Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Scripps Senior Theses Scripps Student Scholarship 2012 Unbreakable Glass Slippers: Hegemony in Ella Enchanted Tori Shereen Mirsadjadi Scripps College Recommended Citation Mirsadjadi, Tori Shereen, "Unbreakable Glass Slippers: Hegemony in Ella Enchanted" (2012). Scripps Senior Theses. Paper 40. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/40 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Scripps Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scripps Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. UNBREAKABLE GLASS SLIPPERS: HEGEMONY IN ELLA ENCHANTED by TORI SHEREEN MIRSADJADI SUBMITTED TO SCRIPPS COLLEGE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS PROFESSOR WERNIMONT PROFESSOR LIU April 20, 2012 Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: A Self-Conscious Reflection on the Fairy Tale Thesis Contained in These Pages . 1 Chapter 1: Ella Grapples with Patriarchy. 20 Chapter 2: Ella’s Socially-Positive Characterization. 47 Chapter 3: Bitchy Ella . 68 Conclusion: A Concluding Reflection. .88 Works Cited. .93 Acknowledgements To Professor Jacqueline Wernimont and Professor Warren Liu, who so graciously guided me through every indecisive, rambling step on my journey toward getting this thesis written: I am forever thankful to have benefited from corresponding with, talking to, and thinking in the presence of two such amazing professors. I cannot thank my readers enough for letting me distract them from their newborn babies. A Self-Conscious Reflection on the Fairy Tale Thesis Contained in These Pages “Fairy tales contain us like a picture or poem, and reflect back to us in language, image and trope.” --Kate Bernheimer 1 Gail Carson Levine’s first published work, Ella Enchanted 2, rebels against its own fairy tale form in surprising ways.