This thesis examines the way in which the fairy-tale Stepmother is portrayed in two versions of the Korean ‘Cinderella Story’ of K’ongchwi P’atchwi, and the German Aschenputtel by Jacob and Wilhelm...Show moreThis thesis examines the way in which the fairy-tale Stepmother is portrayed in two versions of the Korean ‘Cinderella Story’ of K’ongchwi P’atchwi, and the German Aschenputtel by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Its aim is to study the power structures, and the social and psychological patterns which create the ‘Evil’ of the Stepmothers in these versions of the ‘Cinderella Story’. This thesis is an attempt to shed some light on the cultural influences which have led to the creation of similar and yet different ‘Evil Stepmothers’, by using an ‘Integrated Approach’ which draws on the Archetypal and Post-modern schools of literary analysis. This approach plays to the strengths of both pre-existing approaches whilst giving a more complete analysis than either would have generated if used in isolation. The thesis concludes that the Stepmothers in the studied versions all have the same function: that of exemplifying the undesirable consequences of the abuse of power and, the ways in which undesirable dark side of the human psyche can manifest itself if one lets it do so. However, despite this shared function, the exact details of the Stepmother’s behaviors as well as other differences between the stories reflect the cultures in which they were created. In this way the abuse of power and the dark side of the human psyche are brought home to readers from different cultures through differing iterations of the Stepmother Archetype.Show less
