Blog Entry 4: September 22

Cinderella is one of those so called "rise tales", which feature a narrative arc of "rags to riches through magic and marriage". Can someone reach success of riches with magic or marriage? How realistic is that?

• Cinderella is one of those timeless stories that everyone and their grandma have heard of. It follows Cinderella's life with the many obstacles that her "evil" stepmom and stepsister throw at her. It ranges from doing the laundry, washing the dishes, feeding every conceivable barn animal they have, making clothing for her "mice friends" or just plainly getting locked in her room with no chance by an escape by her evil stepmom. If you thought that was hard enough well, there's more. In true fairy tale fashion, the prince needs to marry a princess so, his father throws a ball and demands every eligible maiden in town to attend. Cinderella and the prince danced all night and it was set in stone that they lived happily ever after. Right here Cinderella went from "rags to riches" by simply getting married to someone with more money but, everyday people don't have the same luxury. In the real world, there are a lot more financial struggles that people have to deal with like student loans, mortgages, etc... In the U.S alone there is less than ten percent of Americans household that is millionaires. (VOA News) Realistically marrying someone who belongs to the ten percent of people seems highly unlikely. Magic I think is a completely different story, however. Magic according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural force. In the English language magic and ignorance are used interchangeably when people don't understand how something works. When people see magicians doing card tricks, pulling rabbits out of hats, sawing people in half, making things disappear and reappear in different locations they use words like magic to help describe things they don't understand. This isn't just limited to professional magicians, magic can be used when someone figured out a math problem in a matter of seconds, or when someone comes up with a million-dollar idea seemingly out of thin air. In both of these examples people could conceivably use magic to make a lot more money and become more successful in life.