A Two Tale Comparison Thinking back to our childhood, we all remember hearing many kinds of fairy tales. Someof them inspired us others confused us, and most of them taught us valuable lessons. Through outcenturies tales and stories have been used as a valuable tool to pass on our culture to newgenerations. There is a strong belief that these fairy tales mirror and influence society. All culturesinterpret tales in their own unique way. They add and subtract various aspects of the tale to fit theneeds of their particular society. The same tale in the United States is different from the tale toldin Asia. A good example of tale evolution can be seen in one of the most famous tales ever toldwhich is Cinderella. As a professor of womens history Karol Kelley points out in her essayPretty Woman: A Modern Cinderella There are some 700 versions of Cinderella.This fairy taleas many others has been changing for many years, and in recent years Cinderella has come undersome criticism for its depiction of womens roles in society.In present day society, where political correctness and equality are at the top of thepriority list, by reading essays such as the one by Karol Kelley we find that this might not havebeen the case in earlier days. Fairy tales such as Cinderella have been found guilty of possessingsubliminal socialization traits. Classifying genders as inferior and molding young girls into thefemale that society expects them to be. In Charles Perraults version, which is considered the mostcommon, Cinderella is seen as passive, limited, dependent and inferior. As critics argue, thesetraits can hinder a childs self esteem. Karol Kelley states that the expectations and the promisesof the Cinderella story are psychologically harmful to women. (p648). The fact that Cinderella isa limited character may give the girl an impression that she should be happy with what she hasand not have any or aspirations in her life. That is, until her Pr...
