It is fairly obvious to me that the two types of stories should be studied concurrently. Though there are many glaring dissimilarities between Donkeyskin and Cinderella fairy tales there are still many aspects that make them seem to be different versions of the same story. As Darnton had noted in his critical essay, historical context is an important lens through which to look at fairy tales and he criticized Bettelheim for having too narrow a focus. I can deduce from this train of logic that if Darnton wants a broad and all-encompassing view of fairy tales one needs to look at historical, cultural and many other influences on the stories to gain a complete understanding of them.
For instance, there are many similarities between the Donkeyskin story in Tatar's book and Joseph Jacobs's Cinder Maid, but I will focus on a few of the major ones. In both stories the father and mother (stepmother in the case of the latter) are equally responsible for the squalid condition of the main character. In Donkeyskin, the mother ignites the incestuous love of her husband by attempting to keep all of his love for herself even in death and the father feels he must marry his daughter, no matter how morally reprehensible a situation it would be. Somewhat similarly, in Cinder Maid the stepmother's scorn and the father's passive submission lead to the character living a squalid life as well.
Next, in both stories there is the outstanding image of the ornate and magnificent three dresses. Besides the repeated idea of things coming in threes as a theme for both stories, the aspect I mean to focus on here are the designs of the three dresses in each story. Specifically, the two sets of dresses are different but they all have one common quality: mirroring of and atunement with nature, which is a very important motif in fairy tales.
Lastly, in both stories, the scorned and destitute main characters are both given a chance to free themselves from that life by marrying a prince. In Donkeyskin a gold ring is used as the fitness test and in Cinder Maid a gold shoe is the deciding factor but the idea behind each is the same: the one girl who fits the famed object will receive the love of a prince and marry him.
There are definitite differences between the two types of stories but the underlying storylines and messages are the same and they share too many qualities for it to be simply coincidental. Consequently, if one takes into account historical and cultural factors, it seems easy to discern that these are retellings of the same story in different times and places. Donkeyskin and Cinderella stories should absolutely be studied together to show how a story can transform relatively drastically over time and places and still keep the same skeleton.
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Cinderella*
ReplyDeleteTold you I was bad with titles.
"As Darnton had noted in his critical essay, historical context is an important lens through which to look at fairy tales and he criticized Bettelheim for having too narrow a focus. I can deduce from this train of logic that if Darnton wants a broad and all-encompassing view of fairy tales one needs to look at historical, cultural and many other influences on the stories to gain a complete understanding of them."
ReplyDeleteBringing up Darnton's essay is both an important and relevant point. Cultural and historical context is the primary influencing factor on what differentiates the stories of Cinderella and Donkeyskin. The extra story I reviewed, "Gold Teeth," had a lot of the same basic qualities that the the Perrault and Grimms versions did (sexually driven father, three magnificent dresses, escape from a life of misery through marrying the prince, etc.). The small differences between all of these stories likely comes from the historical/cultural context in which they were written, but that does not mean that they are different stories.