“There once was” by Margret Atwood

This is a relative unique style of writing of a fairy tale version for Disney’s Cinderella. There are two speaker in the text. Basically, they are building up a story, which is suppose to be a fairy tale, but the second speaker is considering other options when the first speaker speaks infers on the sugar coated details needed for a fairytale. The first speaker says ,[” There was once was a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the suburbs.” That’s better. But I have to seriously query this word poor.” But she is poor! “Poor is relative. She lived in a house, didn’t she?” “Yes” Then socio-economically speaking, she was not poor”. The first speaker was to make a perfect story, while the second is contradicting by bringing up reality opposed to fantasy. The second speaker brings up the reality of what is happening in urban areas. This is the notion of what the  fairy tale should be told a story that others can relate and what the second speaker is trying to do is give insight to the truth on reality of situation and not the glamorized story .

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