“A dream is the wish your heart makes when your fast asleep.”(Walt Disney) These are the ideas that are related to young girls all over the world through the telling of stories like the famous Cinderella. I never really thought about what a positive influence these stories have on our children. I know that there has been allot of controversy about tell fairy tales to our children and how stories like these demoralize females, by making them think that a female needs a man to be rescued. Anyone who thinks this way has never really read the story because this is a strong young girl that over comes all the pain and mistreatment she has to endure, and still believes that her dreams can come true.

Cinderella is written in more than 350 to 1500 different versions. The first written version of Cinderella has been traced back to the 1st century BC. This was the tale of an Egyptian servant girl named Rhodopis this is considered the oldest known version of the story. Another early version was written in China between 850-860 CE(common era. It was put to page by a family servant named Tuan Ch’eng -Shih. It was the story of a girl, named Yeh-shen who’s step mother treated her horribly. The young girl befriends a magical gold fish that is said to contain the spirit of her dead mother. When her step mother finds out about the fish she devises a plan to kill the fish, but the bones still hold the magic and help the girl attend the festival where she looses her slipper and the king finds the slipper. He returns the slipper and they live happily ever after.

The Scottish version (Rashin Coatie)In this version the girl’s mother returns as a calf but is killed by the evil step mother. Even after her death the mother’s spirit remains to help the girl gain her freedom from the servitude of the step mother. The German version was written by the grim brothers but not as a fairy tale for children but as a story to entertain adults. In this story the girl plants a tree over her mothers grave and the dress falls from the branches. The tree also shelters the doves that help and protect the young girl. When the prince is looking for the wearer of the slipper the step sisters go so far as to cut off parts of their feet to make the shoe fit. In the end for their mistreatment of the girl the doves peck out the eyes of the evil step sisters.

A French man named Charles Perrault wrote his version in 1697. In his version the fairy god mother takes the place of the dead mothers spirit. His version also includes the use of the pumpkin, the mice and the glass slippers. This is the most well known version of the fairy tale and the one that was used by Walt Disney to immortalize the story in 1950. In 1817 the composer Giochino Rossini turned the story into an Oper ca,lled “La Cenerentola”, and
Roger and Hammerstein turned the story into a musical theater production and has been produced for television three times in 1957, 1965,and 1997.

In 1960 Cinderella changed gender when Jerry Lewis played Cinderfella in the movie version of the story. Though each country has their own version of the beloved tale the moral of the story is still the same never give up and never stop dreaming.