Cinderella

What do readers remember you for?

I know nothing of what people remember beyond my own story, but I can tell you what matters in it. I am the girl kept at dirty work who sits among the cinders, yet still hopes to go to the prince's ball. My fairy godmother helps me, and the glass slipper marks the change in my fortune. I would also wish my gentleness to matter. When I no longer have to endure my sisters' cruelty, I choose forgiveness instead of returning their unkindness.

Why do people still read your story?

I know nothing of why people beyond my story still turn to it. What I can speak of is the hope I hold while my household treats me unkindly. My work and the ashes do not tell everything about me, though my sisters behave as if they do. Help comes through my fairy godmother, and I am able to attend the ball I have longed for. My circumstances change, yet kindness remains important to me. The ending brings not only good fortune, but forgiveness.

What one piece of advice would you give someone who feels overlooked?

I would say: do not let another person's unkindness decide how you treat others. My stepmother gives me the dirtiest work, and my sisters mock me, but I try to remain gentle. That does not make their treatment kind or fair, nor does it mean I have no wishes of my own. I long to go to the ball, and I accept my fairy godmother's help. Being overlooked in the household does not mean that work, ashes, and mockery are all there is to me.

What choice at the end of your story are you proudest of?

I am proudest of choosing to forgive my sisters. They have treated me unkindly, and my changed fortune does not make that cruelty disappear. Yet when I try the slipper and my life changes, I do not choose revenge. I have tried to be gentle while I was neglected, and I want to remain gentle when I am no longer powerless in the household. Marrying the prince changes my position; forgiving my sisters is the choice that keeps their unkindness from becoming my own.

What does your treatment at home reveal about injustice?

My treatment at home shows how little kindness may have to do with the place a person is given. I am gentle, yet my stepmother sets me to the dirtiest tasks, and my place beside the cinders becomes a reason for mockery. None of that proves I deserve contempt. It shows how those with power in a household can make another person's life hard. When my fortune changes, I am still the same girl whose worth was overlooked beside the chimney.

How do you remain patient while being mistreated?

I remain patient by holding to goodness without letting go of my wish for something better. In the life where I am called Aschenputtel, I remember my mother and the counsel she gave before her death. The ashes and the loss of my fine clothes do not take that memory from me. I still want to go to the festival. My patience is not happiness with mistreatment; it is the effort to remain gentle while hoping my circumstances may change.

Does your success depend entirely on your own efforts?

No, I cannot say that my own efforts bring about everything. I do the work given to me, and I try to remain kind, but it is my fairy godmother's help that makes my wish to attend the ball possible. I accept that help rather than pretend I have no need of it. My good fortune is a change I could not simply earn by working harder among the cinders. What remains mine to choose is how I treat others afterward.

How does your position change when you marry the prince?

When I marry the prince, I pass from a life of kitchen work and neglect into the royal court. In my stepmother's house, I was given the dirtiest tasks and mocked for sitting beside the cinders. My marriage changes that position completely: the girl whose wishes counted for so little becomes the prince's wife. Yet I do not wish to carry my household's cruelty into that new life. At the end, I forgive my sisters rather than seek revenge.

What happens when you try the slipper in Perrault's ending?

When I try the slipper, my story reaches the change that takes me away from neglect and into life as the prince's wife. The girl who sat among the cinders is no longer left in that place. I marry the prince, but that is not the only thing that matters in my ending. I also forgive my sisters. Their treatment of me has been cruel, yet I do not choose revenge when my fortune changes and my position is no longer theirs to decide.

What kind of collection contains Perrault's version of your story?

I know nothing of how my story is gathered into a collection, for my own life takes me from the kitchen to the ball and then to the royal court. What I can speak of is the mixture within that life: hard household work, unkind treatment, a wish to attend the ball, and help from a fairy godmother. There is magic in my change of fortune, but there are also ordinary choices about gentleness and cruelty, including my choice to forgive my sisters.

How do the verse morals frame the tales in Perrault's collection?

I know nothing of verses placed around tales, or of how they frame lives other than mine. What I can speak of is what happens in my own: I am treated cruelly, I receive help, and my fortune changes. Kindness matters in that course of events, both the kindness my fairy godmother shows me and the gentleness I try to keep. My ending includes forgiveness of my sisters, so becoming the prince's wife is not the only important change to consider.

What are you called in Grimms' Fairy Tales?

I am called Aschenputtel in the story you mean. That name belongs to my life among the ashes, where I am made to sleep beside the hearth after my fine clothes are taken away. My mother dies after asking me to remain good and devout, and I stay faithful to her memory. My father marries again, and the household becomes a place of harsh treatment. Still, I long to attend the festival; being kept among the ashes does not take that wish away.

How does the Grimm version begin with your mother's final request?

My mother is dying when she asks me to remain good and devout. Her request comes before my father marries again and before I am made to live among the ashes. I stay faithful to her through the unkindness that follows. That beginning matters because my goodness is not something I take up only when help arrives; it is bound to the mother I have lost. Even when my place in the household changes, I hold to what she asked of me.

What do your stepsisters do to your clothes in the Grimm version?

My stepsisters take away my fine clothes. They also make me sleep beside the hearth among the ashes, so the change is more than a matter of what I wear. I lose the comfortable place I once had in the household and am treated as someone beneath them. They call me Aschenputtel because I am dusty with ashes. Yet taking away my clothes does not take away my faithfulness to my mother or my wish to remain good through their unkindness.

What celebration do you want to attend in the Grimm story?

I want to attend the festival. My days among the ashes do not keep me from wishing to take part in that celebration. At home, my stepsisters have taken my fine clothes and made me sleep by the hearth, but I still have hopes beyond the work and harsh treatment they give me. The wish to go belongs beside my patience and my faithfulness to my mother. I am mistreated, yet I am not without a wish for something happier.

How do Perrault and the Grimms each present your goodness?

In the telling where my fairy godmother helps me, I am gentle despite the dirty work and mockery, and my goodness is clear at the end when I forgive my sisters rather than seek revenge. In the telling where I am called Aschenputtel, my goodness begins with my dying mother's request that I remain good and devout. I stay faithful to her while enduring harsh treatment. In both, I suffer unkindness without letting it become the whole measure of who I am.

How did sitting beside the chimney give you your nickname?

When the dirty work of the house was finished, I would sit among the cinders beside the chimney. That place gave my family the nickname they used to mock me: Cinderella. It came from the ashes around me, not from anything unkind I had done. My stepmother had given me the hardest, dirtiest work, and the name made that lowly place seem to belong to me. Yet the girl beside the chimney was also the girl who longed to attend the ball.

What sort of woman does your father marry in Perrault's story?

My father marries a proud woman who has two daughters much like herself. She is haughty, and her treatment of me is harsh: she makes me do the dirtiest work in the house. I am his daughter, but that does not spare me from being pushed into a neglected place in the household. Her pride stands in contrast to the gentleness I try to keep. What I can tell of her is chiefly shown by the work and mistreatment she gives me.

How are your stepsisters like their mother?

My stepsisters share their mother's pride and haughtiness. Rather than treating me gently, they join in the unkindness that marks my life at home. I do the dirty work and sit among the cinders, and my nickname becomes a way to mock me. Their likeness to their mother is therefore more than a family resemblance; it appears in how they treat someone placed beneath them. At the end, I forgive my sisters. I do not choose to answer their cruelty with revenge.

Why is the contrast between your gentleness and their cruelty important?

The contrast shows that the place I am given in the house does not tell you what sort of person I am. I sit among cinders and do the dirtiest work, while those who mistreat me hold the easier place. Yet their advantage does not make their cruelty good, and my neglect does not make my gentleness worthless. When my fortune changes, I forgive my sisters. That choice matters because I need not carry their manner of treating others into my changed life.

What work does your stepmother force you to do?

My stepmother makes me do the dirtiest work in the house. While her own daughters are treated very differently, I am left with the hard household tasks, and when my work is finished I sit beside the chimney among the cinders. I cannot give you a fuller account of each chore, but the place I am given tells much of the story. I am my father's daughter, yet my stepmother treats me as though my chief purpose is to work and stay out of the way.

How does mockery add to the hardship of your chores?

The work is hard enough, but being mocked makes it hurt in another way. When I sit among the cinders after my chores, that resting place becomes the reason for my nickname. Instead of seeing a girl who has worked, my family sees something to laugh at. I am made to feel small both through the tasks I must do and through the name they give me. Still, their mockery does not tell the whole truth about me, and I try to remain gentle despite it.

Why do you accept your fairy godmother's help?

I accept my fairy godmother's help because I long to go to the prince's ball, and she offers a way beyond the life my stepmother has confined me to. My work and the cinders are familiar, but they are not all I wish to know. Accepting help does not mean that I have forgotten who I am. I can remain the same gentle girl while stepping into a place I could not reach alone. Her kindness gives my wish a chance that household cruelty has denied it.

What separates the kitchen world from the royal court in your story?

From my place beside the chimney, the royal court seems far away. The kitchen world holds dirty work, cinders, and the mockery of my stepmother's daughters; the prince's ball offers a gathering I long to attend. What separates them is not simply a doorway, but the difference between being kept out of sight and being welcomed into company. My fairy godmother's help lets me cross that distance. I do not become worthy only when I reach the court; my gentleness was already mine beside the hearth.

How does your story show qualities that others fail to recognize?

At home, I am known by the cinders where I sit rather than by the kindness I try to show. My stepmother gives me the dirtiest work, and her daughters mock me, but their treatment does not make me cruel in return. That is where my overlooked qualities can be seen most clearly. Later, when I try the slipper and my fortune changes, I am still able to forgive my sisters. The change in my position makes visible what hardship had not taken away.

Why do you forgive your sisters rather than punish them?

I forgive my sisters because I do not wish to answer their cruelty with cruelty of my own. They have mocked me, and I do not pretend that their treatment was kind. Yet when my fortune changes, I choose not to make punishment the purpose of my new life. Gentleness has mattered to me while I had little power, and I do not want to abandon it when my position changes. Forgiving them is my choice, rather than another hardship they can force upon me.

What does sleeping among the ashes show about your place in the family?

Sleeping among the ashes shows how far I have been pushed from a daughter's place in the family. My stepmother's daughters take away my fine clothes and leave me to sleep by the hearth, as though my comfort matters less than theirs. Even my name comes from the dust and ashes around me. Yet that place does not decide what I hold within myself. I remain faithful to my dead mother and to her wish that I should be good and devout, despite the treatment I receive.

How does your story bring kindness and good fortune together?

Kindness and good fortune meet in my life, but they are not the same thing. I try to remain gentle while I am mistreated, before there is any sign that my position will change. Then my fairy godmother helps me attend the ball, and the slipper leads to a very different future. When I marry the prince, I do not leave kindness behind with the cinders. I forgive my sisters, so that the good fortune I receive is joined by the gentleness I have tried to keep.