Cinderella Questions (Part One)
1. What do you think is the purpose of calling Cinderella various animal names in the classic versions by Perrault, Grimm, etc.? Why call donkeyskin, catskin, etc.?
2. Unlike some of the earlier tales we've read this semester, this tale type deals with sibling rivalry. Choose one of the versions and talk about what that version does with the sibling competition and jealousy.
3. Cinderella is a tale type that has transcended different continents, seemingly independently from each other. Why do you think this is? In your answer, talk about the Indian version, "The Story of the Black Cow" and the Chinese version, "Lin Lan."
4. How do you think Cinderella compares to the other female characters/heroines we've read this semester, Beauty, Little Red, Snow White?
5. Discuss Randall Jarrell's poetic adaptation "Cinderella." What symbols and elements does he draw out of the tale type? What's his overall message?
6. Discuss Anne Sexton's poetic adaptation "Cinderella." What symbols and elements does she draw out of the tale type? What's her overall message?
Cinderella Questions (Part Two)
1. Kelly Link's "Catskin" is highly symbolic, and like Angela Carter, she uses the idea of personal transformation to convey messages about life and growing up and finding yourself. Discuss personal transformation in the story.
2. What do all the cats/catskins symbolize in Link's adaptation? What emerges from them? Hint: think about phrases like "getting under your skin," etc. Think also about symbolism, ants=death; skins=houses=dreams
3. How does the story relate to the classic tales of "Catskin" or "Donkeyskin" that you read?
4. What do you think Richter's story, "A Case Study..." is really about? How does it rework the Cinderella story? What's its major message?
5. In Bender's "The Color Master," she retells the classic "Donkeyskin," focusing her attention on the symbols of the dresses. How are they symbolic?
6. In Bender's "The Color Master," how does color convey emotion? How does the adaptation serve both as prequel but also retelling of "Donkeyskin"?
Notes:
"Cinderella," or "The Little Glass Slipper" is perhaps the oldest and most adapted tale across cultures. Almost every period of literature and every country includes a version of the this tale type. Scholars have long asked how this could be since the emergence of this tale is before contact between cultures and countries is known to have existed. We'll investigate this together, and you can reflect on this in your journal as well. Be sure to click on the Prezi below for interpretations of the Cinderella tale.
History:
We do not know how the Cinderella story emerged so similarly across so many different countries/time periods. Here's a running list of the earliest versions:
Aspects of the Cinderella story may have originated in classical antiquity. The Ancient Greek historian Strabo (Geographica Book 17, 1.33) recorded in the 1st century BC the tale of the Greco-Egyptian girl Rhodopis, "rosy-cheeked", who lived in the Greek colony of Naucratis in Ancient Egypt. It is often considered the oldest known version of the story:
The story later reappears with Aelian (ca. 175–ca. 235), showing that the Cinderella theme remained popular throughout antiquity.
A number of Asian variants appear across time. Several different variants of the story appear in the medieval One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. The story is famously retold in Shakespeare's King Lear but given a tragic ending. The German and French variants are the most common ones to modern westerners.