Brainstorm:

When I think about Cinderella as a story, I expect it to include:

• happy ending (for whom?): for everyone, or just for her (and if so, a bad ending for the others, or is she benevolent to them?)
• Cinderella character = stepdaughter (protagonist) marries royalty/nobility
• Cinderella character is inherently good despite mistreatment
• tragic past for C
• C faces hardships
• always a villain
• C mistreated by family (stepmother, step sisters)
• father remarrying after his wife (C’s mother) dies
• C meets a man and falls in love
• karma!
• Animals help out!
• someone mentors/looks out for her
• Readers sympathize with her
• something left behind (shoe, jewelry)
• magic! and it has guidelines and restrictions
• magic ends (at midnight?)
• turning the other cheek–she doesn’t do the same to them as they do to her, doesn’t complain
• C doesn’t tell father/doesn’t have access to him
• C forced to do heavy chores that other don’t have to do
• do they go to a ball/some kind of event geared toward marriage
• violent/gruesome