Marvin Alhaddad
9/22/20
Period 5
Modern Mythology 2021
After seeing the summer reading for this class was to read the variations of the Cinderella fairy tale in Maria Tatar's "The Classic Fairy Tales", I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. I knew that the fairy tales I was told as a child weren't the same ones told all around the world, but until I picked up the book, or in this case my phone, and started actually reading them, I was unaware of just how different they could be. Of course, each story has a generally similar story being told, but the journey in each tale was unique to each culture. Some tales were more similar than others, while some ventured far from what seemed like the norm in most places. Many were akin to Cinderella, featuring a poor daughter who is tormented by her step-mother and sisters, until one day, a ball is held by the prince to find him the perfect girl to marry. Be it through the help of a fairy godmother or mother nature, the girl finds herself able to surpass the obstacles set in place by her tormentors and fully capable of going to the ball in disguise, where she catches the prince's eye who then seeks her out in the following days. After finally finding the girl, she becomes his wife and the step-mother and sisters are left to succumb to their own bad karma.
Even the seemingly minor differences in each tale tell a story of their own, however. When reading Yeh-Hsien and The Story of the Black Cow, I noticed that there was a large emphasis on animals possessing supernatural powers to help free the main character from their suffering. Yeh-Hsien features a fish that grows larger and larger, until the step-mother tricks it into coming out of the river by dressing like the girl and then kills it. Similarly, in The Story of the Black Cow, there is a black cow that tends to the boy by feeding him, as the step-mother barely gives him anything to eat. When she realizes this, she pleads for her husband to sell the cow, claiming she will not eat or sleep until he does. Reading these stories gives insight into the culture of the region from which each originates from, depicting how fish and cows might be considered almost holy by people from each of the respective cultures.
A very common variation that I was completely unaware existed was one where the husband, not a step-mother, is the antagonist. This is the case for stories like Donkeyskin and Catskin, where the mother dies and forces a promise onto her husband that if he were to remarry, it can only be someone who is better than her. The husband eventually looks for someone to marry and decides that only his own daughter fits the criteria his now-dead wife gave him. The daughter doesn't want to marry her father, however, and tries to stall the wedding by requesting seemingly impossible to make dresses. In the end, she runs away under the guise of donkeyskin or catskin, and nobody realizes because they think she is too ugly. Like all the other variations, the main character finds herself in the presence of a prince who sees her without the donkeyskin or catskin and is convinced that she is beautiful and they end up marrying, and after the father sees his daughter married to this prince he is filled with joy.
These tales have taught me a lot about the world and how important fairy tales are, not just for the lessons they provide, but for what they reveal about the people that passed them down. Tales of cruel step-mothers who love to watch others suffer, powerful creatures who are able to grant wishes, fathers who are "faithful" to their wives, even if it means marrying their own daughters (which they were never obligated to do). In fact, The Story of the Black Cow has yet another defining detail that sets it apart from all the other variations, as it has a male main character rather than a female one. I found it interesting that even when the antagonist varied between a male or female, the protagonist subject to oppression was a female. What this shows me is that the culture that would pass down The Story of the Black Cow didn't face the same issues of gender inequality that was seen throughout much of the world, and it's also one way that what I've learned from these stories can apply to real life. Many of the issues that fairy tales exaggerate can still be seen in some form in many areas, and these stories show us that even through all of these problems, there are still ways to triumph and fight back.
