“A Cinderella Story”
The roles of women throughout the course of history have been subsidiary and assigned, but even in present day there are messages in various mediums suggesting the same values of society have not progressed. In analyzing and comparing Anne Sextons “Cinderella” to the HBO original series “Sex and the City” one can see the restrictive goals set for women by society.
In both “Cinderella” and “Sex and the City” there are multiple women in the story all with individual personalities good and bad, but the difference in modern times is they should not have the ending, but they do. This reiterates the argument that every story, regardless the medium, is a version of the story “Cinderella.”
In Anne Sexton’s poem “Cinderella”, the theme of marriage bleeds throughout the body of work. The reader is overwhelmed with the sense of urgency. The ultimate goal for Cinderella is to be rescued by a prince. The story gives the reader the impression that the only way for a woman, in any situation, to escape is to have a man rescue her from her own misery. By the last stanza Sexton writes “Cinderella and the prince lived, they say, happily ever after, like two dolls in a museum case 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. That story.” This is where Sexton exhibits the standards that have been imposed on women for centuries. “Cinderella” is not a story of independence; it is a story of women’s dependency on men.
Even though written in the 1970s Sexton perpetuates the cycle of dependence women have been viciously stuck in for centuries. The only leading female roles are either wicked or subordinate, this makes them weak characters. The weak characters are as follows, Cinderella’s mother is deceased, therefore forcing Cinderella’s father to marry a woman, her stepmother, who is evil and harsh toward Cinderella. The two daughters of the stepmother are shallow, mean and a product of a wicked woman. In the text it describes the step-family as “The man took another wife who had two daughters, pretty enough but with hearts like blackjacks.” And finally Cinderella herself is a weak character with no means of independence she is defined as “Cinderella was their maid.” Each of these weak characters collectively gives the reader the impression that the only way for a woman to escape a horrible life surrounded by woman is to be rescued by a man. But the only way to escape is through the marriage.
In the poem it illustrates the urgency experienced by Cinderella “Next came the ball, as you all know. It was a marriage market. The prince was looking for a wife. All but Cinderella were preparing and gussying up for the event. Cinderella begged to go too. Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils into the cinders and said: Pick them up in an hour and you shall go. The white dove brought all his friends; all the warm wings of the fatherland came, and picked up the lentils in a jiffy. No, Cinderella, said the stepmother, you have no clothes and cannot dance. That's the way with stepmothers.”
The poem then shows the lengths that women will go to because of that urgency to convince a man to marry her. Sexton writes “Now he would find whom the shoe fit and find his strange dancing girl for keeps. He went to their house and the two sisters were delighted because they had lovely feet. The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on but her big toe got in the way so she simply sliced it off and put on the slipper…The other sister cut off her heel but the blood told as blood will.” Then when the two step sisters realize their fate of being alone the author eliminates them from the story. It says “At the wedding ceremony the two sisters came to curry favor and the white dove pecked their eyes out. Two hollow spots were left like soup spoons.” This is gives the reader the impression that if one loses the chance to be married, they should just disappear. It also illuminates the competition and hatred women have for each other when a potential husband is involved. This selection also affirms the weakness of Cinderella with her inability to stand up for herself. Even with the man, she needed someone else, that being the dove or her mother incarnate, to fight her battles for her.
In the television show “Sex and the City” there are four female characters that represent the four varying sides of a woman’s personality. The first character introduced Is the strong, successful woman that is perpetually single, called Miranda. Then there is the overly sexual woman known middle-aged female known as Samantha. Next the show introduced the marriage focused socialite known as Charlotte and finally there is the serial dater known as Carrie.
Each of these characters has strong positive personalities, strong careers and are ever evolving women, but eventually the story becomes the familiar story of “Cinderella”.
The series mirrors “Cinderella” because at the end of the series each character is rescued by their prince. At the end of the series the character of Miranda’s story line end by her marrying the man with whom she has a child. Samantha’s character develops cancer which causes her to lose her sexual drive, but then miraculously gains it back through her much younger boyfriend. Charlotte marries her second husband and adopts a child. And finally the main character Carrie moves to Paris to be with her current boyfriend, but as things fall apart her one true love rescues her and brings her back to New York City this being undoubtedly like the ending of the Anne Sexton poem “Cinderella”.
The endings to each story line is the same, they all eventually rescued from themselves by a man who they could not realize was the one for them. In the story of Cinderella it states “Now he would find whom the shoe fit and find his strange dancing girl for keeps. He went to their house…” showing that a woman cannot find her prince, he finds her. The “Sex and the City” story of Carrie ends with her prince finding her in Paris a familiar theme. Each story ended with a varying version of the well known Cinderella story with the happily ever after ending.
Individually all of these women needed a man at the end of the series in order to satisfy the societal for a group of intelligent women to be rescued by a man. It was necessary for the ground breaking show, which allowed women to openly talk about topics that had been taboo until the last decade, to recant all that it stood for by tying each story end with the acceptance of American society.
Both the story “Cinderella” and “Sex and the City” were written by women. This being true, one may think that the old and tired ending of a handsome strong man saving a helpless damsel in distress from herself, would be avoided.
But in many cases the audience does not want to see the woman alone. In order to appease the audience it is necessary to follow the guidelines set by society. Those guidelines being a woman can be free, independent, intelligent and successful, as long her story ends with a man by her side. Because a marriage to man is the true ultimate goal for a woman in any time period no matter how successful the woman may be.
Each of these story lines are entertaining, and in fact do just that, entertain the American public. But the societal pressure for women to find their prince bleeds into this entertainment that is absorbed by all those who participate. And entertainment at the heights it is today positively and negatively influences the American public. As long as influential bodies of work continue to fall into the pressures of societies need to see a married woman they will continue to be feeding the theory that every woman needs a man to make things better for her.
