Cinderella and Donkeyskin

I agree that these stories should be analyzed together. I think that both types of stories are different from one another, but they mirror each other and have many similarities to the point that we will actually learn more if we analyze them together. If I had read the stories separately, I probably would not have compared the father or mother figures for example. I think if we do compare them, we learn more about fairy tales in general than if we were to analyze them separately. For example, lets take the father in both of these types of stories. In Cinderella, the father is generally nonexistent. He is either absent, or he lets the stepmother take over, and the reader does not even realize he is there. In Donkeyskin, the father is the source of the problem. He has sexual desires towards his own daughter and this freaks her out so much that she is forced to run away after it is clear that he will not give up in trying to marry her. If I were to analyze these stories separately, I would simply talk about how the fathers in fairy tales are apparently bad fathers. Maybe a lesson to be learned would be to be a good father, and you will not have any problems with your daughter. A good father would have made the stepmother treat Cinderella better then they are just a happy family. A good father would not have tried to marry his daughter and they could have lived on happily. So, we should focus on being good parents and remaining a happy family. This is good to realize, but we can take it a step further when we compare the two stories. Once we compare them, we realize that Cinderella is popular and Donkeyskin is not. This could be because the father is generally nonexistent in Cinderella. This takes the focus off of him, so we do not realize that he is the bad father. People would rather believe that the father does not exist or remains in the background as a neutral character than believe that the father would be the one to cause problems. Now we can analyze the psychological aspects of the audience and we could probably keep taking everything one step further. We can do the same for other aspects of the stories as well. Comparing the stories allows us to analyze these stories on a whole new level.

Also, on a side note, I found it interesting that these stories, although they had their major differences were actually very similar. On the Ashliman website, there were even some stories such as "The King Who Wished to Marry his Daughter" that combined the two stories. This story started out as a Donkeyskin type of story and ended with the prince finding the princess' shoe and trying it on everybody until he found her. This shows that these stories have great similarities, so it would be stupid not to compare them.