Women as Princesses: An Analysis of Anne Sexton’s Cinderella

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Women as Princesses: An Analysis of Anne Sexton’s Cinderella
A Different Approach on a Classic Fairy Tale
Fairytales always have a place in our childhood hearts, maybe even up to now. Both children and adults have that desire to live out on their fantasies. However, a classic fairytale we all once knew from a movie will turn into a poetic version from Anne Sexton’s Cinderella. Her perspective will take us into a whole new experience of Cinderella’s misfortunes and as well as her happily-ever-after. Sexton’s approached on the highly acclaimed childhood story is fairly different from what the popular culture and media seem to present to its audience. Supplied through music, television, artists, and books. From the dreamy feels of the character that lives as the knight and shining armor of the story. Up to the real-life character portraying the role, which is never a knight and shining armor but rather ideals our minds set him to be. The audience is conditioned to see that side of his that will make us want a thousand versions of him in real life, but no. These love stories have always set ourselves to the standard and kind of love that every woman would wish for. A prince charming whose fortune is vast and a castle full of gold and servants. Seemingly, forgetting how the characters affect one's lives.
The basis of our childhood relayed on the movies we have watched on Disney where women are always pretty and poised. Sometimes costing women the faces and body of their dream, going under the knife to achieve such beauty that they wish for. In the hopes of becoming the woman, they aspire for, if a little to too many changes in one’s face is done. A far more realistic than to what the fairy tales ignore, to create a more polish and catchy storyline.
Anne Sexton’s version of the Cinderella Story
In Sexton’s poem, the Cinderella is all different from the fairy tale we have watched on cables and pay-per-view. Of course, it is, if not, no one would have wanted to watch it if it was the other way around. It would not have been a children’s fairy tale had it was incorporated with gruesome violence, death, and horrid details. Like how it was with Sexton’s poem, her take was refreshingly different, it has an honest take on what greed would look like in the mind of an ordinary person. In this case, it was about Cinderella’s sister who amputated herself just enough to fit her foot into Cinderella’s shoe, “that is the way with amputations. They don’t just heal up like a wish” (Sexton). As we all know with how the usual story goes, whoever fits her foot into the shoe is the one, that will marry the prince.
Sexton’s ludicrous quote about amputations is a blow to the whimsical and superficial facade, the media, and the popular culture portrays in the entertainment. The scene presented a gruesome twist on how far the sister’s greed will take them. Ultimately, mutilating their own set of perfectl...