Comparing Cinderella And Catskinella

Literature of Childhood

3 February 2017

Analysis of the Fairytales Cinderella and Catskinella Fairytales have been stereotypically read to young children for many centuries, although, adults can also benefit from reading these classic stories. Two alternative versions of the original Chinese version, Ye Xian, are the fairytales, Cinderella, by an American, Walter Disney, and Catskinella, by an African American, Virginia Hamilton. Both stories portray the main character as a woman who has a wicked and unkind family. The stories display the ways in which the protagonist finds her true love through each of their different personalities, other characters, and conditions in the storyline. Although both versions both have similar narrative elements,

The fairy tale, Cinderella expresses the main character as being unconfident and having less to say than in the other version. For example, the only phrase you can note that Ella says is, “Oh, no! It’s midnight. I must go” while the prince kissed her, asked her to dance and cried for her to wait as she was running away from the ball (Disney, 14-15). This part of the story portrays the male character to be more verbal than the female character; which reflects the gender stereotype as males expressing themselves more dominantly than females. The protagonist’s phrase also displays her lack of confidence to stay at the party even though she would like to. She is not bold or courageous enough to disobey her godmother’s requests for her to return by midnight. Ella’s personality is much different in Disney’s story than in Hamilton’s story, even though they are headed to the same outcome; Ella or Catskinella marries the prince. In her model, Hamilton allows her main character to be more confident and verbal than the prominent figure in Disney’s story. Her courageousness is apparent when she runs away to a king’s castle to escape her imminent marriage and her father’s wrath. Catskinella is even bold to one of the prince’s maidens when one of them requests her to bake something; “Why should I bake him a cake? Oh, well. He found me a place to work and a cabin to live in” (Hamilton, 26). If Ella from the other version were in Catskinella’s position, she would have obediently obeyed with a response such as, “okay”. However, both characters’ dispositions change as their almost identical outcomes come closer to revealing their ending