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Cinderella: A Casebook
Covering a period of more than one hundred years of work by renowned folklorists, these enlightening essays explore the timeless tale of Cinderella. In addition to the most famous versions of the story (Basile’s Pentamerone, Perrault’s Cendrillon, and the Grimm’s Aschenputtel), this casebook includes articles on other versions of the tale from Russian, English, Chinese, Greek and French folklore. The volume concludes with several interpretive essays, including a psychoanalytic view from Dundes and a critique of the popularization of Cinderella in America.
“Folklorists, scholars of children’s literature, and feminists should appreciate particularly the wide scope of this collection . . . now in paperback with an updated Bibliographical Addendum. . . . Most helpful are the two-page introductions to each variant and to each essay which include a brief overview of the historical times as well as suggested additional sources for more discussion.”—Danny Rochman, Folklore Forum
“A milestone, a near complete source of primary and secondary materials. . . . The selected analytical writing include definitive classic and new discoveries, covering the whole range of methodological modes and theoretical perspectives from early forms and typology to myth-ritual, social-historical, anthropological, and psychoanalytical readings. The annotated bibliography is most helpful, illuminating, and comprehensive, encompassing publications in other Western languages and works by Asianists.”—Chieko Mulhern, Asian Folklore Studies
“One can imagine several dimensions on which psychoanalysts might find such a collection interesting: as examples of applied psychoanalysis, in relation to philosophical and cultural examination of imaginative material, in relation to child development, and in the correlations between folktales of a particular culture and individual histories.”—Kerry Kelly Novick, Psychoanalytic Quarterly
“Folklorists, scholars of children’s literature, and feminists should appreciate particularly the wide scope of this collection . . . now in paperback with an updated Bibliographical Addendum. . . . Most helpful are the two-page introductions to each variant and to each essay which include a brief overview of the historical times as well as suggested additional sources for more discussion.”—Danny Rochman, Folklore Forum
“A milestone, a near complete source of primary and secondary materials. . . . The selected analytical writing include definitive classic and new discoveries, covering the whole range of methodological modes and theoretical perspectives from early forms and typology to myth-ritual, social-historical, anthropological, and psychoanalytical readings. The annotated bibliography is most helpful, illuminating, and comprehensive, encompassing publications in other Western languages and works by Asianists.”—Chieko Mulhern, Asian Folklore Studies
“One can imagine several dimensions on which psychoanalysts might find such a collection interesting: as examples of applied psychoanalysis, in relation to philosophical and cultural examination of imaginative material, in relation to child development, and in the correlations between folktales of a particular culture and individual histories.”—Kerry Kelly Novick, Psychoanalytic Quarterly
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
About the author
Alan Dundes
86 books35 followersAlan Dundes was a folklorist at the University of California, Berkeley. His work was said to have been central to establishing the study of folklore as an academic discipline. He wrote 12 books, both academic and popular, and edited or co-wrote two dozen more. One of his most notable articles was called "Seeing is Believing" in which he indicated that Americans value the sense of sight more than the other senses.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 21, 2026
This book starts with three versions of the Cinderella story that are central to the western versions – Basile, Perrault and Grimm. But as it goes on, the various authors of the chapters give many other versions of the tale including Chinese, Indian, African, Italian, Russian, Iranian and more. Folklorists have a classification system for fairytales and the Cinderella tales often contain variations I guess few of us would necessarily recognise. One of the things I’ve found when discussing Cinderella with students is how few of them know about the Grimm version’s mutilation of feet by the stepsisters. When I mention this people tend to be shocked. And yet, it is a key motif of the various versions. But this book brought out other aspects of the story – that are explicit in some versions and hidden in others – that I’d never really thought about.
One is incest. In some versions of the story, once the mother dies the father tells his daughter he is going to marry her. This is central to some of the Indian versions of the story – which for a while were understood to have been the earliest versions. A point made by one of the authors is that despite India being considered the source of the story, very little work had been done on Indian variations. Then, when an earlier Chinese version of the story was discovered, that again doesn’t appear to have started a search for variations in the Chinese story either. The Chinese origin goes some way to explaining the central idea of Cinderella’s attractiveness given her small feet (lotus feet). However, it is interesting that this feature of the story remained across cultures – even those otherwise not apparently fixated on very small feet. But I was reminded recently by someone that women with small feet are considered attractive in the west too – think Barbie, as a comedian once said, how she is able to stay upright with those tiny feet and huge boobs defies gravity. Presumably, western women are considered attractive in high heels for much the same reason Chinese women were once considered attractive for having their feet bound, not least for the hobbled way that they are forced to walk.
Avoiding incest, particularly with a father, but also a brother, is a key feature of many of the stories. One of the authors also shows a link between Cinderella and Shakespeare’s King Lear. Not only in that it is the youngest daughter who is the true daughter, but also the one Lear loves the most – the other two being prepared to declare the total love for their father, in words, if not in deeds. That Lear and Cordelia are ultimately married in death at the end of the play, and the author says the play was written at about the same time one of Shakespeare’s daughters was about to be married is all interesting speculations, if nothing more.
There were other bits of the story I’d never thought about either. One has to do with transformations. I’d never thought of the transformations of mice into horses and pumpkins into coaches as mirroring Cinderella’s transformation. The base into the beautiful. And the idea of disguise is interesting too. There is a dialectical progressing in the idea of disguise in the story. As is pointed out a couple of times in this, the story isn’t one of rags to riches, but rather from riches back to riches. American versions of the story stress the rags to riches idea, but this isn’t really consistent with the story itself. In this sense, Lady Di is closer to a Cinderella story – at least, up until she is married to a prince – in that she already came from a well-off family, was working in childcare, and then became a princess. Is Cinderella in disguise when covered in ashes? Surely, anyone reading the story and knowing how it is going to turn out would have to think so. But she’s also in disguise when she appears at the ball and is not recognised by her own family – even while she fetes them by giving them oranges and citrons. In some versions of the story her family aren’t fooled and are certain they recognise her, but she makes it home and returns to her rags before they see her. Her foot fitting the shoe, then, unmasks her of her disguise as a poor woman.
One of the authors here suggests that there were no African versions of the story that had not been borrowed from the west – mostly French versions of the tale. This is interesting, since it is generally assumed to be nearly a universal story. All the same, the African version is significantly different from western versions. I think this helps highlight the fact that stories shift to meet the local cultures they find themselves in.
Another book I read a while ago says that Cinderella is an allegory of the Jesus story – and although none of the authors here say quite that, they do make the point that it is a ‘coming of spring’ story or rebirth and redemption – so, much the same thing.
In the Chinese version of the story – I think considered to be the earliest – rather than being helped by a tree grown from a twig from a hazel tree – again, a reference to resurrection – or a fairy godmother – she is helped by the bones of a fish she buries after her stepmother tricked and ate the fish. Being helped by the buried remains of animals is also a feature of many versions of the story. And Cinderella, in earlier versions of the story, is not nearly as helpless as she becomes in say the Disney version. She suggests finding a rat to be transformed into a footman. She also does nothing while her sisters cut off their toes or heels to get their feet to fit into the shoe, when she would clearly have known only her foot would fit it.
The sexual reference here – stressed in Freudian interpretation of the story, where shoes are vaginas and feet penises – is much more explicit in some versions. In Tuscany there are apparently idioms where feet and shoes are explicitly related to human genitals. So, you get expressions such as “é la scarpa pel su’ piede’’ (she is the right shoe for his foot), and for fidelity “due piedi in una scarpa non ci stanno” (two feet can’t fit into one shoe) or for the opposite “se vuoi la mi’ scarpa mettiti il calzino” (if you want my shoe wear a sock – a condom, basically). I’d always thought the Freudian interpretation was really clever, I’d not realised it was almost a literal reading based on idiom from Italian.
The more I read about Cinderella, the more there seems to be to find out about the story. Utterly fascinating.
One is incest. In some versions of the story, once the mother dies the father tells his daughter he is going to marry her. This is central to some of the Indian versions of the story – which for a while were understood to have been the earliest versions. A point made by one of the authors is that despite India being considered the source of the story, very little work had been done on Indian variations. Then, when an earlier Chinese version of the story was discovered, that again doesn’t appear to have started a search for variations in the Chinese story either. The Chinese origin goes some way to explaining the central idea of Cinderella’s attractiveness given her small feet (lotus feet). However, it is interesting that this feature of the story remained across cultures – even those otherwise not apparently fixated on very small feet. But I was reminded recently by someone that women with small feet are considered attractive in the west too – think Barbie, as a comedian once said, how she is able to stay upright with those tiny feet and huge boobs defies gravity. Presumably, western women are considered attractive in high heels for much the same reason Chinese women were once considered attractive for having their feet bound, not least for the hobbled way that they are forced to walk.
Avoiding incest, particularly with a father, but also a brother, is a key feature of many of the stories. One of the authors also shows a link between Cinderella and Shakespeare’s King Lear. Not only in that it is the youngest daughter who is the true daughter, but also the one Lear loves the most – the other two being prepared to declare the total love for their father, in words, if not in deeds. That Lear and Cordelia are ultimately married in death at the end of the play, and the author says the play was written at about the same time one of Shakespeare’s daughters was about to be married is all interesting speculations, if nothing more.
There were other bits of the story I’d never thought about either. One has to do with transformations. I’d never thought of the transformations of mice into horses and pumpkins into coaches as mirroring Cinderella’s transformation. The base into the beautiful. And the idea of disguise is interesting too. There is a dialectical progressing in the idea of disguise in the story. As is pointed out a couple of times in this, the story isn’t one of rags to riches, but rather from riches back to riches. American versions of the story stress the rags to riches idea, but this isn’t really consistent with the story itself. In this sense, Lady Di is closer to a Cinderella story – at least, up until she is married to a prince – in that she already came from a well-off family, was working in childcare, and then became a princess. Is Cinderella in disguise when covered in ashes? Surely, anyone reading the story and knowing how it is going to turn out would have to think so. But she’s also in disguise when she appears at the ball and is not recognised by her own family – even while she fetes them by giving them oranges and citrons. In some versions of the story her family aren’t fooled and are certain they recognise her, but she makes it home and returns to her rags before they see her. Her foot fitting the shoe, then, unmasks her of her disguise as a poor woman.
One of the authors here suggests that there were no African versions of the story that had not been borrowed from the west – mostly French versions of the tale. This is interesting, since it is generally assumed to be nearly a universal story. All the same, the African version is significantly different from western versions. I think this helps highlight the fact that stories shift to meet the local cultures they find themselves in.
Another book I read a while ago says that Cinderella is an allegory of the Jesus story – and although none of the authors here say quite that, they do make the point that it is a ‘coming of spring’ story or rebirth and redemption – so, much the same thing.
In the Chinese version of the story – I think considered to be the earliest – rather than being helped by a tree grown from a twig from a hazel tree – again, a reference to resurrection – or a fairy godmother – she is helped by the bones of a fish she buries after her stepmother tricked and ate the fish. Being helped by the buried remains of animals is also a feature of many versions of the story. And Cinderella, in earlier versions of the story, is not nearly as helpless as she becomes in say the Disney version. She suggests finding a rat to be transformed into a footman. She also does nothing while her sisters cut off their toes or heels to get their feet to fit into the shoe, when she would clearly have known only her foot would fit it.
The sexual reference here – stressed in Freudian interpretation of the story, where shoes are vaginas and feet penises – is much more explicit in some versions. In Tuscany there are apparently idioms where feet and shoes are explicitly related to human genitals. So, you get expressions such as “é la scarpa pel su’ piede’’ (she is the right shoe for his foot), and for fidelity “due piedi in una scarpa non ci stanno” (two feet can’t fit into one shoe) or for the opposite “se vuoi la mi’ scarpa mettiti il calzino” (if you want my shoe wear a sock – a condom, basically). I’d always thought the Freudian interpretation was really clever, I’d not realised it was almost a literal reading based on idiom from Italian.
The more I read about Cinderella, the more there seems to be to find out about the story. Utterly fascinating.
June 24, 2018
"Cinderella: A Casebook" is a great researched book that compare and tell all different types from all around the world. It is a great book for telling the the different elements of the story is used in each continent. However, there were a lot of footnotes and long list of citations after the chapter so beware of that besides that point I think it is a amazing book.
September 1, 2021
Even I'm surprised by how quickly I tore my way through this book. Though academically meticulous, it was also so delightfully 'readable that I had a hard time putting it down and found d myself rushing off to relish another essay or two.
Having become familiar with a few older variants of the story, I was even still surprised to learn how far back the story itself, as well as many of its motifs stretched. And, speaking of those motifs, how extensive and non-Disney they really were.
I think Alan Dundes did an excellent job collecting and annotating the included essays, I really enjoyed the [fairy tale] : a case book concept and I will be definitely be reading more in the future.
Having become familiar with a few older variants of the story, I was even still surprised to learn how far back the story itself, as well as many of its motifs stretched. And, speaking of those motifs, how extensive and non-Disney they really were.
I think Alan Dundes did an excellent job collecting and annotating the included essays, I really enjoyed the [fairy tale] : a case book concept and I will be definitely be reading more in the future.
July 7, 2022
This is another, fantastically well-researched bit of socio-historical overview!
It's definitely not the kind of thing the average reader can really dig their teeth into, but it is just as certainly, a lot more accessible than a great deal of other academic work in the Folklore Field.
This is a critical starting point for anyone with an interest in how culture drives storytelling and vice-versa!
It's definitely not the kind of thing the average reader can really dig their teeth into, but it is just as certainly, a lot more accessible than a great deal of other academic work in the Folklore Field.
This is a critical starting point for anyone with an interest in how culture drives storytelling and vice-versa!
January 7, 2025
super duper interesting book w a lot of essays and thoughts to revisit for my dissertation - can’t wait to get into it and use this book!
August 25, 2025
Note to self: I listened to these three Cinderella tales on Story time for Grown ups but didnt read the bios/introd for each tale.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews