2. Contrast
• Stepsisters are “fair in face but foul at heart” (1)
• Cinderella is a “poor little girl” who “was always
good and kind to all about her” (1)
3. Material Goods
• “Fine clothes” and “pearls and diamonds” (1)
• Ashputtle asks for “The first twig, dear father, that
brushes against your hat when you turn your face to
come homewards” (1)
• “it grew and became a fine tree” (1)
4. Animals
• Bird in the tree on Ashputtle’s mother’s grave
• Birds who help her clean the peas out of the fire
• No fairy godmother
• bird in the tree she has planted
5. Slippers
• “slippers which were all of gold” (3)
• Small
• “the silly girl cut off her great toe, and thus squeezed
on the shoe” (3)
• “her mother squeezed it [her foot] in till the blood
came” (3-4)
• “Princess! The shoe was made for you!” (4)
7. Yeh-Shen vs. Stepmother
• “The stepmother didn’t like Yeh-Shen for she was
more beautiful and kinder than her own daughter so
she treated her poorly” (105)
• “the only friend she had was a beautiful fish” (105)
• Stepmother killed it and cooked it for dinner
8. Wishes
• “wise old man” tells Yeh-Shen that she can ask the
bones of her deceased fish friend for her desires and
warns her “not to waste their gifts” (105)
• Yeh-Shen wishes to go to the festival
• “the young people gathered in the village to meet one
another and find husbands and wives” (105)
10. Slippers
• “woven of golden threads in the pattern of a scaled
fish and the soles were made of solid gold. When
she walked she felt lighter than air” (105)
• “warned not to lose the slippers” (105)
• Tries to retrieve lost slipper secretly
• “tiniest feet” (105)
11. Punishment
• “the stepmother and daughter were never allowed to
visit Yeh-Shen and were forced to continue to live in
their cave until the day they were crushed to death in
a shower of flying stones” (105)
12. Rags
• In what ways are Ashputtle and Yeh-Shen “in rags”
at the beginning of each of these stories?
• What virtues do they possess in spite of these rags?
13. Riches
• What devices help them get from rags to riches?
• What role does each play in her own improvement?
14. Stepmother & Stepsister(s)
• What are the “oppressors” like in each of these
stories?
• How are their attributes related to the virtues of
Ashputtle and Yeh-Shen?
• How are they punished?
• Why is this method of punishment important?
