Cinderella By Anne Sexton's Cinderella

To have and to hold from this day forward: the words every girl dreams of saying and hearing. Every young girl dreams of her perfect wedding day and the perfect marriage to follow. The dream is of the perfect dress, the perfect decorations, the perfect day, the perfect ceremony, and the fairy tale marriage that ensues after. This expectation for the bride has remained unchanged through the years. Expectations after the wedding day have changed greatly over the years for both the husband and the wife. The roles in marriage have changed over time along with the expectations in the marriage. To assume the happily-ever-after in a marriage is a false hope, only to be found in fairytales. The fairytale so often portrayed in movies is misleading

In a world where the divorce rate is greater than 50% of marriages, each couple still believes that they will live happily-ever-after. Anne Sexton, in her poem Cinderella, reminds the reader that happily-ever-after is only in fairy tales, not reality. Sexton takes the fairy tale, Cinderella, and brings the reader back to reality instead of fantasy. Sexton refers to the happily ever after as “the story,” the one everyone dreams of and wants. Unfortunately, reality says otherwise. Divorce rates are high and happily-ever-after is only in fairytales. For the 50% who remain married we don’t know if it is “that story”. It may be “that story” or it may be a disaster of a relationship. All too often one thinks that if a couple remains married it must be a good relationship, it must be the happily-ever-after that one sees in the fantasy world. When in reality, it is a marriage where the wife is controlled to the point of being stuck in the

Marriage is the union of two people, a husband and wife. The union is when the two become one. Two become one, is a melting of the two different personalities together. Not in the way that one is lost in the relationship but in the way that the two personalities work together bonding the good of each to make a whole. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman clearly depicts the male as the one who has the power and control in a marriage. In a marriage if one of the two, male or female, tries to control the other there is no union of these two personalities. In fact, when there is power and control in a marriage the one who is being controlled, is actually lost. Just like in The Yellow Wallpaper, Jane the narrator actually lost herself to the point of insanity. Today in society we see this control usually in an abusive relationship. Most common the wife is abused by the husband. When this is happening in a relationship the wife may often feel as Jane did in The Yellow Wallpaper. The wife may feels she has no say in her own care. Just as Jane was kept in the room with yellow wallpaper, a wife in an abusive relationship often feels that she has to stay in the marriage. That she has no way out because she cannot stand up for herself because all of herself has been lost to the control of the abusive