Cinderella By The Brothers Grimm

“Cinderella” Grimm

1. The story about a girl who found her happiness. Everything is in place. Bad people are punished, the girl has her triumph. Only, unlike the more well-known plot of other storytellers, there is no forgiveness. Usually, evil is punished in the mildest manner. Sisters are confounded, put in the right place, but ... married to the courtiers. Happy end, let say. But here the punishment absolutely strong: the sisters are crippled (with their own hands and hands of their own mother) during the fitting of the shoe. And in the finale, they were blinded by the birds, who helped Cinderella with the croup.

2. Brothers Grimm almost do not pay attention to household details and descriptions of the appearance of characters. They preserve

Cinderella asks her father to bring her as a gift a branch that will first hit his hat, plant a branch on her mother's grave, a tree grows, and a white bird living in its branches fulfills Cinderella's requests. Thus, the Grimm brothers want to emphasize that in fact, the magical assistant becomes the deceased mother of the girl, she, as promised, is constantly present next to her

Then she loosing one gold shoe. The shoes, in “Cinderella”, is given a central role in the fairy tale. The shoe is a symbol of female happiness in marriage. The image of shoes is associated with wedding ceremonies when the bride's shoes are stolen by guests, and the bridegroom redeems them. He is able to drink all the drops of champagne from the bride's shoes, which is a confirmation of his love till the rest of the life. The connection between the lost shoe and the following wedding for the people of the past did not contain novelty because shoes in the wedding ceremony meant an engagement or the wedding itself. The separation of a pair of shoes indicated the separation of lovers or the search for a partner. Till now in many cultures there is a proverb "to be under a heel", meaning, that the wife controls the husband. Besides, shoes are an attribute and a sign of class affiliation and lifestyle. Gold, heels and the fact that Cinderella has a small foot is a sign of her nobility, of high origin. During her transformations, when moving to a new status, social activity, Cinderella changes her old shoes to new shoes. After returning from the party, Cinderella is again in the old wooden shoes, an element of traditional clothing used by the lower class of the population. In this story, the shoe is so small that no one is suitable. Female foot of small size is a symbolic indication of pronounced femininity. In this regard, we can recall the ancient Japanese tradition of