Classic fairy tale storylines can often be sighted in numerous folktales throughout the world. As such, the tale of Cinderella can be observed in such works as Yeh-Hsien, Lin Lan, and The Three Gowns, common fairy tales from China and Latin America, respectively. Although the environment surrounding these locations and cultural characteristics are drastically different, the main ideas behind the stories remain the same, with a young girl being forced to work in gruesome conditions but later entering the royal court. Therefore, a high number of similarities between the tales is present.
The significance of dresses and their emergence in the stories is a consistent pattern in the mentioned fairy tales. The young women protagonists are always provided with colorful, tremendously beautiful dresses, which distinguish from the crowd and portray them as a part of the royalty (Zhang 174). As each woman obtains magnificent clothing, she transforms from a simple worker to a princess, meaning that the dress serves as a means of acquiring a better social status (Zhang 174). It is essential to note that the heroines also possess unquestionable beauty, which is highlighted by extravagant garments. From this perspective, the dresses not only juxtapose the main characters and their surroundings but also multiply their fairness and reveal the beauty of poorly treated women.
However, there are also significant distinctions between these fairy tales. The family relationships vary dramatically in the outlined stories, and the connections between the family members are always unique. For example, in The Three Gowns, the protagonist is forced to marry her own father (Tatar 105). In The Three Gowns and Grimm’s Cinderella, the mother of the main characters dies in the beginning; however, in Yeh-Hsien, it is the father who dies (Tatar 105). As a result, the family becomes broken, and the following events negatively affect the young women.
Works Cited
Tatar, Maria. The classic fairy tales (2nd international student ed.). W. W. Norton & Company, 2017.
Zhang, Aidong. ‘Cinderella in different dresses: From a narrative perspective’. International Journal of Language, Literature, and Linguistics, vol. 4 no. 3, 2017, p. 174-178.