Looked at through the lens of feminist criticism, one can clearly understand that most Cinderella variations incorporate female stereotypes in their writing, which causes them to either question or perpetuate female stereotypes. One prominent Cinderella adaptation that ultimately perpetuates these stereotypes is “Lin Lan”, which centers on the story of two dichotomic sisters: “The elder was very beautiful, and everyone called her Beauty. But the younger had a face covered with pock marks, so that everyone called her Pock Face” (Lin Lan 127). The story later describes Pock Face as “so spoiled that she was a very unpleasant girl”, yet describes Beauty as a kind, loving girl who “adored the yellow cow”; that is, the reincarnation of her mother (Lin Lan 127). These excerpts represent how one's perception of another person’s beauty would contribute to bias towards that person’s personality in the real world, as attractive ones are inherently thought of as kind and tender while unattractive ones are associated with being angry, or at the very least, irritable. What makes this Lin Lan passage even more significant, however, is because fairy tales like Lin Lan have typically been marketed towards children. Consequently, it actively reinforces these stereotypes within them, which would only further exacerbate how strongly they would believe appearances contribute to a person’s characteristics in addition to perpetuating name-calling among those children as a result of labelling Beauty and Pock-Face accordingly.
In other Cinderella variations, however, stereotypes over beauty can be demonstrated in literature in order to argue that those stereotypes are nonsensical. Such is the case with the Cinderella variation “Catskin”. When the titular Catskin dons her catskin after running away from her castle, she is mistreated by the cook she goes to work for: for example, during their first encounter the cook calls Catskin a “dirty, impudent slut” and “[dashes a basin of water] into Catskin’s face” (Catskin 123). The attitudes shown towards Catskin flip, however, when she dons her expensive dress and goes to the ball: “When she entered everyone was surprised at so beautiful a face and form dressed in so rich and rare a dress” (Catskin 124). Evidently, Catskin alludes to how those perceived as unattractive are treated in reality. This is because due to the weight society has placed on physical features, those perceived as more attractive by people around them compared to someone else typically feel superiorly towards that person and may even take advantage of them because of it. Therefore, by questioning these dichotomic attitudes, one could argue that Catskin supports feminist ideology in contrast to Lin Lan. In addition to condemning the cook’s actions by portraying her as a malicious abuser, Catskin sends a message to children, the main target audience of fairy tales, arguing that people should not be mistreated because of their looks.
Works Cited
Tatar, Maria. The Classic Fairy Tales. Second ed., Norton, 2017.
“Cinderella” (Pages 139 - 181)