First of all the girl in both stories is described as beautiful and worthy. Also, in the beginning of both stories the mother dies. Then the girl in each story goes through a period where she has to do menial labor and dirty chores. Next, over the course of three balls, each girl has a prince fall in love with her. Both girls go back to their chores after the balls end each night and hide the fact that they went. In both stories the prince doesn't know the identity of the girl he has fallen in love with and must identify the girl. In All Fur he does so by the ring the girl has forgotten to take off her finger. In Cinderella he does so by finding the maiden whose foot fits into a shoe left behind at the ball.
The two stories do have differences though. In All Fur the issue of incest is brought up because the king was told by his late wife that he could only remarry if he found someone as beautiful she was and he decides his daughter is the one.
In Cinderella, the father remarries after his wife dies and the woman he chooses is the one who puts Cinderella to work. The father doesn't do anything to stop his new wife. Though they go about it in different ways, both Cinderella and All Fur seem to cast men in a rather negative light.
Although the tales have differences in the story lines, they both have a main, female character who overcomes some kind of adversity and marries a prince. Both have fathers that are not very admirable and princes that fall in love at first sight with the beauty of the girls. They should be studied together because of their similar themes.
Yea...the two are alot alike, and I would even go on to say they are more alike than different. I think that we as readers are inclined to see them separately because of the fact that in Donkeyskin tales incest is involved. We are so morally against this (and so we should be) that its inclusion may prompt us to think it can not be read with Cinderella tale types. But as you, I, and other bloggers have realized, they really can be read together, and even more maybe they should. It adds a little variety to the tale type while not straying very far from the original essence of the tale.
ReplyDelete"Although the tales have differences in the story lines, they both have a main, female character who overcomes some kind of adversity and marries a prince. Both have fathers that are not very admirable and princes that fall in love at first sight with the beauty of the girls."
ReplyDelete-But can you really think of a classic fairy tale in which this isn't the case? Therefore, why group these 2 together and not the others (Snow White, Little Mermaid, etc.)
"They should be studied together because of their similar themes."
-But what are the similar themes? Isn't the driving force of one a father's incestuous desire and of the other a stepmother's jealousy? Is there a legitimate reason to group these two together in a way that still excludes other tales? Maybe its just because of surface elements like the fitting of the shoe/ring, the ball, and the chores.