Fairy Tales: The Writing Problem with Cinderella

Okay, now that I've defended Cinderella, here's the problem with Cinderella:

Does anyone really want the story of a life to be, And I was completely and successfully reactive!?

Before I continue, I want to clarify a few things. I enjoy learning about the tale--the history of it--and I highly recommend this book: 

Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella by Paul Fleischman

The tale is old, its tropes are endless, and it has great, relatable themes. It encapsulates fears and hopes regarding the human condition. 

I also should state that I don't blame the Cinderella tale for supposedly brainwashing young women into waiting for a knight/prince ("find the perfect mate" wishful thinking doesn't require outside help). In my upcoming novel Catherine Morland Meets Oedipus Rex, the omniscient narrator states:

Fairy tales aren’t the culprit here. Whatever blame-the-fiction conspiracists want to believe, Isabella [Thorpe] isn’t the product of brainwashing by Cinderella tropes. She hasn’t imbibed so-called patriarchal arguments about a woman’s need to pursue marriage. Rather, Isabella is a product of a culture that says, “You’ve jumped through all the hoops. You’ve proved your enlightened mental framework. Here’s your prize.” The prize doesn't exist. So she and her brother invented it.

If not the tropes, what is the problem with the fairy tale, specifically, its main character, Cinderella? 

The problem is she does little more than endure. That is, Cinderella sits around and waits (patiently, kindly, nobly) for destiny. 

Cinder Edna is much better!

I learned how much I don't warm to the Cinderella character while reading through the Bridgerton series again. The Duke and I is the first Julia Quinn I read. It is quite good and in many ways stands out from the rest. The Viscount Who Loved Me is hilarious (love the mallet of death!). 

The third book in the series, Benedict's story, An Offer from a Gentleman, is a Cinderella tale, and although I can acknowledge that the Cinderella, Sophie, inhabits a difficult position, I ultimately don't care. 

The problem is, Sophie is so entirely helpless. She doesn't write to distant relatives, like Jane Eyre. When she meets Benedict, she is more interested in having a nice evening out than, ya know, looking for a position, improving her lot in life, and gaining a benefactor, as Harriet Smith or Lucy Steele would do. Lucy Steele may have been a user but at least she looked after herself. Likewise, my version of Mrs. Clay knows exactly what she is up against and manages to play the game intelligently.  

For that matter, Sophie doesn't even decide to leave her negative circumstances of her own volition, as do numerous Georgette Heyer heroines. She doesn't take herself back to the Bridgerton house, ask for help, and stick relentlessly around, like the much younger Pamela, out of the firm and intelligent understanding that rushing off and taking whatever comes along next is a supremely stupid thing to do, especially for a young woman in the 1700s/1800s. 

The idea that she is illegitimate and mistreated is used to excuse all this passivity and dumbness. The underlying implication is that trying to better one's life through networking--so one doesn't starve to death in a ditch--is tacky. Books contemporary to the time period addressed the ethics of ladder climbing. Yet even Jane Austen gave us Charlotte. 

Historically, Sophie's limited choices and mindset existed. But those choices become far more limited--and this is an important point--if Sophie wants to stay within a certain class. The truth is, young women in Sophie's situation did live fairly miserable lives. But they often did so because they lingered within the class structure that gave them grief. 

Some ended up with literary revolutionaries similar to Percy Shelley. And he died. Fanny Imlay, Mary Shelley's illegitimate half-sister, killed herself. In the meantime, Mary Shelley wrote a classic.

So unhappy women of that era and that class made do or broke cultural mores, or--and here is where things get truly unimaginable--they accepted a loss of status.

If Sophie willingly accepts that she'll have to spend the rest of her life as a maid, she could make that reality work for her. She could sign with an agency. She could use contacts to track down work. She would rapidly learn that her stepmother has limited power and resources. 

But that's a lot of hard work and critical thinking, which Sara demonstrates in The Little Princess, and a change in mental framework. 

Sophie could make the effort. 

She doesn't. 

It's easy to feel pity for such a character. It's hard to like her. 

The above is not a dismissal of Julia Quinn's work, by the way. I think she does as well with the Cinderella trope as one can. But I recommend her other books first, especially, particularly, the delightful Romancing Mr. Bridgerton.