Once upon a time, Cinderella fell out of favor.
In the 70's, feminists found her insipid, waiting in the ashes for her prince. But they didn't give her enough credit.
Teaming with the spirit of her dead mother, Cinderella cleverly rescues herself from servitude. Conjures up her own glittery makeover then saves the prince from the same torment she endured living with her hedious stepsisters.
The Grimms' version doesn't end with any Disneyesque pablum about Happily Ever After. It finsihes with a gory Hitchcockian wedding scence feauturing two vengeful birds from the grave of Cinderella's mother: as the bridal party leaves church, the white dove's fly from Cinderella's shoulders to pluck out the eyes of the wicked stepsisters.
Those unsisterly sisters messed with the wrong girl.
In real life, however, many of our Cinderella brides have taken tragic turns, from Jackie Kennedy to Grace Kelly to Carolyn Bessette to the doe-eyed Diana Spencer.
Yet the power of the fairy tale was vividly illustrated once more with the luminous wedding of comely commoner Kate Middleton to a charming Prince William, and a hypnotic new film adaptation of " Jane Eyre", Charlotte Bronte" gothic take on the Cinderella story.
The enduring fable is a female version of " The Odyssey". Our herione, starting with a family disadvantage, facing hypocrises, cruelities and obstacles, on a periolous journey to a thrilling new world, and uses her wits and integrity to triumph.
The new christened Duchess of Cambridge only had to rise above a middle-class background, the hydra-headed press beast, and Will's understandable hesitation about marriage.
But her task is herculean: to help save a stiff-necked monarchy sent into a shame spiral by Diana's humilation's and confessions.
A central element of Cinderella's, Jane Eyre, and Charolette Bronte' herself was a mystical connection to a mother who died too young. And that certainly was present at Westminister Abbey, but this time the bride lamented the mother-in-law she would never know.
Jane Eyre is not as lovely as Kate Middleton. Charlotte Bronte,' who never felt attractive herself, wanted to show her sisters that a plain herione could be as compelling as a beautiful one.
Poor little Jane also had a wedding, wearing a beautiful white dress and veil, to the wealthy man of her dreams. When the wedding is shattered by the news that there is already a Mrs. Rochester, Jane listens to her former master's anguished explanation about his mad, vamparished wife in the attic.
He begs her to stay and be " my comforter, my rescuer." When a dazed Jayne goes to bed, she looks out the window and sees the moon start to blaze as if " a white human form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthwind. It gazed and gazed on me. It whispered in my heart, ' my daughter, flee temptation."
Jane answers," Mother, I will." picks up her slippers and flees Thornfield Hall.
In the end, after Rochester has been widowed and mutilated for his sins, Jane returns. She rescues her dark prince as he recues her.
When Rochester first meets Jane, he calls her a " curious" sort of caged bird. " a vivid, restless, resolute" one.
When she returns and sees him blind, with one hand gone, she describes him as a " caged, eagle whose gold-ringed eyes cruelety has extinguished."
Now on a footing of equality, because she has inherited money, and is less dependent on him, and he has lost his mansion and sight and is more dependent on her, they release each other from their cages.
Reader, she marries him. It's a bare-boned ceremony with only a parson and clerk present. There's no coach or tiara. But it' s very much a Cinderella ending.
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