The Impact of an Inanimate Object
Fairy tales have been significant throughout much of modern history. Cinderella is one of the most popular and imitated fairytales ever created. There have been over seven hundred versions of the classic Cinderella tale written spanning from ninth century China to contemporary America. One of the most basic and popular classic versions is the Charles Perrault’s, Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper. However, the first written Cinderella story was called Yeh-Shen in 850 A.D. in China, dating back to ancient Greco-Egyptian times (Kellenberger). When analyzing the two Cinderella stories by Charles Perrault and Ai-Ling Louie, the slipper, an inanimate object, plays a major role affecting the characters, plot, and endings of both the stories.
An inanimate object, the slipper, takes a major affect on the characters in different ways throughout both stories. In both version by Perrault and Louie, the slipper completes both Cinderella and Yeh-Shen’s outfits allowing them to proceed to the celebrations within their stories. By completing their outfits, it allows their wishes to come true and raises their spirits in knowing they too would be able to go to the celebrations. In Perrault’s Cinderella, the Prince meet Cinderella and instantly is drawn to her. Before he knows it, his time is about to be through with her, and her doesn’t even know her name. With only the slipper left to find who he had danced with, this inanimate object left him with a feel of desperation to find the woman to which he wants to marry. Similarly, in Louie’s Yeh-Shen, the slipper is brought to the King and “he was entranced by the tiny thing” (16). Without even meeting the person to which this shoe belonged to, he was still curious and wanting to find her just because of the features of the shoe itself.
Both Cinderella and the Prince/King have a positive reaction toward the slipper. In contrary, the stepmother and stepsisters act negatively toward to slipper. In The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, jealousy kicks in and “her sisters burst out a-laughing, and began to banter her” (68) just because the jester asks Cinderella to try on the shoe. This slipper makes them act out, as if could never be hers. They know that the slipper is not theirs, but they “did all they possibly could to thrust their foot into the slipper” (67). This slipper caused them to act out on Cinderella, along with deceive their way to try to be with the Prince. This inanimate object has created hope, curiosity, jealousy, along with deceitfulness in the main character throughout both stories.
Looking at the two different cultures, Perrault’s “Little Glass Slipper” and Louie’s Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story from China bring upon two different shoes. In Perrault’s version of Cinderella, as the fairy godmother grants her last wish to Cinderella, she turns the rags she was wearing into a beautiful gown and upon her feet a pair of glass slippers. The glass slipper is unique to Charles Perrault's version. There has been a lot of debate about the slipper, according to Bruno Bettelheim in The Uses of Enchantment:
In French the word vair (which means variegated fur) and verre(glass) are some- times pronounced similarly, it was assumed that Perrault, on having heard the story, mistakenly substituted verre for vair and thus I changed a fur slipper into one made of glass. Although this explanation is often repeated, there seems no doubt that the glass slipper was Perrault's deliberate invention (251).
Another Scholar who has analyzed Perrault’s Cinderella is Maria Tatar, and according to her “folklorists have now discredited the view the slipper was made of fur and endorse the notion that the slipper has a magical quality to it and is made of glass” (28). Whether the glass slipper was a mistake or not, after multiple debates and by Bettelheim’s conclusion, it appears Perrault deliberately made the slipper out of glass.
From an opposite time period and culture, Yeh-Shen also is granted her shoes by a wish, but from a spirt. The spirt is from the bones of her pet fish her stepmother killed on her, but had come back to her with special powers and grants her wishes. The spirt grants her wish and her rags are turn into a gown and cloak and upon her feet were a pair of tiny golden slippers.