KidLit Forum

Cinderella
By Anne Sexton
This poem of Sexton tells the old story of Cinderella, but there are some important differences. Firstly, here the father, after marrying another woman, begins to love and appreciate more his two step daughters for whom he brings presents (dresses and jewelry) and Cinderella only receives a twig of a tree. Sexton has a different perspective on this well known story. She has different opinions on the happily ever after ending. Actually, she mocks the ending of the story: “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.”

I think she perceived the ending as fake and tried to tell a story more human. I believe that this retelling of Grimm’s version of Cinderella keeps the original story’s elements, but adds new feminist themes and comparisons (for example: “with hearts like blackjacks”, “like two dolls in a museum”, or “Regular Bobbsey Twins”).

Sexton’s weapon is mockery. We have the comparison of the ball with a marriage market. Also, she mocks the violence from the original story saying: “That is the way with amputation. They don’t just heal up like a wish”. This is the moment when prince charming seeks for the girl from the ball using her shoe and Cinderella’s sisters cut their toes so that their feet would fit.

Also, there is irony when Cinderella receives a dress for the ball from the drew: “Rather a large package for a simple bird”.

There is a serious mockery on the society because at the beginning of the poem we see that the material things are very important (clothes, bags, shoes) and the reference to Dior is the firt one for this. But at the end we can see that these things don’t matter and we can tell this from Cinderella and Prince Charming’s fate as dolls.




Bibliography: Sexton A. Cinderella from Transformations. 1971 http://www.sfu.ca/sfublogs-archive/cour ... exton1.pdf

Thank you, Ruxandra, for breaking the ice!

It’s nice you have discovered Anne Sexton and her haunting Ariel poems. We will talk about her towards the end of the semester, when we reach modernist and after-war fairy tales.