An In-Depth Look at the Character of Cinderella | Cinderella Week

   Hello, everyone!   This week on Friday, the new live-action Cinderella comes out in theaters!   To celebrate, we are having a week full of Cinderella themed posts!   Cinderella is my very favorite Disney princess.   Her story has inspired me for my entire life.   She has always made me want to be a better person.   Today, I'm going to take an in-depth look at the character of Cinderella.

   The story of Cinderella begins by showing us a happy, young Cinderella with her father.   Cinderella's mother had died, and her father decided that Cinderella needed a woman in her life.   So, he marries Lady Tremaine.   At the time, she seemed the best choice.   She was from a good family and she had two little daughters that were Cinderella's same age.   Upon Cinderella's father's death, however, Lady Tremaine was discovered to be a cruel and heartless woman.   She, Anastasia, and Drizilla mocked and abused poor Cinderella and forced her to become their slave.

   The next time we see Cinderella, we see a young girl in her late teens who is still as happy and kind as ever.    Cinderella knows that happiness is not from outward pleasures, but from the heart.   She knows as long as she stays cheerful and keeps looking towards the future that she will go far.   Her only friends are her mice and her birds, but she loves them with all her heart.

   Even though Lady Tremaine, Anastasia, Drizilla, and Lucifer aren't nice to Cinderella or her animals. Cinderella is always careful to make sure that her animals are kind to them.   When Bruno, her dog, dreams that he catches Lucifer, Lady Tremaine's cat, she tells him to learn to like cats and to get rid of his mean dreams.

   In the morning, her stepsisters call for her to do chores for them.   Cinderella is made very busy with many things to do!   She has to do it very quickly, too, or her stepsisters will be angry.   Cinderella never complains to them about all the work she has to do.  She is graceful and kind, even when she isn't treated so.

  When Gus-Gus is found on one of the sister's breakfast trays, Cinderella is blamed and made by her stepmother to do even more chores, including re-doing what she has already done!   This means that she has to take extra time out of her busy schedule to do extra work.   Cinderella tries to explain what happened to Lady Tremaine, but her stepmother won't listen.

   When Anastasia and Drizilla are having their music lesson, a letter is received from a footman.   It is an invitation to a ball at the royal palace.   Cinderella wants to go, and Lady Tremaine says that she can, if she finishes all of her chores.   Cinderella promises to do so.   Anastasia and Drizilla pile on more and more chores for Cinderella to do.

   Cinderella's mice and bird friends feel sorry for her, so they make her a dress from her mother's old dress and things they find around the house.   While Cinderella is busy doing chores for her stepsisters, her mice and birds finish the beautiful dress.   They also take some of Anastasia and Drizilla's things that they had thrown away for Cinderella to use.

   Cinderella loves her dress and shows it to Lady Tremaine.   Anastasia and Drizilla see some of their old things that the mice took and are very angry.   They rip the dress to shreds.   Cinderella is left at home, alone with nothing but her own sadness.   She runs away to the garden and cries.   She begins losing hope that the future will be brighter.

   As she cries, her Fairy Godmother appears.   She encourages Cinderella to keep believing in her dreams, and transforms Cinderella's dress into a beautiful ballgown!   She turns a pumpkin into a stagecoach, the mice into horses, her horse into a coachman, and her dog into a footman.   The Fairy Godmother tells Cinderella that the magic will end at midnight.   Cinderella goes to the ball.

   At the ball, she meets Prince Charming, without realizing that he is the prince.   They dance and fall in love.   Cinderella is talking to him when the clock strikes midnight.   She runs away before the magic ends.   When running down the stairs, she leaves one of her glass slippers.   Prince Charming finds it.

   The Prince begins a search to find the beautiful girl who left her glass slipper.   Back at home, everything seems to have gone back to normal.   Cinderella is being bossed around by her stepsisters again.   Cinderella is daydreaming about the man she met at the ball, when Lady Tremaine locks Cinderella in her room!   The Duke comes to look for the girl at Cinderella's house, with Cinderella unable to get downstairs.

   Thanks to her mice, Cinderella is freed from her room!   The slipper breaks, but Cinderella has the other one.   Cinderella and Prince Charming marry, and live happily ever after!

May all of your dreams come true,
Cindy Rose

(P.S. All images found at Google Images.)