WORDSPEAK
The Cinderella complex
ANAND
DISCUSSING her recent abdication of the prime minister's post, a political analyst friend of mine said that one reason that Sonia Gandhi took that momentous decision was because she was suffering from the Cinderella complex.
The Cinderella complex is an unconscious desire to be taken care of by others, based primarily on a fear of being independent. Astute "Wordspeak" readers will recogniSe that my analyst friend had perhaps based her observation on Colette Dowling's 1981 book The Cinderella complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence. Since this column is about language, I will let political pundits and Freudian psychologists fathom Sonia Gandhi's motive, and look at one the of most famous eponyms derived from a fictional or historical character in my way.
Cinderella, the fairy tale embodying a classic folk tale myth-element of unjust oppression/ triumphant reward, has been told literally in hundreds of versions before modern times. The story (dating back to 9th-Century China) is said to exist in 500 versions in Europe alone; it was included by both Charles Perrault and the Grimm brothers in their collections of tales. In Perrault's version, the young girl is forced by her stepmother and stepsisters to do heavy housework and relaxes by sitting among the cinders by the fireplace; hence the name Cinderella (little cinder girl).
The version familiar to most Wordspeak readers was a translation of Perrault's Cendrillon, where Cinderella drops her glass slipper on the palace steps. The glass slipper is unique to Perrault's version; in other versions of the tale it may be made of other materials (in the version recorded by the Brothers Grimm, for instance, it is gold) and in still other tellings, it is not a slipper but a ring or a bracelet that gives the prince the key to Cinderella's identity.
Some re-tellers of the story might have thought that glass was an impractical material for a slipper. There have been suggestions that Perrault's "glass slipper" (pantoufle de verre) had been a "fur slipper" (pantoufle de vair) in some unidentified earlier version of the tale, and that Perrault or one of his sources confused the words; however, most scholars believe the glass slipper was a deliberate piece of poetic invention on Perrault's part.
In the original, bloodier version, the first stepsister fits into the slipper by cutting off a toe. But a magical bird tells the prince to notice the blood dripping from the slipper, and he returns the false stepsister to her mother. The second stepsister fits into the slipper by cutting off her heel. But the same bird gives her away. Finally, Cinderella appears and fits into the slipper. In some versions, she has kept its twin in her pocket
Whatever the version, this story of a girl deprived of her rightful station in the family and forced into a life of domestic servitude, has entered language in many guises. As a noun, besides referring to a fictional young girl who is saved from her stepmother and stepsisters by her fairy godmother and a handsome prince, it may be used as an allusion for a woman whose merits had not been recognised but who then achieves sudden success and recognition.
If a person or organisation is described as a Cinderella, it can mean that they receive very little attention and that they deserve to receive more. One example: "It is a Cinderella of charities, and needs more help." Or "Mental health has long been considered the Cinderella of the health service." Americans use it with a slight difference, as an adjective in a "rags-to-riches" context: "She's a regular Cinderella, going from nothing to marrying the governor's son."
The name Cinderella is sometimes also applied to a person or group that undergoes a sudden transformation, such as an athletic or a sports team that loses frequently and then starts to win steadily. In business and finance, a statement such as "While India and China have been the Cinderella markets of the year, some fund managers and investment counsellors have been focusing on Europe" would make perfect sense.
Cinderella in its various versions has been made into books and movies perhaps the most times (332 at the last count). The folk myths and social ethos embodied in it has been a subject of academic study. The fairy Godmother's traditional line "Cinderella, you shall go to the ball!" has passed into common usage from gay culture where the cultural element of the "glamorous transformation" is a source of fascination and humour. Social scientists have shown how different social groups, in re-telling Cinderella, have emphasised or suppressed individual elements and have given them interpretations that are especially relevant within each society.
Just in case the readers ever come across the following two usages: In philatelic usage, a Cinderella is a label resembling a regular postage stamp, but that is not valid for prepayment of postage. In other words, you cannot use it in lieu of stamps. In marine terminology, Cinderella Liberty is shore leave that expires at midnight. Used mostly in foreign ports where the captain is concerned for the safety of his crew or as a subliminal form of punishment.
E-mail the writer at: anand@journalist.com.
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