StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...

Cinderella, or Humans Pursuit of Happiness - Book Report/Review Example

Cite this document
Summary
This paper tries to examine a story's moral and socio-cultural place is the development of human ethics, but will also show that stories can be regarded as the finest, and most probably the oldest way of expressing moral principles and basic human desires in an epic, metaphoric shape…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER98.9% of users find it useful
Cinderella, or Humans Pursuit of Happiness
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Cinderella, or Humans Pursuit of Happiness"

Download file to see previous pages

As the paper makes a synopsis of several versions of "Cinderella", text-to-text criticism will be used to reveal what is different, but also what stays, fundamentally, the same from one country (and consequently, tradition) to the other, where could local influences be found and what are the moral traits and human values cherished by all humanity. Finally, and most important, transactional criticism will be applied in order to reveal new issues regarding a story's possible interpretations. Every story has a happy ending; this very true, but also very obvious statement can be analyzed from many, surprising points of view, but as a primary one, I would like to consider what really lies at the bottom of it.

It is quite usual for a story to have several versions; "Cinderella", for example, has no less than 345 registered versions, and who knows how many unregistered others. Details differ from country to country, from region to region, according to different socio-cultural and even linguistic factors. But what stays the same is the fact that the poor girl will eventually, (and also inevitably) become a princess. Humanity has, at its very basics, one common dream: that of eternal happiness (don't all stories end up with the famous line "And they lived happily ever after").

Here, no matter how different people are due to social, cultural, religious and even financial reason, we will find that seemingly obvious answer to our life's most noble quest: do men deserve to be happy Can they be happy despite their social condition These questions bring the discussion to a more interesting topic, namely: Are stories really intended to be heard only by children Despite all the colorful descriptions and romantic passages, there is one deeper layer to each story, a deeper layer that isn't only an educational one.

Of course, through stories children will learn that it's always better to be kind, but does it really end up here Let us take, for example, "Cinderella" again. She will gain her desired happiness, but only after long years of suffering, and only with divine intervention. Looking at stories from this point of view, we can say that they describe the very nature of humanity: all people have hopes, all people dream, all people do what they think is best; and in the end, when their forces are almost through, they turn to an upper entity, hoping that they will be saved.

Stories thus become the very expression of the human soul, of the human behavior. We are all taught that "good" will eventually bring "good", and that bad will always bring bad. But the most important thing that our childhood heroes show us is that one must never give up hope, that nothing in life comes easy, that even if you work hard you can never achieve anything if you don't believe.Is it really of so much importance if Cinderella's clothes and coach came from a tree she had planted in remembrance of her mother or from her fairy godmother Does it really matter if the shoe she left behind was made of gold or of glass These details differ greatly, and they generally speak about a nation's (or even a region's) traditions and most treasured elements (i.e. "glass vs gold" is only a dispute between two elements that are supposed to symbolize the same thing, namely elegance, delicacy and a superior nature of things; the tree planted at her mother's tomb and the fairy godmother are both the feminine symbol of protection), but the rest

...Download file to see next pages Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Cinderella, or Humans Pursuit of Happiness Book Report/Review”, n.d.)
Cinderella, or Humans Pursuit of Happiness Book Report/Review. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1499207-cinderella-or-humans-pursuit-of-happiness
(Cinderella, or Humans Pursuit of Happiness Book Report/Review)
Cinderella, or Humans Pursuit of Happiness Book Report/Review. https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1499207-cinderella-or-humans-pursuit-of-happiness.
“Cinderella, or Humans Pursuit of Happiness Book Report/Review”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1499207-cinderella-or-humans-pursuit-of-happiness.
  • Cited: 2 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Cinderella, or Humans Pursuit of Happiness

Is Beautiful Body a Guarantee for Happiness

This paper "Is Beautiful Body a Guarantee for happiness" discusses the following issue: the only way to find happiness and fulfillment is through the construction of the 'body beautiful', causing an extreme focus on the outward appearance many times to the detriment of the inner being.... Through the reality shows, though, those lucky few who are able to fit the ideal in any way, to attain the 'body beautiful', much is made of their subsequent happiness and success as a result of their 'improved' appearance....
11 Pages (2750 words) Case Study

Literature Questions

In stories like Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, it is only through the relentless pursuit of dreams regardless of any obstacles that eventually wins the mermaid her prince.... This is a concept that is repeated again and again through literature right into the present age with such stories as the recent remake of the cinderella story Ever After....
10 Pages (2500 words) Essay

Self-efficacy as an Important Criterion of Success

As Betz explains her interest in Bandura's theory emerged in the 1970s when she started her research on the barriers preventing women's pursuit of careers in math and sciences.... According to the report, self-efficacy is an important criterion of success in any field of human activity....
5 Pages (1250 words) Article

Cinderella: Synthesis Activity

An interesting outlook to cinderella story is if it was based on a college campus.... It would be a completely new outlook to how cinderella.... Having different perspectives to the story with different variants of details cinderella and is then perceived differently in all parts of the world.... cinderella just at the age of 10 was ripped off from her mother when she died in a car accident.... At first, she was the nice welcoming stepmother but as soon as she got married to cinderella's father, it was clear that she was after the money only played nicely to attain all the wealth of her cinderella's later mother....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Fairy Tale Cinema: Cinderella

The writer of this paper analyzes the animated movie "cinderella".... he puberty in this regard refers to a process through which girls of an initially high degree of social classes, Snow White and cinderella are reduced to a state of degradation and she has to reaffirm their identities and worth to be heroines.... We see how both cinderella and Snow White are forced by the respective stepmothers to abandon the Princess Title and reduced to housemaid in their own household....
8 Pages (2000 words) Research Proposal

Discussion of Three Wishes for Cinderella and other filmed versions

Her stepmother and sister green-eyed of her beauty, happiness and good-nature, try to saddle her with a life of drudgery.... These acts are majorly out of the scriptwriter freedom of… The filmed portion also reveals extends of exaggeration on action of cinderella and the other characters in the film.... The final symbolism presented by the glass slipper indicates of cinderella ability to comfort to wear and dance with the grace.... The Godmother features on few versions of the cinderella and thus he is uncommon character in the cinderella narrative as elaborated by Perrault's version of the account....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

The Body as Commodity

Through the reality shows, though, those lucky few who are able to fit the ideal in any way, to attain the 'body beautiful', much is made of their subsequent happiness and success as a result of their 'improved' appearance.... It is perceived through these types of presentations that the only way to find happiness and fulfillment is through the construction of the 'body beautiful', causing an extreme focus on the outward appearance many times to the detriment of the inner being....
12 Pages (3000 words) Essay

Cinderella analysis, summary ,essay ,outline

urthermore Perrault places extensive emphasis on the value of beauty to be a critical asset for a woman, whose happiness is directly dependent on her ability to attract a man.... This is a superior lesson that impressionable minds hold to benefit from instead of a heavy reliance on external forces to bring about happiness in one's life; A fact that Perrault cynically hints towards in the conclusion of his story by hinting how even the possession of unique talents might fail to bring an individual success....
2 Pages (500 words) Book Report/Review
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us