Comparing Jacob And Wilhelm Grimm's Cinderella

Pagans, Hindus, Buddhist, and many other religions and faiths believe in a natural order. A universe where good is rewarded and evil is punished. A place where Mother Nature is an omnipotent figure whom enforces the laws of the universe. This relationship between the natural order and Mother Nature can be seen in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s “Cinderella.” The birds in this short story serve as an equalizer in the balance in life; they are the enforcers of this universal order- karma. First, it is important to define karma. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, karma is “the sum of a person’s actions in one of his successive states of existence, regarded as determining his fate in the next; hence, necessary fate or destiny, following as effect from cause” (_______). More colloquially, karma is the universes way to right good and wrong evil. The parallelism between the birds and antagonists demonstrate Nature’s call to action. The two pigeons represent the malicious and wicked stepsisters and the turtledoves represents the cunning stepmother. Each action the stepsisters or stepmother takes against Cinderella for no reason is matched by the birds. Thus the natural balance and enforcement of karma can be mapped by a series of

However, at the end of the short story Mother Nature sends the birds to wrong evil. For instance, the pigeons prevent the prince from marrying either of the step sisters by pointing out their bloody toes or heels. Additionally, at Cinderella’s wedding the two pigeons, whom are the stepsisters’ counterparts, “peck out one eye form each of them” on the way to church and another “eye from each sister” on their way back from the church (______).Thus punishing them “with blindness for the rest of their lives due to their wickedness and malice” (______). As a result, the stepmother, whom lived through her two daughters, would also live in darkness the rest of her