Anne Sexton Cinderella

From Rags to Riches: That Story From a young age, young girls read stories and fairy tales about how the beautiful girl meets Prince Charming. They get married, and live happily ever after. This idea for girls, that one day they will meet their knight in shining armor and live a happy life together, is a warped view of the real world. That will also make their expectations somewhat higher about what their dream guy will be like when they do meet him. Anne Sexton’s, “Cinderella”, can be analyzed using Feminist criticism based on the way that Sexton dislikes this “perfect ending” scenario and that women do not need to marry a rich man to be successful. Sexton starts off the poem with a few scenarios where people become rich in different ways,
“A rich man / . . . took another wife with two daughters.” (23 – 28) The only reason why Cinderella’s step-mother married her father was because of his money. As many depictions of the story of “Cinderella” are told, the step-mother marries for gain, faking love just to obtain the riches and wealth of the man. The greed is evident in any version that a person comes across. Another reason for Cinderella’s step-mother marrying her father would be two step-sisters that come into the family with their mother. The way that Sexton describes the step-sisters, gives a fairly good picture of how the two girls really are. “Two daughters, pretty enough / but with hearts like blackjacks.” (28 – 29) The step-sisters with their blackened hearts, most likely from being spoiled, are also taught a lesson by their mother in any version of “Cinderella”: marry a rich man. That is a perfect example of feminist criticism and what Sexton was so disgusted with in this story and others like
They do what they can just so they can marry the prince, even cutting off parts of their own feet. “The eldest / . . . sliced it off [her big toe]” and “The other sister cut off her heel” (81 - 88) The fact that these two sisters would go as far as cutting off parts of their own feet just to marry the prince is the worst idea possible to have in this situation. That sort of thing is something else Sexton tried to touch on in her poem. Her message in that part of the poem was possibly: women will do anything to marry a rich man, even cause bodily harm to themselves. An example of this in real life today would be the women in China. Women in China believe that small feet are attractive to men, so they bind their feet to make their feet smaller. That in turn causes harm to their feet and can cripple them. For this, an opinion that many have probably heard comes to mind, “if he does not like you for you, then he is not good enough for you.” If a woman tries to change her appearance or personality just to get a husband, there is a strong possibility that things will not work out in the end for the