Cinderella On Trial.

[Anonymous]

Reading Longtimelurker's thread on the triangle was so interesting and I ended up here.

I wa doing some narrative work recently with someone. There's an old technique for teaching narrative. I's based on the Cinderella stort, done in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person narrative. Th 3rd person narrative story is the story that you'd write if you were one of Cinderella's step-sister's.

This is a quickie example,

Here goes,

"After my father died my mother re-marrieda man whose wife had died. He has a daughter called Cinderella who is now my step-sister. I have one full-blood sister also. My sister and I have been so miserable since father died and having to leave our friends and school and come to live in 'their' house has been just horrible.


Cinderella is so much prettier than me and my sister, and our step-father is always reminding us of that. He's always telling Cinderella how beautiful she is and he's never once told us we're beautiful. Also, Cinderella gets so depressed all the time and is always bringing up her mother to step-father, in front of us, reminding him how beautiful she was.

i hate it when she does that, it makes our mother sad and depressed, because our mother isn't beautiful, but she's a very hard-working woman. It fels like everytime Cinderella brings up her mother, our step[father distances himself from us a little bit more each time.

And Cinderella gets constantly depressed. We try to kep her mind of it, keep her busy. Mother says this is the best way to deal with depression or depressed people. "Put a broom in their hand," has always been her motto. She's always taught us not to dwell on the past. "Get over it!"

And our mother has insisted that we never mention our father when step-father is around, so why doesn't he make Cinderella do the same thing?...."

I can't imagine ever possibly succeeding in 'making' this step-sister see Cinderella's side of the story, you know, the traditional story we grew up with. She's got so much programming in there. I sometimes think I'm like that with other's. I can only see the world from my experiences and where I sit. But hopefully I'm learning to admit the possibility of other's equally valid, sometimes opposing  'truths'. I wonder what the step-mother's story would read like?

Guest.

[Anonymous]

Yes, thanks Jacmac, and what about the damn father. From Cinderella's point of view, why was he so weak. Sure, I can understand that he wanted her to have another mother, and I suppose he thought that it would be nice for her to have sister's too. But he was just so bloody weak, letting tham bully her like that.

I try imagining being the self-sacrificing, hard-working, self-contained unappreciated step-mother. I'd probably be thinking, "When I married him I told him I didn't want to move into his house, the one he lived in with first wife. He promised me it would only be for a short time and then we'd buy our own home. Now he keeps putting off selling this place and everytime I bring it up he goes quiet, or says, "But this is Cinderella's home. This is where all her memories are with her mother."

Yes, I think 've always had more of a problem with the father than the step-mother. I've often thought  he was weak, and avoided responsibility and conflict. And as a result, his daughter was subjected to terrible bullying. Unfortunately not all bullying stories have such a happy ending. But then I wonder how it really did end.

Did Cinderella marry her father? It wouldn't surprise me if the prince was weak, after all he was impulsive. He only knew her for a couple of hours, and then stalked her, found her, saved her. I bet he was like this because he was the result of an overbearing mother, the Queen. Imagine if she was jealous of pretty Cinderella and hated her son falling in love in love so quickly, and with someone beneath his station. But then I think surely the fairy Godmother wouldn't have allowed another cycle of abuse to continue. I wonder who the narcissist could be in this story.

Oh, enough of my nonsense.

Guest

[Gingerpeach]

Why the Narcissist is Prince Charming, of course !!!  The whole bit about him being a Prince is just one of his grandiose fantasy/lies.  He probably rented the castle for the ball by using someone else's credit card. And the clothes and jewels were probably borrowed.  

And remember, he's really good at coming on strong. As Guest said, he only knew her for a couple of hours and wanted to marry her, for Pete's sake !   Then he stalks her till he finds her.  Goes house to house.   Sound familiar, spouses of Ns?

And he takes her away, alienates her from her family to live alone with him in the big castle.  He probably insisted that she quit her job too. And....and ....and.....undoubtedly, the Narcissist is the Prince and Cinderella is a co-dependent.



Been there, done that........I now have a magnet on my refrigerator that says,

"Princess, having suffered in experience with Prince, seeks Frog !"


Whew !!  Thanks for letting me vent.....this was fun !!!

[Anonymous]

Gingerpeach, that was funny. Well done. It's so obvious, the signature pathology of N lovers, isn't it. Once you know what it is? It's like the old woman young, woman picture. Once you see it, you see it.

Guest