“Cinderella” By: Anne Sexton What an imagination!
In the poem Cinderella by Anne Sexton, she starts off with different folktales that talked about many individuals who went through being impoverished throughout all of their lives until one day luck came upon them and they went from “toilets to riches”. Beginning in the 16th century the original story of the fairy tale we all know as Cinderella was told by Charles Perrault, under the name Cendrillon. As time progressed over the years the story of Cinderella changed and was published under many names in different version. In the poem Cinderella by Anne Sexton she wrote her story off of the Grimm’s Brothers version of folktales; which came out in the 18th century. The Grimm’s version of Cinderella is about a young lady, who after her mother died was treated poorly by both her father, stepmother, and stepsisters. As they felt that Cinderella wasn’t pretty enough to eat/be around them, she then became their housemaid and was treated poorly with disrespect and cruelty. Then one day, her father went on a trip to the market and asked all his daughter what would they like for him to bring back, his stepdaughters asked from jewels and dress, but Cinderella asked for the first twig to brush off his hat and that’s what he did. That same night she went to the grave where her mother was buried to plant it, and as she wept her tears grew and sowed a beautiful tree that had a white bird who grew fond of it and every time Cinderella wept and prayed the bird granted her wishes that were made. Now in the story it was time for the Princes Ball which was where the Prince looked for his true love. And of course Cinderella was not allowed to go because her stepmother was as ashamed of her, so each night of the 3 day ball she wept and wished to be able to go and each time the bird dropped her a beautiful and even more magnificent dress then the one before. As the nights of the ball ended at 12am Cinderella had to run home so she won’t be caught but on the third night the prince learned her ways and placed a trap in the steps and as she ran off her shoe was left behind and at the end of the story the prince finally found this mysterious beautiful woman and grew happy-ever-after. As the poem ended in the last stanza Anne Sexton stated the Prince and Cinderella were “never bothered by diapers or dust, never arguing over the timing of an egg, never telling the same story twice, never getting a middle-aged spread, their darling smiles pasted on for eternity. Regular Bobbsey Twins.” I feel like she added this statement because what is happily ever after if you’re not experiencing true life, it means you’re just stuck in an imagination thinking of true happiness. As she relates to the Bobbsey Twins who were stuck in an imaginary world controlled by a person’s mind who believed going in different adventures were a real meaning of “living happily-ever-after”. So going from “toilets to riches” and “rags to riches” is just an imagination that is told of an imagination of what true reality is.