“Donkeyskin” by Nadezhda Illarionova There is no official or original Cinderella

“Donkeyskin” by Nadezhda Illarionova
There is no official or original Cinderella. Asking where Cinderella comes from is, in the words of modern fairy-tale writer Angela Carter, like asking “Who first invented meatballs? In what country? Is there a definitive recipe for potato soup?” (qtd. in Tatar xiv). Every culture has its own recipe, and one tends to prefer what is most familiar. However, when we taste foods or stories from other times and places, we sometimes find flavors we would like to incorporate into our own cooking—or storytelling, if we haven’t extended the food metaphor too far!
After sampling this week’s collection of Cinderella fairy tales, you may have been surprised by how different some versions of this story are from the one you heard as a child. The image here is an illustration of “Donkeyskin,” in which a young woman must disguise herself to escape her incestuous father. This is quite a contrast to Disney’s Cinderella, which is the most familiar version to our culture.
As you experience alternative versions of the Cinderella story in your assigned reading, what are the striking differences, and what do you find compelling in the versions that were unfamiliar to you? Do the other Cinderellas have something to offer to our time and place?
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The Appeal of the Other Cinderellas