Sample “Cinderella” Essay
Original text: “Cinderella”
Prompt: Write a well-developed essay analyzing what “Cinderella” reveals about cruelty.
Rags to Pigeons: Consequences in "Cinderella"
Consequences do not always strike out of the blue like a lightning bolt from Zeus. More often they happen within the fabric of everyday life, and the Brothers Grimm vividly portray this in their collected tales by not sugarcoating the negative results. In the fairytale "Cinderella," consequences are presented as both the just responses to cruel acts and the rewards for enduring that cruelty.
The fairytale shows that the result of evil acts is an evil end. When the eldest stepsister, who has long bullied Cinderella, is presented with the golden shoe that is too small, her mother produces a knife and urges, “Cut the toe off, for when you are queen you will never have to go on foot" (3). The intent is to deceive the prince and claim an unjustified reward as his bride. Not only does the deception fail because of blood in the shoe, but the stepsister is doomed to pain and partial lameness because of her action. Ultimately at the wedding, both stepsisters face the consequence of oppressing Cinderella when their eyes are pecked out by pigeons and they are “condemned to go blind . . . because of their wickedness and falsehood” (4). The ending paragraph of the tale draws a cause-effect link between “wickedness and falsehood” and blindness in a direct, moral-of-the-story way. The fact these two sins are also the last words in the last paragraph gives them heightened emphasis within the narrative and suggests a cautionary tale, more than an entertaining one, as the intent of the Brothers Grimm.
Although negative consequences of negative actions are emphasized, the fairytale also rewards the character Cinderella for forbearance and suffering at the hands of her step-family. Before she passes on, Cinderella’s mother claims that “God will always take care of” Cinderella, provided she is “pious and good” (1). The mother’s words foreshadow the outcome of the story and establish an appeal to greater-than-human justice as the ultimate arbiter of life. There is even a balanced pairing of “pious and good” actions against the “wickedness and falsehood” of the stepsisters. Ultimately, the foreshadowing comes to fruition when the prince recognizes “the beautiful maiden that had danced with him” and proclaims, “This is the right bride” (3). Not only is goodness rewarded, but it is associated with beauty as a bonus. The end result is a traditional Disneyesque outcome of the protagonist being swept off her feet by the handsome prince and taken to his castle to be his bride. For the 19th century time period of the Grimms, this was as good as it got for any young maiden.
Consequences, both good and evil, are the inevitable offspring of actions. Being able to predict those consequences before setting them in motion is one of the important differences between children and adults. Though life is full of temptations of “wickedness and falsehood,” a healthy fear of consequences can keep a person on the “pious and good” path.