TRABAJO FIN DE GRADO
Título
Comparative structural analysis: "Cinderella" and “Ever
After: A Cinderella Story”
Autor/es
Adriana Bernal Gómez
Director/es
José Díaz-Cuesta Galián
Facultad
Facultad de Letras y de la Educación
Titulación
Grado en Estudios Ingleses
Departamento
Curso Académico
2014-2015
Comparative structural analysis: "Cinderella" and “Ever After: A Cinderella
Story”, trabajo fin de grado
de Adriana Bernal Gómez, dirigido por José Díaz-Cuesta Galián (publicado por la
Universidad de La Rioja), se difunde bajo una Licencia
Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 3.0 Unported.
Permisos que vayan más allá de lo cubierto por esta licencia pueden solicitarse a los
titulares del copyright.
©
©
El autor
Universidad de La Rioja, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2016
publicaciones.unirioja.es
E-mail: [email protected]ཱྀ
Abstract
In this dissertation we carry out a comparative analysis between the written version of
Cinderella of the Brothers Grimm and the American film “Ever After: A Cinderella
Story”, directed by Andy Tennant in 1998. We carry out this study following the
theories of Algirdas Greimas, Roland Barthes and Claude Bremond. These
methodological analyses allow us to reveal the differences and similarities that exist
between the written version and the film that we analyze and compare. Therefore, we
are able to extract different conclusions and reflections about both works. Before
focusing on the analysis of each work and the comparison, we study the concept of
“fairy tale”, the transition between the oral tales to the big screen; and we focus on
Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and Walt Disney. We dedicate part of our work to
follow “Cinderella” through history. All of this helps us to introduce us to the final aim
of this task which is the comparison of the two works.
Resumen
En este trabajo se lleva a cabo un análisis comparativo entre el texto escrito “La
Cenicienta” de los Hermanos Grimm y el texto fílmico estadounidense “Ever After: A
Cinderella Story”, dirigido por Andy Tennant en 1998. Llevamos a cabo este estudio
siguiendo las teorías de Algirdas Greimas, Roland Barthes y Claude Bremond. Estos
métodos de análisis nos permiten revelar las diferencias y similitudes que existen entre
el texto escrito y el texto fílmico que son analizados y comparados. Así podemos
sustraer diferentes conclusiones y reflexiones sobre ambas obras. Pero antes de
centrarnos en el análisis de cada obra y su comparación, estudiamos el concepto de los
“cuentos de hadas”, la transición de los cuentos orales a la gran pantalla, y nos
detenemos en Charles Perrault, los Hermanos Grimm, y Walt Disney. Dedicamos
también parte de nuestro trabajo a seguir el recorrido de “La Cenicienta” a lo largo de la
historia. Todo esto nos ayuda a introducirnos en el objetivo final del trabajo, que es la
comparación.
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COMPARATIVE STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS: "CINDERELLA" AND EVER
AFTER: A CINDERELLA STORY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
7
2. AIMS
9
3. THEORETICAL AND METHODOGICAL APPROACH
AND JUSTIFICATION
3.1 Folk tales and fairy tales
11
11
3.1.1
Fairy tale: term
11
3.1.2
The origin of tales
12
3.1.2
Tales and the media
13
3.2 From the oral tradition to the big screen
14
3.2.1
Charles Perrault
14
3.2.2
The Brothers Grimm
14
3.2.3
Walt Disney
15
3.3 Cinderella through history
16
3.4 Structuralism vs Jack Zipes
18
3.4.1
Vladimir Propp
18
3.4.2
Claude Levi- Strauss
19
3.4.3
Roland Barthes
19
3.4.4
Claude Bremond
20
3.4.5
Algirdas Julien Greimas
21
3.4.6
Jack Zipes
21
3.5 Justification of the chosen method
4. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
4.1 Cinderella fairy tale analysis
22
23
23
4.1.1 Greimas’s actantial model
23
4.2.2
Bremond’s sequences
24
4.2.3
Barthes’s functions
25
4.2 Film analysis
29
4.2.1 Greimas’s actantial model
30
4.2.2 Bremond’s sequences
31
5
4.2.3
Barthes’s functions
36
5. CONCLUSIONS
43
REFERENCES
45
ANNEX. CONCLUSIONES
47
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1. INTRODUCTION
Tales have been present in our world for centuries and centuries. Little knowledge we
have about which the first tale was. All we know is that they have come to us through
the oral tradition consequently exposed to constant changes and variations.
These changes and variations go hand in hand with the passing of years and
generations, and their correspondent inquietudes, social conflicts and needs. However,
the moment these oral tales are written down they are not exposed to these radical
changes anymore. Nowadays, fairy tales are still playing an important role in our lives
and the film industry is taking them over. More and more productions are oriented to
create films that are based on these tales. These productions bring together the
imaginary world and the real world we are living in.
Our aim with this work is to carry out a comparative analysis of the written version
of the “Cinderella” story written by the Brothers Grimm and translated by Jack Zipes in
his book The original folk and fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (2014) and the
American film Ever After: A Cinderella story directed by Andy Tennant in 1998.
This project has two fundamental bases. In the first place the theoretical and formal
aspects which contribute to this project: from what the term fairy tale means and the
origin of tales to its role in the media. We will as well talk about the transition of tales
from the oral tradition to the big screen, where we will concentrate on Charles Perrault,
the Grimm Brothers and Walt Disney. As we are focusing our work on the Cinderella
story we will dedicate a section of our task to talk about Cinderella through history. As
for the methodological approach we will focus on structuralism and the work of Jack
Zipes. The second part of this project corresponds to a more practical approach where
we carry out the analysis and comparison of the tale and its cinematographic adaptation
with the final conclusions.
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2. AIMS
First of all, with this work we expect to introduce the reader to the universe of fairy
tales carrying out an exhaustive and detailed analysis of it from an internal perspective.
In order to do this we are focusing on the Brothers Grimm’s “Cinderella” translated by
Jack Zipes in his book The original folk and fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (2014)
and a 1998 American film, Ever After: A Cinderella Story, directed by Andy Tennant,
which is based on this story.
To carry out this task it is necessary to analyze the evolution of the folk tales, fairy
tales and the Cinderella story throughout history ending up with an analysis and
comparison of both the written story and the film version. We are going to make use of
different methods of comparison with a structural approach to the analysis of narratives.
We will focus our attention on Algirdas Julien Greimas, Claude Bremond and
Roland Barthes’s structural approaches which will help us to observe from an internal
perspective the differences and similarities between the original written story and its
cinematographic adaptation.
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3. THEORETICAL
AND
METHODOGICAL
APPROACH
AND
JUSTIFICATION
In this part of our work we are going to talk about the folk tales and fairy tales, and
as Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and Walt Disney have been important in the
story of the oral tradition and its transition to the big screen we will also focus on this
personalities. Likewise, one of the sections will be dedicated to talk about Cinderella
story through history. Finally, before explaining our reasons to choose one method or
another we will focus on the structural approach as well as we will talk about the work
of Jack Zipes.
3.1 Folk tales and fairy tales
This section will be dedicated to folk tales and fairy tales, focusing on what the term
“fairy tale” means, the origin of tales, and tales and the media.
3.1.1
Fairy tale: term
The term fairy tale does not derive from the German term Volksmärchen (folk tale) but
from the French one conté de fees.
According to Jack Zipes in his book Breaking the Magic Spell. Radical Theories
of Folk and Fairy Tales the term fairy tale derived from the Countess D’Aulnoy’s book
Contes de fees published in 1698 and translated the next year in London as Tales o the
Fairys. This term was applied to name all folk tales compiled by the Grimm brothers in
1812 and all the Volksmärchen that were compiled and translated into English.
Fairy tales refer to the literary production of adapted tales by writers that
belonged to the middle-class or aristocracy in the XVII and XVIII centuries, such as
Charles Perrault or Madame de Beaumont, whose writings were addressed to an
educated public. This transformed the folk tale into a fairy tale. Hence, the term fairy
tale eclipsed the term folk tale.
Thus, the folk tale is part of an oral tradition whereas the fairy tale was coined
by the middle classes and denoted the coming of a new form of literature which took
advantage of and took elements from the folklore.
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3.1.2
The origin of tales
It was not until the nineteenth century that fairy tales came into their own as children’s
literature. This happened thanks to the activities of itinerant peddlers who travelled from
village to village selling little volumes called chapbooks which contained drastically
edited folktales, legends and fairy tales.
Little has been written about the transition of the folkloric tale to the fairy tale,
the reasons why this happened and the way it happened.
Originally the folkloric tale was an oral narrative created by common people to
express the way in which they perceived nature and social order. Hence, events that are
present in these tales, such as cannibalism, human sacrifices, or the disappearance of a
princess or prince among others, were all based on social reality. And the structure of
these tales is related to the social situation of the lower classes which could only
conceive the utopia of a better life.
Something which is important in the development of the folk tale is the way
writers from the aristocracy took it over during the sixteenth, seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries and breathed life into a new literary gender that is known as the
fairy tale. It reflected a change in the values and showed ideological conflicts. So it
could be said that these tales had a social function.
Nevertheless, during the nineteenth century the folk tale was more dominant
among common people. However, the expansion of the editorial industry affected the
attitude of the public towards the folk tales.
After the first compilation made by the Grimm brothers, in 1812, folk tales were
compiled, translated and printed with the aim of establishing the authentic versions.
Professionals carrying this work out normally softened the tale’s style. Since the
beginning of times, tales have taught men what is advisable, and nowadays teach
children how to face the powers of the mythical world. Hence, these folkloric tales were
rewritten and transformed into didactic fantastic tales allocated to entertain children.
There are relationships between the folkloric tale and other genres, and the
folkloric motifs carry out a role in other forms of literature, but it is something that has
to be studied.
The meanings behind the folk tale were clear for the original publics. All
symbols and motifs had their meanings. These meanings became “secrets” which
lingered unresolved until the nineteenth and twentieth century’s, when experts
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discovered how these tales were related to the experiences of primitive villages. Thus,
the socio-cultural basis of the fairy tale is intimately related to the basis of the folk tale.
3.1.3
Tales and the media
All discussion about the way in which folk and fairy tales are used has to bear in mind
the changing media through which they are distributed and received. Probably, the most
important changes for the folk tales and fairy tales have been generated by the cinema
which has assumed the role played by the narrators of old tales.
There are endless ways in which these fairy tales are transmitted in the cultural
industry. As literary texts, plays, publicity or television shows, but their adaptations as
films is one of the most important ways.
The domination of the word in the development of the fairy tale as genre
changed with the passing of time. The next great revolution in the institutionalization of
this genre was the film.
White Snow and the Seven Dwarfs (Hand) was created by Walt Disney in 1937
as the first animated cartoon’s feature film. It is the most important because it became
the prototype not only for the other Disney creations but also for most of the adaptations
of folk tales and fairy tales for films.
There were numerous changes in this Disney film as it was completely different
from Grimm’s story. The film softened many of the violent details and symbols present
in the Grimm’s tale, and even changed the role of the dwarfs, whose role is less
important in the tale. Next Disney’s creation was Cinderella (Geronimi, Jackson and
Luske) in 1950, a version that was far from what the Brothers Grimm wrote as well.
The thing is that people do not go to the cinema only to enjoy themselves but
because they are guided by utopian desires which are present in these fairy tales that
have been transformed into films, and which give a small dose of hope. Today’s fairy
tales public has become passive and it could be pointed out that the voice of the narrator
is led by commercial interests.
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3.2 From the oral tradition to the big screen
3.2.1
Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault was a French writer, mainly known for giving literary form to classic
fairy tales for children, softening the sharpness of the oral versions.
Charles Perrault belonged to a group of French writers of the late seventeenth
century who wrote the so-called contes de fées to distinguish them from other kinds of
popular tales. This contes de fees were literary tales that addressed to the concerns,
tastes and functions of the court society to fit into the French salons and courts of the
aristocracy and bourgeoisie. These writers were the creators of the genre of the literary
tale as an institution.
As for Perrault’s stories, with him the belief that fairy tales teach lessons rose up as
his stories had quaint morals. This is the caution he includes at the end of Cinderella:
“Godmothers are useful things
Even when without the wings.
Wisdom may be yours and wit,
Courage, industry, and grit—
What’s the use of these at all,
If you lack a friend a call.”
(Cashdan 1999: 9)
This seems to be teaching that hard work and intelligence are useless unless you
have acquaintances in important places. This shows that some of Perrault’s lessons
contained questionable advice since this particular one would not fit as a praiseworthy
lesson for children.
Nonetheless, children always tend to be more familiar with Perrault’s version. It has
been reproduced countless times in storybooks, but the main raison is that it formed the
inspiration for Walt Disney’s films. Hence, the popularity of Perraul’s fairy tales is in
great part thanks to Walt Disney.
3.2.2 Brothers Grimm
In the early 1800s, Wilhelm and Jabob Grimm published their famous two-volume
collection of fairy tales, Children’s and Household Tales, maybe the collection of folk
tales most famous and known. They wrote this with the intention of creating a book that
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compiled German stories and legends. They breathed into life an anthology that could
be considered the most comprehensive fairy-tale collection of all time.
A second volume of 70 tales followed in 1815 and another six editions over the next
40 years, each one revised and more and more child-friendly. In the process, some of
the most unpleasant ones were left out, such as “How The Children Played At
Slaughtering” as in this tale one boy cuts the throat of his little brother while playing
butcher and pig.
But they did not write any of the tales, they just compiled them. They were narrated
in dialect, especially by maids, housekeepers and inhabitants of small villages. The
Grimm brothers put the final touches to them and translated them.
Many of the stories had no German origins but they considered that they were
uniquely German and they included them in their book. Thus, the Grimm brother’s
Aschenputtel is a close relative of Charles Perrault’s Cendrillon. In both stories there is
a mean stepmother that has two selfish daughters. They will try to make the heroine’s
life miserable making sure she does not come to the attention of the prince. But there is
a slightly change from one story to another. The Grimm’s version has neither fairy
godmother nor a glass slipper; instead there is a cruel stepmother that will encourage
their daughters to mutilate their feet in order to fit into a slipper made of embroidered
silk.
However, with the passing of time the brothers Grimm altered some of the fairy
tales to make them more suitable for young readers. This was prompted by Wilhelm
Grimm’s puritanical leanings. They created then stories that catered more to childhood
sensibilities. Therefore, he eliminated erotic and sexual elements that might have been
offensive to the middle-class morality, added numerous Christian expressions and
references and emphasized the specific role models for male and female according to
the patriarchal code of that time.
3.2.3 Walt Disney
In the more recent history of fairy tales Walt Disney plays an important role as he
appropriated European fairy tales, and nowadays if children or adults think about the
great classical fairy tales they will think of Walt Disney.
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There is no doubt that Disney was a radical filmmaker who changed our way of
viewing fairy tales. He animated the fairy tale and he was the one who truly
revolutionalized it through cinema.
People could think that he was obsessed by the fairy tale genre, but it was because
they reflected his own struggles in life. After all, he came from a relatively poor family
with which he had several conflicts. So it could be deduced that his cartoon was
astonishingly autobiographical.
Disney reflected the socio-economic conditions of his time, and he was capable of
catching the needs of the cultural industry and the American people in his artistic work,
in which he depicted an image of what America meant for him.
However, Disney’s films are also an attack on the literary tradition of the fairy tale.
He appropriated the fairy tale as he changed his form and meaning.
The reception of the folkloric and fairy tales in the occidental world has had a great
influence from Disney’s industry and other similar corporations. This way, most people
have preconceptions about what is and should be a fairy tale.
Nevertheless, Disney paved the way for the fairy tale’s American cinema industry.
From his endless cartoon adaptations of these fairy tales many others have followed
them as in recent years, many fairy tales have been adapted for the big screen Somehow
cinema made fairy tales modern - and fairy tales helped make cinema what it is today.
In more recent days blockbusters such as Snow White and the Huntsman (Sanders
2012), and Red Riding Hood (Hardwicke 2011), have created a rise in popularity
regarding fairy tale adaptations.
3.3 Cinderella through history
Yeh-hsien, Cendrillon, Aschenputtel, Rashitz Coatie, Mossy, Coat, Katie Woodencloak,
or Cenerentola: these are just a few of Cinderella's folkloric versions. Cinderella is one
of the tales that has been reinvented basically by every known culture and few fairy
tales have enjoyed the rich literary and cinematic afterlife of Cinderella. We could also
mention Pretty Woman (Marshall) in 1990 with Julia Roberts and Ever After: a
Cinderella story (Tenant) in 1998 with Drew Barrymore. In 2015 Disney has produced
a new live-action version: Cinderella (Branagh) and in 2014 a film called Into the
Woods (Marshall) which include Cinderella story as part of the plot. All contemporary
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films that offer remarkable evidence that even nowadays we are still recycling the story
to manage our cultural anxieties and conflicts about marriage and courtship.
As pointed out by Jack Zipes in his book Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical
Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales (1979) August Nitschke proved that Cinderella has its
origins in the Glacial Era. He explained that the society that produced tales similar to
Cinderella was a hunting and shepherding society in which women had a position of
honor. Women were sacrificed so they could come back to life as plants or animals and
collaborate in their children’s development.
Throughout history different versions of Cinderella have been created.
Normally, all of them feature an innocent child, a malevolent stepmother and her illtempered two daughters. There is a festive ball and a lost slipper as well. But these are
all the similarities that we can find. Among the many Cinderella stories that exist let us
consider Perrault’s , the Grimm Brother’s and Giambattista Basile’s version. In the first
one, a fairy godmother changes a pumpkin into a coach; in the second one, the
stepmother orders her daughters to mutilate themselves in order to fit the slipper; and in
the third one the heroine and her nanny have a plot to murder her stepmother.
There have been documented over seven hundred versions of Cinderella. The
earliest version is an Italian fairy tale published in 1634 and titled Cat Cinderella which
made its debut in Giambattista Basile’s La Pentamerone (The tale of Tales).
Nonetheless, after this one there have been created many other versions that we could
mention.
Basile’s Cat Cinderella forms the basis for many of subsequent Cinderella tales,
being the most notable those of the Grimm brothers and Charles Perrault.
Maybe not that famous but there exists a Scottish variant of Cinderella whose
author seems to be unknown: Rashin Coatie in which after the heroine’s mother’s death
a little red calf come to her and materializes to provide for the needs of the heroine.
There is also a Chinese version: Yeh-hsien by Tuun Ch'eng-shih. It is a Chinese
representation of the tale in the ninth century A.D. In this tale the heroine is befriended
by a golden fish that will be destroyed by the stepmother. The bones of the golden fish
will supply Yeh-hsien with proper clothing to meet the warlord who will take her as a
bride. She triumphs over her stepmother and stepsister, who are killed by flying stones.
Nevertheless, all these three versions of Cinderella as well as the rest that exist have
become superseded by the Grimm Brothers and Charles Perrault’s versions.
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Thanks to Walt Disney, most people today are more familiar with Perrault's version.
In this version Cinderella rides to the ball in a pumpkin pulled by white mice that a fairy
godmother has transformed into a coach and horses. However, Cinderella must leave
the ball by midnight because at that time, the spell will vanish.
As for the Grimm’s version it could be pointed out that it is rougher and includes
important religious and mythic elements that are lacking in the French- the mother in
heaven, her suffering daughter on earth, and the bird that mediates between them. There
is also a tree growing out of the mother’s grave, which is a common ingredient in
Cinderella stories, symbolizing, as it were, the spirit of the mother. In Grimm’s
Cinderella the tree signals to the heroine that someone cares for her. In contrast with
Perrault’s version there is somehow a maternal presence.
With no doubt, Cinderella has an enduring appeal which derives not only from the
trajectory of the heroine through the story but also from the way in which this story
depicts and reflects classic family conflicts- from sibling rivalry to sexual jealousies
which with most people could feel identified with.
3.4 Structuralism versus Jack Zipes
To study, analyze and compare a tale we have to break it down in order to discover the
different parts that constitute it. There are different approaches to do this and one of the
most well known belongs to structuralism where we can name different important
personalities such Vladimir Propp, Levi- Strauss, Roland Barthes, Claude Bremond and
Greimas. Nevertheless, as well as the authors who belong to the structural approach
there are other authors who shed light on the same matters regarding tales but from a
different perspective. In this respect, a contemporary author called Jack Zipes is worth it
to be named and take into account.
3.4.1 Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Propp was a Russian structuralist scholar who concentrated his scholarship on
the Russian folktale. His research was carried out in the 1920s and 1930s; nevertheless
it took considerable time to reach the West due to the fact that his work was not
translated until the 1950s. Therefore, since the translation of his his Morphology of the
Folktale in 1958 there has been an increasing interest in attempting structural analyses
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of folklore genres. It has inspired a great number of studies carried out by prominent
scholars such as Claude Levy-Strauss and Roland Barthes, among others.
Propp has had an important influence in formalism as he extended the Russian
Formalist approach to narratology, which is the study of narrative structure. As if their
genetic development was determined by their own esthetic rules he was the first in
showing the morphologic patterns and structures of the tales. He broke down a large
number of Russian folk tales into their smallest narrative units and arrived at a typology
of narrative structures. He examined 100 fairy tales and analyzed types of characters
and actions. He discovered that only 31 functions or narratemes were represented. Plus,
he found that all the tales that were analyzed displayed the functions in unvarying
sequence.
3.4.2
Claude Levi- Strauss
His ideas are far away from Propp’s but it is worth to mention him as Levi-Strauss'
influence on the structural study of narrative is vast. His methodology focuses on what
must be thought of as semantics of myth.
He had no interest in the formal aspects of narrative. More and more he has focused
on mythology which is part of a larger system which it mirrors and participates in. for
him myths are systems of concepts placed in binary opposition and repeated in
innumerable variations. They are, by definition, stories which have no teller.
3.4.3
Roland Barthes
In his studies Barthes distinguishes three levels that are interconnected: functions,
actions and narration.
Functions include all elements of narrative, since, as Barthes claims, there is
nothing which does not have a meaning in a narrative text (Allen 2003: 58). Barthes
divides functions into two sorts: distributive functions which involve a kind of cause
and effect logic and what Barthes calls indices, which are details that can be collected
together and help to produce a kind of meaning that is not essentially chronologicalthey are what create a mood, without directly describing a feeling
Functions proper can be subdivided into cardinal functions and catalysers. A
cardinal function opens up an alternative that affects the rest of the narrative. Catalysers
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connect with cardinal functions without modifying the sequence of events; their role is
to maintain contact between the narrator and the reader (the narratee), and to determine
the tempo of the narrative and hence the reader’s expectations (Moriarty 1991: 93).
Indices can also be subdivided: indices proper refer to characters, feelings,
atmosphere; and informants identify or locate the action in time or space.
As for actions, Barthes used the notion of action to supersede that of character
which is defined not as a being but as participant since what is important is their role in
the action described by the narrative.
Finally, the term narration was used by Barthes to refer to the act of telling a story.
3.4.4
Claude Bremond
Bremond did not use the methodologies of structural linguistics but he worked to
establish categories that explain levels of organization within the folk narrative. He
sought to extend and formalize the work of Propp.
For Bremond the events in a narrative are there to lead to the denouement. He
showed that narratives obey a progressive logic, along the axes of time. Each cardinal
function can be divided in three steps (Fig. 1):
Possibility
Actualization success
failure
Non- actualization
Fig. 1
His work establishes a link to the applications of the theory of action. In addition
to this, Bremond presented a taxonomy of narrative roles (agent, patient, influencer and
enemy or frustrator), and an exhaustive list of general forms of action that may arise in
connection with each of these roles in verbal situations such as “accomplishing a task”,
“undergoing a punishment”, and so on.
3.4.5 Algirdas Julien Greimas
Greimas proposed the actantial model, which is based on Propp's theories.
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This actantial model allows us to break an action down into six actants: the
subject (for example, the Prince); the object (the rescued Princess, for example); the
sender (the King) which instigates the action; the receiver (for example, the King, the
Princess, the Prince) which is what benefits from it; the helper (the magic sword, the
Prince's courage) which helps to accomplish the action; and finally the opponent (the
witch, the dragon) which stands in the way of it. In modern novels there are many other
kinds of possible names for character roles, as the belover, the betrayer and so on.
Here is the actantial network represented as a square:
Fig. 2
3.4.6
Jack Zipes
Jack Zipes is a professor of German and comparative literature at the University of
Minnesota.
This author out of curiosity decided to translate Grimm’s first two editions (156
tales) in his The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete
First Edition. His studies particularly focus on the changes made by the two brothers.
He speculates that the Grimm’s changes reflected the social condition that existed in
their lifetime, matters such as the jealousy between a young stepmother and
stepdaughter due to the fact that a lot of women died from childbirth and there were
cases in which the father remarried a young woman.
Jack Zipes takes into account the importance of the social and historical context
when it comes to study these tales. Consequently, for him, a good and complete analysis
of the tales must take into account the context of the narrators and their communities as
well as the social issues of the period.
In his opinion, the analysis proposed by authors such as Vladimir Propp tend to
formalize the structural patterns of the folk and fairy tales in a rigid way. They do not
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take into account variations in form and content at the same time that these tales were
developed in different periods by different cultures.
3.5 Justification of the chosen method
To carry out the aim of our work and analyse both the written story and its
cinematographic adaptation we will focus on the approaches made by structuralism.
Particularly, the approaches made by Claude Bremond, Algirdas Julien Greimas and
Roland Barthes, whose work develops Propp’s one so it is more complete in terms of
analysis methods.
In the case of Jack Zipes, he has been considered as his work sheds light on the
context of tales and films, nevertheless his approach is not useful and productive
enough in order to accomplish our comparison so we will not focus on his contributions
in order to carry out this task.
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4. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
This is the moment to focus on the real aim of our work: the comparative analysis of the
Brothers Grimm’s “Cinderella” story and the American film Ever After: A Cinderella
Story.
4.1 Cinderella fairy tale analysis
We will carry out this task from a structural approach particularly drawing our attention
to Algirdas Julien Greimas, Claude Bremond and Roland Barthes’s structural
approaches due to the fact that their studies come from Propp’s studies broadening them
in order to be applicable to any kind of tale.
4.1.1
Greimas’s actantial model
For this author the characters are organized like functions. Hence, Greimas’s actantial
model allows us to break an action down into six actants. A subject tends towards an
object; likewise the subject will have helpers as well as opponents. If we apply this
model to Cinderella fairy tale we conclude the following (Fig. 3):
(Sender)
(Object)
Lack of affection
The Prince
(Helper)
(Subject)
Dead mother
Cinderella
(Receiver)
The prince
(Opponent)
Stepmother and daughters
Fig. 3
1. Subject: Cinderella is the character who carries out the action.
2. Object: Cinderella has been locked up in her house working as a maid,
nevertheless the festival’s announcement means that there is a possibility to find
happiness and love again by marrying the prince.
3. Sender: it is the lack of affection, the lack of her mother is what moves
Cinderella to do something about her situation.
4. Opponent: the stepmother and her daughters will interfere in Cinderella’s
actions moved by envy.
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5. Helper: it is Cinderella’s dead mother who will help her through the tree she
asked her daughter to plant in her grave before she died. This tree will give
Cinderella whatever she needs, whenever she needs it. This way her mother
takes care of her even though she is no physically present.
6. Receiver: the prince will benefit from Cinderella’s actions. He seems to fall in
love with her when he sees her and finally they end up together.
4.1.2
Bremond’s sequences
To follow Bremond’s model we can carry out a detailed summary (Fig.4) of
“Cinderella” fairy tale to show the fundamental narrative sequences that are established
in the development of the action:
DEATH
of Cinderella’s mother
Cinderella plants a tree on her grave
ARRIVAL of the stepmother with her two daughters
Cinderella’s pretty dresses are taken away
Cinderella is forced to do heavy work from morning to night
ANNOUNCEMENT of a three day festival so that the King’s son chooses a bride
Cinderella can’t go because she has not proper clothes
She has to be working at home instead of going
The pigeons help her
They tell her to go to the tree on her mother’s grave
OUTING of Cinderella to her mother’s grave
She shakes the tree and ask for beautiful clothes that immediately appear
She goes to the festival in a carriage
ENCOUNTER with the King’s son
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She has to leave at midnight
The next day she has more work to do but the pigeons help her
She goes to the festival again
REENCOUNTER with the prince
She leaves at twelve
The prince has had the stairs painted with pitch
While she runs away a shoe remains stick in one of the steps
ANNOUNCEMENT of the prince that he will marry the one whose foot fits the shoe
MUTILATION of the step-mother’s daughter’s feet in order to fit the shoe
The prince sees the blood flowing from their feet
The prince orders Cinderella to try the shoe
The shoe fits perfectly
Cinderella and the prince drove off together
Fig. 4
As we can see these sequences correspond to the most important events that take
place in the story and the ones that lead to the denouement of it. With the death of
Cinderella’s mother the arrival of the stepmother and her daughters takes place, carrying
with them the disgrace that Cinderella has to bear from now on. She becomes a slave in
her own house, and even though his father is present he does not change the situation
her daughter is going through.
When the festival is announced she is unable to go because she has not proper
clothes. But the second night because of the pigeons she goes to visit her mother’s grave
and the tree gives Cinderella an outfit so she could attempt the festival, against her
stepsister’s disapprovals. Therefore, the encounters with the prince start taking place.
The third night Cinderella loses one of her golden slippers and with it comes the
mutilation of the two sisters encouraged by the stepmother whose ambition has no
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limits: “However, the mother said to her second daughter, “Take the slipper, and if it’s
too short for you, then cut off one of your toes.” (Grimm and Grimm 2014: 76).
Nevertheless, they do not deceive the prince who finally leaves with Cinderella
as she fits the golden slipper.
All these sequences lead to a happy ending and the success of the heroine
Cinderella portrays.
4.1.3
Barthes’s functions
Bremond’s method is improved by Roland Barthes who affirms that not everything is
reduced to the osseous structure of the tale. We also have to consider some elements
and characters that could be deleted but that are important to stand out.
First of all we are going to show the cardinal functions and catalysers (Table 1):
CARDINAL FUNCTIONS
CATALYSERS
Death of the mother
The work Cinderella has to do while her
stepsisters are at the festival
The arrival of the stepmother
When Cinderella goes to the pigeon coop
The Announcement of the festival
The conversations between Cinderella and
the stepsisters
The outing of Cinderella to the graveside
The first encounter with the prince
The encounter with the prince
The reencounter with the prince
The announcement of the search of the
mysterious maiden
Mutilation of the stepsisters
Table 1
On the one hand, we can appreciate how each cardinal function leads to the next one
opening and closing each action which allows us to imagine a sequence of actions that
describe the tale. These functions are necessary for the course of the story; if any of
them were missed the story would not be the same.
When Cinderella’s mother dies she tells her to plant a tree in her grave and shake it
whenever she needs anything. Yet, with her death comes the marriage of his father to a
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new woman who goes with her two daughters to live with them. This triggers all
misfortunes Cinderella will have to face and she becomes a slave in her own house.
An important action is the announcement of a three day festival with the aim of
getting the prince a bride; this is a turning point in Cinderella’s life because finally, she
has the opportunity of getting freedom, happiness, and love. Nevertheless, her
stepsisters will never agree on Cinderella attending the festival. Therefore, Cinderella
has to look for help and visit the graveside where the tree will give her a dress and shoes
to go to the dance and meet the prince. Thus, the two encounters with the prince take
place, being the second one when Cinderella loses her slipper which ends up in the
prince’s hands. This leads to the announcement of the prince that he will marry the
maiden who has lost the slipper and the mutilation of the stepdaughters’ feet in order to
fit the slipper. However, the prince discovers what they have done in order to fit the
slipper and it is Cinderella who happily ends up leaving with him.
On the other hand, the catalysers are functions that do not interfere in the course of
the story but complete and complement the cardinal functions. Therefore, some actions
that are repeated throughout the tale are not relevant for the course of the story. For
instance, when Cinderella is ordered to work while the stepsisters go to the ball and the
pigeons help her. This is not relevant because even though, she goes to the festival and
meets the prince.
Likewise, the conversations between the stepsisters and Cinderella about the festival
as well as when Cinderella sees the ball from the pigeon coop are not crucial in the
development of the story. Also, Cinderella goes to the festival for two consecutive days.
The first night has not importance for the course of the story; it is the last night when
she loses her shoe that has more importance.
To finish with Barthes we are now going to focus on the more significant indices,
which will help us to have a more detailed vision of the story, events and characters.
In this story there are not substantial descriptions of the space, but there are some of
the time passed between actions:
The snow covered the mother’s grave like a little white blanket, and by the time the sun had
taken it off again and the little tree had become green for the second time, the man had
married a second wife. (Grimm and Grimm 2014: 69)
“However, you must return before midnight.” (72)
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But when midnight came, before the clock struck twelve, she stood up and bowed goodbye. (73)
Cinderella is the main character of the story; but there are not a lot of descriptions
about her. We don’t know her real name but that the stepmother and her daughters
called her Cinderella: “Since she always rummaged in dust and looked dirty, they
named her Cinderella.” (Grimm and Grimm 2014: 70). We also know that she was
beautiful: “And if everyone had been astonished by her beauty…” (Grimm and Grimm
2014: 74)
The lack of one of the progenitors is something common on most fairy tales. This
dramatizes the argument of the story and makes us feel empathy for the protagonist. The
graveside scene reiterates the deep bond that exists between mother and daughter. The
child longs for the love she once knew, for the mother who protected her. The pigeons
and the tree are the symbolic embodiment of the mother, who rises up to assure
Cinderella that she is not forgotten, and that she will take care of her; that there is still a
maternal presence:
“Dear child, I must leave you, but when I am up in heaven, I shall look after you. Plant a
little tree on my grave, and whenever you wish for something, shake it, and you’ll have
what you wish. And whenever you are otherwise in a predicament, then I’ll send you help.
Just stay good and pure.” (Grimm and Grimm 2014: 69)
This leads us to his father, who is present in the story. He is the one who might
shelter Cinderella from harm, but he seems to be blind to her situation or maybe just
self-absorbed. As a matter of fact, male figures in fairy tales tend to be portrayed as
weak or unavailable. This is because fairy tales are more focused on the maternal side
rather than on the paternal side, they emphasize and place greater emphasis on the
relationship between mother and child. Consequently, the role of fathers tends to be
devalued.
The stepmother is a destructive character. This becomes evident toward the end of
the tale when the prince begins his search for the mystery maiden. When the older of the
two daughters try on the shoe it becomes obvious that there is a problem:
“Listen,” said the mother secretly. “here’s a knife, and if the slipper is still too tight for you,
then cut off a piece of your foot. It will hurt a bit. But what does that matter? It will soon
pass, and one of you will become queen.” (Grimm and Grimm 2014: 75)
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The stepmother’s envious nature emerges in this passage. She is determined to
become queen-mother and nothing will stop her. She is so ambitious, wicked, and her
envy of Cinderella so evident, that she is willing to mutilate her own daughters in order
to achieve her goals. This also reflects the society of that time, matters such as the
jealousy between a young stepmother and stepdaughter. A lot of women died from
childbirth and then the father remarried a younger woman.
As for the stepdaughters, they are as evil as their mother: “However, the stepmother
already had two daughters from her first husband. They had beautiful features but
proud, nasty, and wicked hearts.” (Grimm and Grimm 2014: 69). They try to torment
Cinderella making her work really hard and not letting her go to the ball. However, the
oldest seems to have more envy towards Cinderella whereas the younger one seems to
have some sympathy: “Now Cinderella had to comb and clean again, and the youngest
sister, who had a little sympathy in her heart, said, “Cinderella, when it turns dark, you
can go to the ball and look in through the windows.” (Grimm and Grimm 2014: 71).
Nonetheless, they have an envious and evil nature as well as her mother, and they
are determined to marry the prince, so they obey their mother’s orders and cut their feet.
Fortunately, thanks to the pigeons they do not deceive the prince: “The prince looked
down and saw that the stockings of the bride were colored red and that her blood was
streaming out of the slipper.” (Grimm and Grimm 2014: 76). This leads to a happy
ending in which Cinderella is the chosen one and runs away with the prince.
In this Grimm’s version of Cinderella the fact that she achieves her freedom and the
prince is enough punishment for the stepmother and her daughters. Nevertheless, in
older versions at the end of the story the stepsisters are punished by the pigeons which
blind them. Perhaps blinding the daughters is the way of punishing the stepmother as
well, as they are their flesh and blood. Furthermore, envy is often dubbed “the greeneyed monster”, and the word it-self derives from the Latin videre (to see). Hence, by
losing their sight the stepsisters are deprived of their ability to envy.
4.2
Film analysis
To carry out the film analysis we will focus on Algirdas Julien Greimas’s, Claude
Bremond’s and Roland Barthes’s structural approaches as has been done with the
written version. At the same time we will comment on the differences between the film
and the fairy tale in order to compare them.
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4.2.1
Greimas’ s actantial model
If we apply Greimas’s actantial model to the film Ever After: A Cinderella Story we
conclude the following (Fig. 5):
(Sender)
Lack of affection
(Helper)
Servants and
(Object)
Love
(Subject)
Danielle
(Receiver)
Henry
(Opponent)
Stepmother and stepdaughter Marguerite
Da Vinci
Fig. 5
1. Subject: Drew Barrymore plays an intelligent young woman named Danielle de
Barbarac, who is our Cinderella and the character that carries out the action.
Danielle falls under the care of her stepmother Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent after
her father dies. In contrast with the written story, we know Cinderella’s real
name.
2. Object: after Danielle’s father’s death she is left alone with her stepmother and
stepsister who are mean to her. She does not have a mother either, and all she
longs for is love and affection, as well as the Cinderella of the written story. In
fact, she says at the end of the film to her stepmother that all that she ever
wanted was a mother, and that she was the only mother she had ever known.
When Danielle meets the prince Henry she does not seem to be interested in
him, she just shows respect towards him because he is the prince. It is when she
gets to know him better that she begins to have feelings towards him.
3. Sender: the lack of affection is what moves Danielle to do something about her
situation, as well as in the fairy tale.
4. Opponent: as in every Cinderella story that exists it is the stepmother and
stepsisters who are against Cinderella and interfere in her actions. In Ever After
the stepmother is Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent, played by Anjelica Huston. She
plays the role of an ambitious and envious woman. Her older daughter,
Marguerite, is as mean as her mother, whereas her younger daughter Jacqueline
feels sympathy towards Danielle, as well as in the written story. Nevertheless, at
the end in the fairy tale she shows to be as ambitious and envious as her mother
and sister.
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5. Helper: Danielle can always count on the servants of the house. After her
father’s death they become her real family as they are living in the same hell and
support each other. Later in the story, she meets Leonardo Da Vinci who will
help her as well. In the film, neither the father nor the mother are there to help
her child, not even in a spiritual way as in the written story. They are completely
gone. The only thing she has left is the book her father gave her before he died,
and her mother’s dress and slippers.
6. Receiver: prince Henry will benefit from Danielle’s actions. When Henry meets
Danielle he just sees a servant who tries to attack him, but when he meets her
again dressed up as a courtier he is impressed and smitten by the things she says
and her passion. Eventually, they fall in love with each other and end up
together as in the fairy tale.
Nevertheless, throughout the film there are changes in the actants (Fig. 6):
(Sender)
(Object)
(Receiver)
Da Vinci
Love
Danielle
(Helper)
(Subject)
Da Vinci
Henry
(Opponent)
Stepmother and stepdaughter Marguerite
Fig. 6
Danielle is the actant-subject, however, at the end of the film when she has been
sold and the prince has rejected her she has to give up on her dreams. Yet, it is he who
becomes the actant-subject who thanks to Leonardo Da Vinci’s advices and help realize
that no matter Danielle’s real identity he wants to be with her and that he will not love
any other woman.
The stepmother and stepsister Marguerite will not give up and will try to set
Henry against Danielle. Fortunately, Henry will realize which his real feelings are and
will go rescue Danielle and will ask her to marry him.
In contrast with the tale, in the film we have a dynamic story with a lot of
characters and actions; hence Greimas’s actants may vary.
4.2.2
Bremond’s sequences
We will provide with a detailed summary (Fig. 7) of Ever After: A Cinderella Story to
show the fundamental narrative sequences:
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MEETING
of the Grimms Brothers with the Queen
She is disturbed by their version of Cinderella
They ask about a painting of a girl
The Queen shows them a slipper
She tells them the story of Cinderella
FLASHBACK
Arrival of the stepmother and stepdaughters
Danielle’s father gives her a book: Utopia
DEATH
of Danielle’s father
He says to Danielle that he loves her
ENCOUNTER
with prince Henry 10 years later
He is stealing a horse
Danielle throws him apples before she recognizes him
He gives her money
He comes across Leonardo Da Vinci
OUTING
of Danielle to the court pretending to be a courtier
She wants to release a servant with the money
Encounter with the prince but he does not recognize her
She says her name is her mother’s name: Nicole De Lancret
COMPROMISE
Between the King and Henry
He has to choose a bride before the ball
He will announce it at the stroke of midnight at the ball
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Encounter of Danielle with Henry and Da Vinci
OUTING
Of Danielle and Henry
Fight with gipsies in their way back home
Danielle makes a deal with them
Henry kisses Danielle and arrange to meet the next day
FIGHT
Between Marguerite and Danielle
Marguerite throws Danielle’s Utopia to the fire
Marguerite and her mother meets with the Queen
They discover Danielle is pretending to be a courtier
PUNISHMENT
Danielle is locked in the pantry so she cannot go to the ball
Da Vinci saves her and make wings for her dress
She goes to the ball on her mother dress
ARRIVAL
Of Danielle to the ball
Her stepmother gives away her real identity
Henry goes mad
Danielle runs away and loses her shoe
Da Vinci picks it up and gives it to the prince
SALE
of Danielle
Henry cancels the wedding with a Spanish princess
He leaves to rescue Danielle
PROPOSAL
Henry puts on the shoe on Danielle’s foot
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He asks her to be her wife
PUNISHMENT
of the stepmother and stepsister
Danielle appears dressed like a queen
She is announced to be Henry’s wife
She punished them to do hard work
Da Vinci gives Danielle a painting of her
RETURN
to the Brothers Grimm’s interview with the Queen
The Queen says Danielle was her grand-grand-grand-mother
Fig.7
As we can see these sequences correspond to the most important events that take place
in the film. And all these sequences lead to a happy ending and the success of the
heroine Danielle portrays.
As we can see in the table, there are more sequences in the film than in the fairy
tale:
FILM
TALE
MEETING with the Grimms brother
DEATH of Cinderella’s mother
FLASHBACK: arrival of the stepmother
ARRIVAL of the stepmother and
and stepsisters
stepsisters
DEATH of Danielle’s father
ANNOUNCEMENT of the King
ENCOUNTER with the prince
OUTING of Cinderella to her mother’s
grave
OUTING to the court
ENCOUNTER with the Prince
COMPROMISE between Henry and the
REENCOUNTER with the Prince
King
OUTING of Henry and Danielle
ANNOUNCEMENT of the Prince
FIGHT between Danielle and Marguerite
MUTILATION of the stepsisters
PUNISHMENT of Danielle
ARRIVAL of Danielle to the ball
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SALE of Danielle
PROPOSAL of Henry to Danielle
PUNISHMENT of the stepmother and
Marguerite
RETURN to the present
Table 2
Thus, we can appreciate some similarities and differences between the film and
the tale.
The film is more dynamic than the tale; a lot of important sequences take place
before the denouement of the story. In both the story and the film we have two of the
most crucial sequences: the arrival of the stepmother and the stepsisters and the death of
one of the primogenitors. The film omits the mother’s deathbed graveside and takes as a
starting point a motherless Cinderella. His father re-marries a woman and after she
arrives with her daughters he dies. In the tale the mother dies in the first place and then
the father re-marries a new woman.
In the film, Henry and the king agree on Henry choosing a bride before the ball.
In the tale, the king announces a ball where his son will choose a bride. Before this
commitment, Henry has already met Danielle and he is already interested in her, in
contrast with the tale where the prince meets Cinderella at the ball.
Hence, one of the main differences with the “Cinderella” story is that the royal
ball is not the centrepiece of Ever After. Instead, the essential elements of that scene —
Cinderella dressed up like a courtier, the prince is smitten, she runs away, and the whole
thing repeats — are cleverly insert throughout the film. Main reason why there are so
many sequences.
Before the ball, Danielle meets with the prince in several occasions. When the
day of the ball arrives, she is not allowed to go as well as in the tale. Nevertheless, with
the help of Leonardo Da Vinci, instead of the tree, and the birds, she will go to the ball.
The difference comes when Henry discovers that she is a servant. He goes mad and
rejects her, whereas in the story that is not a problem.
After she loses her shoe the punishment of the sisters comes. The tale’s
mutilation could be seen as the punishment of the sisters. In the film, there is not
mutilation but the stepmother and Marguerite are punished. However, Jacqueline is left
free as she has been kind and helpful to Danielle.
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Before the punishment, Henry gives Danielle her slipper back and asks her to
marry him. In contrast, in the tale the sisters mutilate their feet before Cinderella gets
her slipper back and there is no proposal at all. Nevertheless, we infer they will marry.
Both stories have a happy ending in which Cinderella gets the prince.
4.2.3
Barthes’s functions
First of all we are going to talk about the cardinal functions and catalysers (Table 3):
CARDINAL FUNCTIONS
CATALYSERS
Meeting of the Brothers Grimm
Conversation between Danielle and her
stepmother
The wedding with the Spanish girl
Flashback
Death of the father
The romance between Jacqueline and
Henry’s servant
Encounter with the prince
Outing
Compromise
Outing with the prince
Fight with Marguerite
Punishment
Arrival
Sale
Proposal
Punishment
Return
Table 3
If we compare the number of cardinal functions of the film’s table with the tale’s
table we can see that they have significantly increased. The film is full of different
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actions that complement each other and gives way to other actions. The result is a more
complex storyline full of different characters and events.
As for the catalysers, the ones in the film do not coincide with the ones in the
tale. In the film most actions carried out by the characters are important and lead to
other actions and events, whereas in the tale there are more actions carried out by the
characters that do not change the state of the events and the course of the story.
However, we can mention some moments that are not crucial in the film. For example,
Danielle and her stepmother have a conversation in which she seems to show some
affection towards Danielle, saying that she reminds her of her father. However, this
does not have influence in her coming evil actions. The romance between Jacqueline
and Henry’s servant do not have importance for the storyline, as well as the wedding
with the Spanish girl.
To finish with Barthes we are now going to focus on the more significant indices.
This film is set in the Renaissance-era France, in contrast with the tale we know
where the story takes place. There are not substantial descriptions of the space, but we
can visualize them. In films there are many details that we perceive through the images.
There is as well one reference to the passing of time: most of the action takes places ten
years after the father’s death.
Unlike the tale, all characters in the film have a proper name. This gives them more
personality and more proximity to the spectator.
What’s most unusual about Ever After and differentiates it from the tale is what it
does sacrifice: the whole idea of magic.
When Danielle pretends to be a courtier and puts on a fancy noblewoman’s dress, it
is not a spell that vanishes at the stroke of midnight. It is something that puts Danielle at
the risk of spending five days in the stocks- penalty for dressing above her station
(Fig.8).
8
Fig. 8
As stated by Monitor critic David Sterritt in 1998: “There's no reason for stretching
this tale to more than two hours, but Huston is amusingly tart as the stepmom, and it's
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hard to resist a movie that substitutes Leonardo da Vinci for the traditional fairy
godmother.” Da Vinci is the dead mother who helps Cinderella through magic birds and
a magic tree in Brothers Grimm’s “Cinderella” and the godmother of Perrault’s
“Cinderella”. It could be pointed out that Da Vinci is the closest thing we have to
magic when we think about human genius. He created his own magic, and he shares it
with Danielle and the prince.
The story culminates in a ballroom and a final scene where the prince kneels at
Danielle’s feet holding her glass slipper. The difference is that when he arrives to rescue
her it turns out that Danielle has already rescued herself. As it is pointed out by critic
Tucker:“Ever After presents a plucky Cinderella for today’s women and beyond.
Viewers who see this entertaining film will no longer think of the fairy tale heroine as a
victim. Bravo!” (2015). In contrast with the tale, in the film we have a real heroine who
does not need a prince to be saved.
If anyone's in distress here, it's not Danielle. “In this modern retelling of the wellknown fable, she is one princess-in-waiting who does not need rescuing by any knight
in shining armor,” affirmed critic Michael O'Sullivan in 1998. She knows how to
defend herself. The first time Danielle encounters Henry, she throws apples at him.
Later, she rescues him from a band of gypsies carrying him on her back (Fig. 9).
Fig. 9
Likewise, she faces her stepsister Marguerite. The magic power in the film lies in
Danielle’s courage, which helps her to overcome her social marginalization. The film
turns the fairy tale's magic into female power and it disrupts the established social
systems. As Roger Ebert pointed out in 1998: “She is afraid that when her masquerade
is exposed, he will scorn her, and she is very nearly right, but Danielle's attitude toward
her dilemma is closer to modern feminism than to the cheerful sexism of the Brothers
Grimm.” The Grimms' versions of the tales replaced history with fiction, but the film
recreates the history that had been suppressed by the literary fictions of the tales.
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In Ever After the slipper does not have the same function as in the tale. Henry does
not need it to recognize the correct bride. And he puts in on her foot when he asks her to
marry him (Fig. 10).
Fig. 10
The function of the dress is not the same either, as the arrival of Danielle in her
mother’s dress looking like an angel (Fig. 11, Fig. 12) does not guarantee her success at
all, as Henry rejects her.
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
The book titled Utopia was the last book Danielle’s father gave to her and it
becomes a fetish object for Danielle after his father’s death. Danielle studies this book
at night, and most of her ideals come from this book. She not only has something from
her dead mother as in the tale, but something from her dead father.
However, the book is destroyed (Fig. 13, Fig. 14) by her wicked stepsister when she
finds out that she is pretending to be a courtier.
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
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Cinderella’s stepsisters go to extraordinary attempts to win the prince in the original
version of the tale, and Marguerite is as selfish and ambitious as they are. She would
marry the position, not the person, and would do anything to achieve this. In contrast,
her sister Jackqueline is kind and good.
Danielle’s stepmother is as evil as her older sister. Before her husband dies, he says
to Danielle that he loves her instead of saying it to her wife (Fig. 15, Fig. 16). This
moment worsens her hate and envy towards Danielle, who she will punish during the
next ten years.
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fortunately, both Marguerite and her mother will be punished by Danielle, in
contrast with the tale where only the sisters are physically punished when the
stepmother is not. In the film they will have to face a Danielle who is dressed like a
queen and announced to be Henry’s wife. They will have to ask her for mercy and kneel
before her (Fig. 17). “Here, as the little cinder girl, she is able to at last put aside her
bedraggled losers and flower as a fresh young beauty, and she brings poignancy and fire
to the role” (Ebert 1998).
Fig. 17
The character of the prince, Henry, embodies a young man who is inquisitive and is
willing to learn and listen to Danielle’s and Da Vinci’s advices. In fact, he shares many
characteristics with the historical Francis 1 of France, who is considered to be the first
French Renaissance king, and had devotion for Leonardo Da Vinci who worked for
him.
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To conclude with this analysis a quote from critic Tucker:
“Yes, there is a royal ball, and Danielle loses a glass slipper when leaving the palace. Yes,
the evil stepmother gets her comeuppance – so diehard Cinderella fans should not be too
disappointed. But the rest of the story presents an extremely different interpretation of
events. Nevertheless, first-rate performances and superb production values drew me into
this creative updated version of a favorite fairy tale” (2015).
We have a completely version of the traditional “Cinderella” that will not leave
anyone indifferent.
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5. CONCLUSIONS
This dissertation shows how important tales are in our society, and that they have had
the same importance for ages. We have shown that they are part of our development,
and that they have evolved with us with the passing of time. Nowadays, what once were
folk tales now have become what we know as fairy tales. These are stories where magic
is everywhere and where the dreams of the characters come true. Nevertheless, little
knowledge most of the people have about where these fairy tales come, and how
different the past versions were. Disney’s industry has changed the concept of fairy
tales and has taken them over. But if we look hundreds of years back, we can see how
different these fairy tales were, specially the Brothers Grimm’s versions, which were
much tougher.
The story of Cinderella is one of the most popular fairy tales and as well as
many others it has evolved and changed over time, so many different versions of this
magic story have existed. It has been one of the firsts to reach the world of cinema,
which has created many different films based on this story. Among them, Ever After: A
Cinderella Story, a film which entirely changed the message this story used to send to
the audience and that therefore shows a completely different story from the one we used
to know.
Making use of the tools structuralism has provided us with we have carried out
an exhaustive analysis and comparison of the Brothers Grimm’s “Cinderella” and the
film Ever After, and we can conclude that there are many differences from the
traditional written version to its cinematographic adaptation.
In general, we can conclude that the written version we have analyzed is simpler
than the film. There are more differences than similarities between the two works. On
the one hand, we have the traditional story of “Cinderella” which was written by the
Brothers Grimm. From this tale many other cinematographic versions have been created
and Ever After has been inspired on this tale as well. Nevertheless, we are facing a more
complex storyline with more characters and events as we have proved in the analysis.
The fact that there are more characters in the film makes Greimas’s actantial
model change as we move forward into the end of the film. With the passing of events
the actants change their roles. In contrast, because of the simplicity of the tale we do not
perceive a change in the actants’ roles. They remain in their roles throughout the story.
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When we analyze Bremond’s sequences we also conclude that there are more
narrative sequences in the film than in the tale. Besides they do not coincide. Thanks to
these sequences we can see the main differences in the storyline of both the tale and the
film.
The final part of our analysis is dedicated to study Barthes’s functions.
Analyzing the indices of both works gives us a more detailed vision of the story, events
and characters.
We realize that the film shows a completely different version of the Cinderella
story, and that the main difference with the tale is the lack of magic. The film is much
more realistic than the tale, and all the characters’ achievements come from their own
actions and decisions without the intervention of magical powers. However, the role of
magic in the tale, as in any other fairy tale, is crucial. Without it Cinderella would not
get to go to the ball and meet the prince. Both stories show two different kinds of
Cinderella. The Cinderella of the tale is portrayed as a victim, a weak character that
needs a prince to be rescued from her stepmother and stepsister; whereas the Cinderella
of the film, Danielle, portrays the completely opposite version of Cinderella. She does
not need a prince to be rescued, she is brave and smart. If anyone feels lost it is the
prince who in so many occasions needs Danielle to rescue him.
I believe that comparing these two versions of the Cinderella story has lead to
interesting results and conclusions. Probably, we could even go deeper into the analysis
and find interesting information. It could be interesting to go beyond the structural
analysis and take into account other approaches, such as Jack Zipes’s, who takes into
account the importance of the historical background.
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REFERENCES
Allen, G. 2003. Roland Barthes. London: Routledge.
Branagh, K. (dir.). 2015. Cinderella. USA/UK: Walt Disney Pictures.
Cashdan, S. 1999. The Witch Must Die. How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives. New York:
Basic Books.
Cox. M. R. 1893. Three hundred and forty five variants of Cinderella. London: Folklore
Society Publications.
Ebert, R. 1998. “Ever After” <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ever-after-1998>.
(Accessed 7 July 2015)
Geronimi, C.; Jackson, W.; Luske, H. (dirs.). 1950. Cinderella. USA: Walt Disney
Studios.
Grimm, J. and Grimm, W. 1886. Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm. London:
Macmillan & Co. Trans. Lucy Crane.
Grimm, J. and Grimm, W. 2014. The original folk and fairy tales of the Brothers
Grimm. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Trans. Jack Zipes.
Hand, D. (dir.). 1937. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. USA: Walt Disney Studios.
Hardwicke, C. (dir.). 2011. Red Riding Hood . USA: Appian Way Productions.
Louie, A. and Young, E. 1996. Yeh-Shen: a Cinderella Story from Chine. London:
Puffin Books.
Marshall, G. (dir.). 1990. Pretty Woman. USA: Buena Vista International.
Marshall, R. (dir.). 2014. Into the Woods. USA: Walt Disney Pictures.
Moriarty, M. 1991. Roland Barthes. Standford: Standford University Press.
O’Sullivan,
M.
1998.
“'Ever
After':
A
Tale
Well
Told”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/style/longterm/movies/videos/everafter
osullivan.htm>. (Accessed 7 July 2015)
Propp, V. 1998. Morphology of the Folk Tale. Austin: University of Texas Press. Trans.
Laurence Scott.
Sanders, R. (dir.). 2012. Snow White and the Huntsman. USA/UK/Mexico: Roth Films.
Sterrit, D. 1998. “Ever After: A Cinderella Story”
<http://www.csmonitor.com/1998/0821/082198.feat.feat.3.html>. (Accessed 7
July 2015)
Tennant, A. (dir.). 1998. Ever After: A Cinderella Story. USA: Twentieth Century Fox
Film Corporation and Mireille Soria Production.
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Travers, P. 1998. “Ever After” <http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/everafter-19980731>. (Accessed 7 July 2015)
Tucker, B. J. 2015. “No Fairy Godmother?”
<http://www.reeltalkreviews.com/browse/viewitem.asp?type=review&id=555>.
(Accessed 7 July 2015)
Zipes, J. 1979. Breaking the Magic Spell. Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales.
New York: University of Texas Press.
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ANNEX. CONCLUSIONES
Este trabajo muestra la importancia de los cuentos de hadas en nuestra sociedad, y que
han tenido la misma importancia durante años. Hemos demostrado que han sido parte
de nuestro desarrollo y que con el paso del tiempo han ido evolucionando con nosotros.
Hoy en día, lo que antes se conocía como cuento folclórico se ha convertido en lo que
conocemos ahora como cuento de hadas. Estas son historias donde la magia está en
todas partes y donde los sueños de los personajes se hacen realidad. Sin embargo, poca
gente sabe de dónde vienen estos cuentos de hadas y lo diferentes que sus versiones
pasadas fueron. La compañía Disney ha cambiado el concepto de cuentos de hadas y se
ha apoderado de ellos. Pero si miramos cientos de años atrás, podemos ver lo diferentes
que eran estos cuentos de hadas, especialmente las versiones de los Hermanos Grimm,
que eran mucho más duras.
La historia de “La Cenicienta” es uno de los cuentos de hadas más populares y
así como otros muchos ha ido evolucionando y cambiando con el paso del tiempo, por
lo que mucha versiones de esta historia han existido. Ha sido una de las primeras en
llegar al mundo del cine, que ha creado muchas películas diferentes basadas en esta
historia. Entre ellas, Ever After: A Cinderella Story, una película que cambia
completamente el mensaje que esta historia ha mandado normalmente a la audiencia, y
que por lo tanto muestra una historia muy diferente de la que estamos acostumbrados.
Haciendo uso de las herramientas que el estructuralismo no aporta hemos
llevado a cabo un exhaustivo análisis y una comparación de “La Cenicienta” de los
Hermanos Grimm y de la película Ever After, y podemos concluir que hay muchas
diferencias entre su versión tradicional y su adaptación cinematográfica.
En general, podemos concluir que la versión escrita que hemos analizado es más
simple que la película. Hay mas diferencias que similitudes entre las dos obras. Por un
lado, tenemos la tradicional historia de “La Cenicienta” escrita por los Hermanos
Grimm. Muchas versiones cinematográficas se han creado a partir de este cuento y Ever
After se ha inspirado también en él. Sin embargo, nos enfrentamos a una trama mucho
más compleja, con más personajes y acontecimientos como mostramos en el análisis
anterior.
El hecho de que haya más personajes en la película hace que el modelo actancial
de Greimas cambie a medida que avanzamos hacia el final de la película. Con el paso de
diferentes acontecimientos los actantes cambian sus papeles. Por el contrario, debido a
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su simplicidad no percibimos un cambio en el papel de los actantes del cuento. Ellos
permanecen en sus papeles a lo largo del cuento.
Cuando analizamos las secuencias de Bremond también concluimos que hay
más secuencias narrativas en la película que en el cuento. Además, no coinciden unas
con otras. Gracias a estas secuencias podemos ver las principales diferencias en la trama
de las dos obras.
La parte final de nuestro análisis estaba dedicado al estudio de las funciones de
Barthes. El análisis de los indicios de ambas obras nos da una visión más detallada de la
historia, los acontecimientos y los personajes.
Nos damos cuenta de que la película muestra una versión de Cenicienta diferente
de la del cuento, y que la principal diferencia con el cuento es la falta de magia. La
película es más realista que el cuento, y los logros de los personajes vienen de sus
propias acciones y decisiones sin las intervenciones de poderes mágicos. Sin embargo,
el papel de la magia en el cuento, como en cualquier otro, es crucial. Sin ella,
Cenicienta no podría ir al baile ni conocer al príncipe. Las dos historias muestras dos
tipos diferentes de Cenicientas. La Cenicienta del cuento es representado como una
víctima, un débil personaje que necesita un príncipe para ser rescatado de sus
hermanastras y su madrastra. Mientras que la Cenicienta de la película, Danielle,
representa una versión completamente opuesta. Ella no necesita un príncipe para ser
rescatada, ella es valiente e inteligente. Si alguien se siente perdido ese es el príncipe
que en muchas ocasiones necesita que Danielle le rescate.
Creo que comparar estas dos versiones de La Cenicienta ha llevado a
interesantes resultados y conclusiones. Probablemente, podríamos incluso hacer un
análisis más profundo y encontrar información interesante. Podría ser interesante ir más
allá del análisis estructural y tener en cuenta otros autores, como por ejemplo Jack
Zipes, que tiene en cuenta la importancia del contexto histórico.
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