Jason       Caminiti
1     /    21       /    96
Dr.           Williams     

The American way of life contains the ideals of personal sacrifice and self aggrandizement. This is not thought to be horrible, even when used in unison, as long as it is to achieve a larger goal later in life. In The Brother's Grimm version of the fairy tale "Cinderella," "Aschenputtel" there are two such incidents, of how a parent can encourage a child to destroy a part of themselves in the attempt to gain power, and money. It shows how one could compromise one’s physical, or mental, well being for personal, even selfish gain. The problem is that in doing so you may be hurting yourself in the long run. Damaging yourself beyond the ability for you to ever bounce back. Even if ones physical ordeal rights itself, they may never regain their pride and dignity.

In one part of The Brother's Grimm version of Cinderella "Aschenputtel" the prince is trying to find the girl who he fell in love with earlier in the story. In order for him to know it is the girl he fell in love with, that girl must fit into a shoe, which she dropped on the stairs on the way out of the ball that they were at. When the two daughters find out about it they, of course, feel that they are the one who will fit the shoe that was left behind at the ball. When the shoe turns out not to fit them they are encouraged by their mother to sacrifice a part of their bodies to get their foot into the shoe. The first sister cuts off her toe at the mother's request. The second sister chops off a part of her own heel in order to fit the shoe. The theory is that the daughters will not have to work if they become Queen. Even though the path they take to get there is paved with lies and deceit, they will never have a need to walk again. So sacrificing a part of themselves now, or their well-being, is acceptable because of what they may get in return, a cozy life as queen of the land, in which they will no longer even need to walk.

In America today you can see this mentality in many facets of our society. Many small businessman start their companies on very shaky grounds. They make personal sacrifices by putting their entire expense account onto their personal credit cards. They take out loans from banks, and as many friends as they can get to give them the money they need. This may not seem like such a problem, however there is no guarantee that they will succeed in their ventures. Many of them will fail, and be permanently damaged by their sacrifices. This is not unlike the story in many ways. The sisters are encouraged by their mother to sacrifice parts of their bodies, making them unable to ever walk the same again. Her idea is that they should give up this part of themselves now in order to become the Queen. In other words, get what you can any way you can even if you must sell your soul in the process. The business men I am referring to are putting themselves out on the line and figuratively sacrificing a part of themselves without the express knowledge that they will be set up, and provided for later in life. However they do this because of the power that there parents hold over them. Perhaps not their literal parents, maybe more in the figurative sense. The “parent” in this case is american society, this parent has molded them to believe in the ideals of personal sacrifice for the promise of financial well-being.

Not only Businessmen sacrifice themselves for future gain. In some cases it is the exact opposite. Many people around Christmas time go shopping with nothing but their credit cards in hand. They charge them up to the limits even though they don’t, at that moment, have the ability to pay them off. This is in effect cutting off part of your future to gain material things today. In fact this is one of the most startling, and sad commentaries on present America. The ideals seem to follow this pattern, in effect you are crippling yourself in the future by making the decision to use the credit card. You will have to deal with the hassles of paying back the company, which will put you in a position of having to work overtime in order to do so. This will take away much of your free time and leave you wishing you hadn’t pushed it off on your future self.

In many ways our folklore, and fairy tales have influenced our culture. However, it is more likely that they serve simply as an outside observer, perhaps even a reminder. This tale has many links to our modern world. Even though this was written in the 18th century, it shows us how there are recurring ideas in fiction. It is amazing that this work can show us so much about ourselves, and our society. In this story the mother influences her young through experience and twisted reason. It could be debated that this is also true in our society. Our “parents” or the authority figures in our lives control us with the same type of power. This story just shows us that we must develop our own reason, and not be influenced by power, greed, and blind blind faith.

This essay is Copyright (C) 1996 Jason Caminiti.

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