Cinderella | VHS | Television Commercial | 1996 | Walt Disney
Cinderella (Italian: Cenerentola, French: Cendrillon, German: Aschenputtel), or The Little Glass Slipper, is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression and triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world.[1][2] The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances, that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo in around 7 BC, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered as the earliest known variant of the "Cinderella" story.[1][2][3] The first literary European version of the story was published in Italy by Giambattista Basile in his Pentamerone in 1634; the most popular version was published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697,[4] and later by the Brothers Grimm in their folk tale collection Grimms' Fairy Tales in 1812.
Although the story's title and main character's name change in different languages, in English-language folklore "Cinderella" is the archetypal name. The word "Cinderella" has, by analogy, come to mean one whose attributes were unrecognized, or one who unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after a period of obscurity and neglect. The still-popular story of "Cinderella" continues to influence popular culture internationally, lending plot elements, allusions, and tropes to a wide variety of media. The Aarne-Thompson-Uther system classifies Cinderella as Tale Type 510A, Persecuted Heroine.[
