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Child Abuse and Cinderella: Social Blindness

© Mary C. Legg

Certainly the Grimm brothers were only collecting folk-tales and didn't mean to insinuate any social comments.

A major controversy in literary criticism is the reflection of the writer within his works, but certainly the brothers were sensitive to deprivation and hardship that surrounded them and the plight of impoverished children. No doubt, they were and are powerful advocates of social reform, competing with Charles Dickens for psychological insight and influence. And although, it's tempting to consider only the kitschy Disney version with it's saccharine treatment of Cinderella's neglect with the happily-ever-after ending, a quick look at contemporary news headlines should be enough to convince anyone that the Grimms were grim. True that duct tape is a recent invention with which some parents restrain their children, inadvertantly starving or killing them; but child abuse and neglect is such an ugly aspect of social history that it looks much prettier in technicolor with pumpkins turning into carriages and mice into footmen.

To shrug off the implications of child neglect and abandonment in the story is to be blind to the grave injustices of society. Very likely, the same people who read the schmaltzy picture books as bedtime stories to lull their children to sleep are the same ones who rail against parental abuse and the horrific stories dominating headlines about a child duct-taped into a high-chair, mummified under 42feet of duct tape:

Nando Times Nation: Ex-adoption caseworker gets 20 years in child's death by Clarke Canfield Augusta ME Sept 26,2002 2:47pm EDT http://www.nandotimes.com/nation/story/5...

It's easy to turn away and say, "oh that's Florida or Texas" both infamous for violence and politicians, but when it's across the street, we turn our heads and criticise the drug addicts who have children, excusing ourselves from social responsibility and extenuating the hellish conditions children suffer through neglect or parental abuse. Surely, this is exactly what the Grimm brothers did point at, for the theme of abuse and neglect runs through not only their stories but throughout fairytale and folk literature. The difference is that the better-off members of society read Cinderella as a bedtime story whereas children throughout the world, particularly in the US, live in such conditions without any real justification other than that they are invisible to society. Unwanted as financial or emotional burdens, they are cast aside, abandoned in such horrific conditions that seasoned policemen and reporters are shocked; yet the neighbor next door or the social careworker will glibly say, "I didn't know" or "everything seemed okay". The tragedy is that the Cinderella's of this world are speechless with grief, isolated by silence and social blindness, frequently not able to speak in self-defense or prevail against the oppressive parents and society that expects them to survive.

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