Ontological Inertia, Or What One Thinks About When Reading Cinderella For The 20th Time

[woodwardiocom]

One of Roo's favorite books right now is an adaptation of Disney's Cinderella. In the book, both of the glass slippers stay glass after everything else reverts back to non-magical. Anyone got an explanation for that? 'Cause it's buggin' me.

(It also bugs me that there are only three places in the book where you can identify which stepsister is Drizella and which is Anastasia, and they don't all agree! Garumph.)

On a more amusing note, Roo has a habit of pointing out background details, and wordlessly asking what they are:

Roo: [points]
Me: That's a mirror, dear. With a candle in front of it.
Roo: Sconce!
Me: Huh?
Roo: Is sconce!
Me: ...Your mother also reads this to you, hmm?

Comments

[jicama]

Important vocabulary!

[ectropy.livejournal.com]

Could the glass slippers be a side-effect of the translation from French verre (glass) versus vair (ermine fur). Ermine slippers would still be around after magic fails, much as the other fancified clothes would too.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Charles Perrault was the author of the original glass slipper version, and it does not stem from a mistranslation -- that's one of those myths that sprang up later. It was "pantoufle de verre" in Perrault's original text. Anyway, Cinderella wouldn't have had real fancy fur slippers either; they would have been part of the magic outfit, too.

I'm very familiar with this fairy tale (teaching it again this semester) and I'm gonna say there's no explanation! The glass slippers stick around because they just do. A lot of fairy tales have nonsensical details like that. This one is consistent from version to version: the Grimms' Cinderella has slippers made of "pure gold," and they stick around after the enchantment ends, too.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

Ah, but Dorothy's ruby slippers were originally silver slippers, as part of the silver-vs.-paper-money allegory in the book. :)

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Gah, now you're just trolling me! ;) You're right about the silver slippers, but "The Wizard of Oz is an allegory for populism" is another one of those myths that someone came up with much later, to annoy children's lit scholars forever...

[42itous.livejournal.com]

Oh no! I've believed that myth every since my high-school history teacher mentioned it... It seemed so much more plausible than attributing drug references or even pedophilia to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Those are both myths too! Well the drug thing is a myth for sure (thoroughly debunked)... and the pedophelia thing, well, there will never be a final word (because the evidence one way or another just doesn't exist) but of course, that's the thing about myths and conspiracy theories... they may never die if conclusive evidence to debunk them doesn't exist (or even if it does, I guess), but the thing is, THE EVIDENCE JUST DOESN'T EXIST!

Literary scholars have indulged in The Carroll Myth for such a long time by this point, there's reams of stuff on it, lots of it by respected people, which makes it hard to dismiss... yet more recently, ChLit scholars are coming to their senses and calling it just that, The Carroll Myth -- a fantasy about the author's supposed lifelong adoration for little girls that was largely created by the critical establishment rather than on historical evidence.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

I know, I know! I guess people just like a scandal and if there's even a hint of fodder for one they'll create a myth around it. (I had a friend in high school who was absolutely convinced that Paul McCartney had died in 1967 or something like that.)

I'm no expert, but I do think (based on his letters of which I've read excerpts) Dodgson had a genuine lifelong adoration for little girls -- but it was just that, adoration: nothing sexual or untoward at all.

[drwex]

I'm wondering whether you've read Scalzi's column about the "Flying Snowman"? (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/12/11/the-flying-snowman/)

The gist is that for all of us there are things that break suspension of disbelief, even if those things don't necessarily seem big, or seem like the things that objectively ought to make suspension break. In that case, a talking snowman who drank tea was OK, but when he started flying it was too much.

I infer that the glass slippers are your flying snowman.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

You misunderstood Scalzi's point. He says that, given a fantastic story, and a perceived problem, one must ask "whether in the context of the work, this specific thing is inconsistent with the worldbuilding." Given a hot-soup-drinking magical snowman, a flying snowman is not inconsistent, so objecting to it is specifically a matter of taste, per Scalzi. However, the glass slippers remaining glass is inconsistent with the worldbuilding (since the fairy sez it will all change back), and therefore more "objectively objectionable", by Scalzi's standards.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Does it show what the slippers were changed from?

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Maybe this is the key! In Perrault's original, we get these lines (translated): "Her godmother then touched her with her wand, and, at the same instant, her clothes turned into cloth of gold and silver, all beset with jewels. This done, she gave her a pair of glass slippers, the prettiest in the whole world."

Maybe the glass slippers don't disappear because they weren't transformed from Cinderella's old clogs or something. They were a gift from the fairy godmother.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

You comprehensively rock.

[buxom-bey.livejournal.com]

Eeeee! So proud of my bean!

[dancer.livejournal.com]

So cute!

I wonder about introducing Mina to 'the Princesses'. It is a big cultural thing. I don't want her to be that weird kid that doesn't get the reference, but at the same time I'd like her to not assume that girls need to be pretty princesses of need of rescue. Have you guys struggled with this at all?

[buxom-bey.livejournal.com]

A bit. I find myself altering the reading here and there. When they're dancing I add a line about how they "talked and talked and got to know eachother very well." I also adamently leave off the "happily ever after". Yet it's not something we've talked about and I doubt the other adults in house do the same thing.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Like B. says, a bit. Her other favorite book right now is Cars And Trucks And Things That Go, so I think there's balance...

[mizarchivist]

Sconce is a good word.

[minkrose]

I think the slippers are supposed to be a Power of Love hand-wavy thing. Like, of course the fairy godmother wants Cinderella to end up with the Prince, and that won't happen if she allows the slippers to disappear. I'm betting fairy godmothers can make exceptions when they want to!!


I have laughed out loud at "is sconce!" all three times I've re-read this post.

[dani-namaste.livejournal.com]

She found the glass slippers on eBay?