著者

野口 芳子 Yoshiko Noguchi

雑誌

武庫川女子大学紀要. 人文・社会科学編 (ISSN:09163115)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.58, pp.1-11, 2011-03-31

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'Cinderella', one of the most popular fairy tales in Japan, is known as the version of written text by Walt Disney. However,' Cinderella' is not a literary work, but folklore, which has been orally handed by European folks from generation to generation, and collected by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm in their books of fairy tales. In this paper, I take up the text of' Cinderella' from Grimms' Fairy Tales and try to interpret the meanings of metaphors in this folklore. Through the research for this paper, the image of the heroine changes dramatically. No fairies and no glass slippers appeared in the text, but only a hazel twig and golden slippers appeared there. These differences give the heroine quite a different image. Being passive and obedient, the heroine changes into a proactive and powerful woman. Despite the word' Cinderella-Syndrome', which represents women who remain passive and just wait patiently, the European folklore depicts Cinderella as a clever, nasty and athletic woman. This paper offers a challenge to conventional ideas about Cinderella from the perspective of history, ethnology and Gender-Studies.