Cinderella Critique

Many little girls grow up watching Cinderella. They often wish they were her. They love the fact that even though she has a hard life and grows up without a mother, she still turns into a princess. Some people don’t believe she deserves what she gets like Panttaja. Panttaja claims in her essay “Cinderella:Not So Morally Superior,” that Cinderella is not any better than her stepsisters. Pantajja is wrong because Cinderella is actually morally superior to her stepsisters.

Panttaja’s essay references to the story “Ashputtle” by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. Ashputtle was about a rich man’s wife that passes away leaving him and his daughter behind. Not long after the daughter’s mother dies, her father remarries an evil woman and has two evil daughters. The stepsisters call her Ashputtle because she sleeps in the ashes. One day while her father goes into town the stepsisters request jewels and dresses while Ashputtle only asked for the first stick that hits his hat. When her father returns she plants the stick on her mother’s grave that she visits three times a day and her tears water it. As she is at her mother’s grave she talks to the birds and the tree that will grant her wishes. She hears about the festival that is being thrown for the prince but is not able to go because she has nothing to wear. The birds give her a beautiful dress to go to the festival. Ashputtle ends up marrying the prince and the birds poke out her evil sister’s eyes.

One way Panttaja is wrong is when she believes that because Cinderella’s dead mother helps her, Cinderella is morally equal to her stepsisters. This is not true because mothers are meant to help their children when they are unable to get the task completed by themselves. An example is when she wanted to go to the festival. Cinderella begged her stepmother if she can go and her stepmother told her if she can pick out the lentils from the ashes in two hours she can go to the festival. Cinderella knew she could get it done if she had...