71)
“In my panic, in hearing waking voices toward the front of the boat, I quickly dipped my hands in the bowl of turtle’s blood and smeared this on my sleeves, and on the front on my pants and jacket. And this is what I truly thought: that I could cover these spots by painting all my clothes crimson red and that if I stood perfectly still no one would notice this change.” (Tan 76)
Seeing the scene, Amah screamed in terror and checked if she was okay. When she found that everything was fine, she took off her stained jacket and left her where she was, only with her cotton undergarment covering her.
“Amah left me crying on the back of the boat, standing in my white cotton undergarments and tiger slippers.
I had truly expected my mother to come soon. Imagined her seeing my soiled clothes, the little flowers she had worked so hard to make. I thought she would come to the back of the boat and scold me in her gentle way. But she did not come.” (Tan 76)
Her unbearable naughtiness probably had caused Amah’s fear to take her into the place where the family held the feast. Waiting for help at the back of the boat, she fell into the water when people light the firecrackers. A group of fishermen caught her in their net. The woman in the fishing boat tried to help her by shouting to the people in the “floating pavilion filled with laughing people and lanterns,” but her family did not seem to recognize her and they returned to their activities on the boat (Tan 78).
“…… I said nothing. I began to shiver again. I had seen nobody who cared that I was missing. I looked out over the water at the hundreds of dancing lanterns. …… and I now felt I was lost forever.” (Tan 79)
The fisherman’s family then left her in the shore. Ying-ying hid in the bush until she heard the gongs and cymbals of the Moon Lady play performance. She thought it was the real Moon Lady, so when the performance was over, she looked for her and whisper her wish. After that she forgot what her wish was until the time she told the story of her past life, she remembered her wish: “I wished to be found” (Tan 83).
Literally it was a traumatic experience for a four year old girl. Symbolically, it tells that a girl who asks too many questions and who cannot sit still will be ignored.
In contrast with Cinderella who was submissive and domestic, Ying-ying was too active to be obedient. She was a “wild” girl, too. She was very active and creative. Her concrete way of thinking as a child shows that she was critical, too.
The qualities made Ying-ying “lost.” She fell into the water, but for some time nobody recognized her absence from the pavilion. She felt ignored. It was not important for her to tell the story of how how her family found her back because she was more interested in the repetitive experiences of getting lost in the course of her life.
“But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the beginning. And I remember everything that happened that day because it has happened many times in my life. The same innocence, trust, and restlessness; the wonder, fear, and loneliness. How I lost myself.
I remember all these things. And tonight, on the fifteenth day of the eight moon, I also remember what I asked the Moon Lady so long ago. I wished to be found.” (Tan 83)
Ying-ying was lost. Ying-ying had to pay her active-ness and talkative-ness with losing herself. Unless she was quiet and submissive, she would be found.
A very short story tells about an old woman with gloomy face whom the narrator met at the beach. She told her story, the story of her scars at her ankle. She was born with bumps at her ankles. She was a miracle for her parents who had waited for having a child for years. The bumps at her ankles were not a problem for her parents. They provided her with special shoes to make her feel comfortable. They also allowed her to leave home and play outside their home.
“She loved to go walking in the bush, she’d take her shoes off and run barefoot across the land, free as a bird.”
Her parents were not worried about her leaving home for days. In the evening they would have their meals together and she
“…would tell stories about what she’d seen in the day as they had their evening meal. Their lives were good and they laughed at how happy they were.
When she was twelve years old she started to disappear for longer periods at a time. Her parents never worried. They had a faith in each other which never shifted over all the years she was growing up. They’d just smile to themselves. They guessed where she was.” (McKenzie 86)
As she grew, the bumps turned into wings that were strong to take her to carry her up the sky. She left home more often and longer than before and she did that until she was 18 years. She flew high in the sky until one day she was attracted to a seahorse and spent time playing with him. A sudden storm made the seahorse force her to go with him to save their lives. He forced her to let go her wings and asked her to get down into the water with him.
“Suddenly, out of the blue, a storm blew up. The skies went deep dark green, the waves grew treacherous and lightning started to strike the ocean. She was scared because she was so far away from home. The sea horse told her to get on his back and he’d outrun the storm.
“I can’t, my wings,” she cried. “I’ll fly away and you can outrun the storm.” She tried to fly but her wings were wet. Lightning cracked over their heads. Huge dark waves pounded them.
The seahorse cried, ”Quickly, the stirrups, or you’ll drown and I’ll die of a broken heart.”
“But my wings,” she cried. “Forget them.”
In desperation she let her wings go and watched them sink down into the deepest waters. …” (McKenzie 87)
She lived with the seahorse until one day, the seahorse disappeared and the woman was left alone. She then decided to leave the water and dragged herself to the shore. From then on, she lived in the land. She would sit on the beach looking at the ocean with gloom and sometimes tears.
Her life with the seahorse, on the other hand, was not one called marriage. Even if it was marriage, it was one with infidelity. Giving up the wings for living with the seahorse would easily be connoted with giving up her innocence. It is absolutely against the standard of a true woman. And therefore, she had to live that regretful life.
Conclusion
The standard that rewards Cinderella with happily-ever-after life may be reinforced by other stories in different ways. Maupasant’s Mathilde portrays the sufferings that are caused by a woman with desire. Chome’s bravery has to be silenced because it will threat the male supremacy represented by the monk’s commitment with Religion. Ying-ying’s active manner only makes her “lost” and throughout her life she always wished to be found. There has to be a way to block a woman’s freedom. That is why the old woman in “Wings” had to meet the seahorse who cornered her into helplessness during the storm. The qualities of the four women in the four stories are not in line with the cult of true womanhood and the stories punish them with sorrow, loss, regret, even death.
References
Beauvoir, Simone. (1956). The Second Sex. Translated and edited by H. M. Parshley. London: Jonathan Cape.
Maupasant, Guy de. The Necklace. http://www.eastoftheweb.com/cgi-bin/version_printable.pl?story_id=Neck.shtml. Accessed May 2013.
Tan, Amy. (1989). The Moon Lady. From The Joy Luck Club. Tan, Amy. New York: Ivy Books.
McKenzie, Catriona. (1998). Wings. In Across Country. Stories from Aboriginal Australia. Sydney: ABC Books.
Riem-Eng. (n.d.) Rising Flood.
Welter, Barbara. (1966). The Cult Of True Womanhood: 1820 – 1860. In American
Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2, Part 1 (Summer). The Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 151-174.
