Maria Tatar’s “Introduction: Cinderella” {type) To Use As A Writing Model

The article by Maria Tatar goes on to delve deep into the complexities of the popular fairy tale, Cinderella. The author of the piece engages in tracing the history of the fairy tale. She opines that there have been many interpolations and transformations in the narrative and content of the story based on cultural difference and timeline in history of literature. To substantiate her point, Tatar cites the versions of the fairy tale popularized in Germany, Indonesia, Japan and some other countries where the stepsisters of the central female character of the fairy tale meet very grave destinies by the time the narrative of the story ends.
Exploring the earliest representations of the character and the story, the author discusses about a number of characters that all are the main sources from which the modern day character of Cinderella has been inspired. The author goes on to identify two kinds of narratives in the Cinderella tales: one in which the surmounting jealousy of the stepmother and the stepsisters encompasses the titular character, and the other where the father’s sexual desire whose unseemly behavior drives the daughters from the household.
However, in both the kinds of narratives the negative traits of the stepmother becomes extremely conspicuous in the course of the story. Tatar describes the difference in portraiture of the central character in “Cinderella” stories and the “Catskin” stories. While one is driven by the thematic content of jealousy, the other deals with sexual desires of the character’s father. The author talks of the distinction made by Marian Cox regarding the thematic content of the many versions of the fairy tale in context. One comes to know how the stories show ill-treated heroine, unnatural father or King Lear judgment in the course of their narratives. There is mention of the 345 variants of the same fairy tale in the cultural milieu of human society.
Describing about the content of the Catskin tales, Tatar says that their disappearance from the folklore arena is not too bizarre owing to their content in contrast to the generic view about fairy tale genre of literature. In an attempt to further delve into the complexity of the narrative, Tatar talks about the male depiction of the central character of the same fairy tale in certain cultures. However, with time, the male Cinderella characters have come to get erased from the English culture. Also, the violence in the fairy tale has been erased making way for a tender central character that evokes the positive emotions of the avid readers.
Tatar’s article’s thematic focus is on the historical development of Cinderella and the cultural interpolations that have made way for the modern version. Thus, the article provides a commendable insight into the history of development of one of the most famous fairy tales of all time. The informative text not only sheds light on the metamorphosis of the character of Cinderella, but also explores the various traits and moral codes innate in the modern day story.