The story of Cinderella is very unique, and the way the Brother’s Grimm told it, and the way the Indian Cinderella did, makes the two quite different. They both have the same plot, a misfortunate girl with a hidden beauty who lives with two evil stepsisters and a stepmother who torture her. She’s forced to act like a slave to them, and constantly works hard. In the ending of the story Cinderella finds love and gets married, living happily ever after. How she finds her happiness and her husband though is different between stories.
The Brother’s Grimm version of Cinderella, tells the tale of the underprivileged girl, who visits her deceased mother’s grave every day to weep for her. When Cinderella discovers the news about the king’s festival, she wishes she could attend. Her stepmother, and two step sisters attend the festival, and Cinderella is given three days of beautiful dresses by the help of two white doves. On the last day of the three-day festival, she loses her golden slipper. The prince sets out to find his mystery woman, and sets out to her home. Her two step-sisters try to fit themselves in the shoe, one by cutting her heel off, the other her toe. The prince notices the blood and sends them away. In the end Cinderella puts on the shoe in front of him, revealing a perfect fit. He then takes her away, where they get married and live happily ever after.
The Indian Cinderella is quite different from this version. The prince is in the form of a great Indian warrior, Strong Wind. He is seeking a wife, and the way he plans to find the one is with a clever trick to test their truthfulness. Strong Wind’s sister was the only one who could always see him, but nobody else could. She would take girls down to the shore, and ask them: “Do you see him?” Every girl would untruthfully answer yes, and then his sister would ask: “With what does he draw his sled?” The answers would vary from a moose, a pole to a cord made of animal hide. Many girls tried and failed to pass the clever test.
The Cinderella in this story was the youngest of three daughters to an Indian chief, and the most beautiful. After her two older, evil, sisters sought to pass the test and failed, she went out to complete the test herself. When asked the questions by Strong Wind’s sister, she answered them truthfully, saying she did not see him in the sky, and at that moment, knowing she was telling the truth, he revealed himself, and she answered the second question correctly saying he pulled his sled with the rainbow and his bowstring was the Milky Way. The sister took her home and prepared her, where she then was met by Strong Wind himself, where they got married and lived happily ever after.
Both stories end with a happy ending, the kind of ending every fairy tale completes itself with. They’re similar in that aspect, and their plots are alike as well. The character’s characteristics vary as well as the setting, and I think the morals to the two are different as well. The moral for the Brother’s Grimm version is to always be kind, and stay true to yourself, while the moral for the Indian Cinderella is to always be truthful.
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