Cinderella and Donkeyskin

Cinderella and Donkeyskin stories have a few important similarities, all duly noted by Tatar: there’s the occasional “perfect fit” episode, the unnatural parent (lustful father or evil stepmother), and the beautiful, young heroine who must engage in domestic chores. And yet these likenesses pale in comparison to the endless array of differences that serve to wholly separate the tales from one another.

In Cinderella stories, Cinderella is usually from a family of middle to upper class stature. These stories polarize the women of the stories into two separate categories: young, beautiful, good, virtuous Cinderella vs. old, sexualized, conniving, evil stepmother. Her father is generally dominated by the stepmother or non-existent. A godmother, a bird, or some other fantastical creature that grants wishes aids Cinderella. The prince wants to marry her for her grace and beauty.

In Donkeyskin, the girl is almost always a princess, and thus comes from royal standing. That in mind, her story is not rags-to-riches but rather riches-to-rags-to-riches. Her father has incestuous desires, driving the girl from her home with his sexually deviant behavior. The girl is usually aided in her escape by some sort of household servant, but is given more agency, more choice than the girl of Cinderella stories. In other words, the girl senses danger and makes the decision to leave her father, instead of tolerating “danger” (the stepmother’s cruel designs) and wanting to attend the ball simply for fun or as a reward for hard work. There is a true threat in Donkeyskin stories, that the girl must escape in order to retain her pure innocence. Furthermore, in Donkeyskin tales, the prince takes notice of her for both her beauty and her domestic skills (she usually must cook him something or perform some other household duty for him). Thus, chores in this type are a driving force in why the prince wants to marry her, rather than being the activity hindering her from her chance of so much as meeting the prince.

To take a specific example, “The She-Bear”, Giambattista Basile’s version of Donkeyskin, eliminates the common element of the three dresses and instead focuses only on the animal-esque costume. The girl does not ask her father for unusual attire, and he does her no pre-wedding favors, but rather the girl escapes by transforming into a bear by placing wood in her mouth. In bear form, she is favored by a prince for her docile, tame behavior. He sees her as a maiden when no one else is looking and then, while ill, asks the mother to have the bear attend to him, cook for him, etc. The girl is never shown in exquisite finery (as she would be in one of the three unique dresses), but is herself instead – beautiful, tender, obedient, and domestically talented. Their wedding essentially restores her to the princess status that she gave up at the start of the story.

While I agree with Tatar’s belief (p.103) that it’s necessary to engage in multiple variants of both Cinderella and Donkeyskin stories in order to understand all of their similarities, I don’t see that studying these two AT types together is any more beneficial than comparing any two other mildly related AT types. In fact, I believe that initially looking at both tale types at once can cause the reader to lose sight of the myriad nuances prevalent within the same tale type.