Cinderella & Donkeyskin

I agree with Tatar's point on censorship. By censoring or cleaning up the Cinderella stories readers are missing out on a lot of interesting details that really change how we interpret Cinderella. Therefore, I think Cinderella and Donkeyskin should be studied together because being able to draw comparisons between the two tales helps readers to make new discoveries within the stories and to push further than what they are given. For my post, I will be drawing from The Cinder Maid by Joseph Jacobs.

The most notable discovery between the two stories is the relationship between Cinder Maid/Donkeyskin and the father in the two stories. The version of Cinderella that most people are familiar with only mentions her father within the first few lines and then he dies. These two stories actually include the father and he plays a rather significant role. In The Cinder Maid, her father never meets that ending, but he does seem to willingly allow the step-mother to abuse his daughter. Finally, in the end, in what I'm assuming is supposed to be his redeeming moment (although I didn't feel any compassion for him) Cinder Maid's father finally steps up and brings his daughter into the moment which will ultimately allow her to be with the prince. While in The Cinder Maid her father is present for the duration of the story, Donkeyskin shows a very different relationship between father and daughter. Here, we see a wealthier Cinderella whose father is really a pedophile of sorts. He longs to marry Donkeyskin after his own wife makes him promise to marry someone of equal beauty before she dies. Donkeyskin doesn't want to marry her own father (for good and obvious reasons) so she then becomes the poorer Cinderella that we are more used to seeing.

I like the idea of these stories being studied together because it allows the reader to think beyond the story and wonder "what if?" Cinderella's dad dies but what if he had lived? Would he stand up for her or would he begin to lust after her? What if Cinderella was actually royalty to begin with? Would we even have a story? Studying the tales together doesn't answer the questions because there really isn't a definite answer for fiction pieces, but it does give the reader some sort of satisfaction to have other possible scenarios from which they can pick and choose their own beginning, middle, and end. By censoring the "juicy" details of the story, the reader is never forced to go beyond what they are given.