Cinderella and the Narcissist, by Sheri McGregor, page 2/2
According to Payson, another result to children of NPD parents is developing NPD themselves. The stepsisters display the narcissistic traits of their mother, demonstrating this parent-child transmission. Perrault makes this clear in several ways. He characterizes the stepsisters as cutting “a considerable figure in the country” (39), and being regarded as “high degree” (39), yet the reader is given no reason to see them as such. He then tells the reader that the question of what to wear and how to do their hair takes up “all their time” (39). These details reveal the fulfillment of nos. 1, 2, 3 and possibly 4 of the DSM-IV criteria. The sisters also lack empathy for Cinderella, fulfilling DSM-IV no. 7 as they tease her, asking if she’d like to go to the ball, then agreeing with and emphasizing her humble (co-dependent) reply that “It would be no place for me” by calling her a “cinder-clod” (40). Yet they take advantage of Cinderella’s good taste and skills with their hair, being “exploitative” (qted. in Payson, 21) to achieve their own ends, which fulfills DSM-IV no. 6.
It is interesting to note that Perrault makes the younger stepsister “not quite so spiteful as the elder” (39), which suggests typical family dynamics when there are several children. Payson says this is the “dividing up” (62) of the NPD parent’s projections. More focused upon by the NPD mother, the elder sister more intensely develops NPD traits. Payson considers the younger sister a “less acknowledged” child. By being “left on their own” she has “more freedom to discover” her true self “unimpeded” by the NPD mother’s projected identity as an extension of herself (62).
Co-dependent, Cinderella never openly complains. She does, however, reveal repressed anger. Payson says, “How could Cinderella be anything but enraged by receiving such prolonged abuse and unfair treatment?” (68) Payson says unresolved anger is shown by depression. Early in Perrault’s story, Cinderella is described as sitting “amongst the cinders in the corner of the chimney,” which demonstrates such depression. But like others Payson writes about who suffer the negative influence of an NPD parent, Cinderella finds ways to deal with her rage, developing some NPD traits of her own and competing with her NPD parent and siblings.
Perrault uses a fairy godmother and her magic to get Cinderella to the ball, but perhaps as Payson says, this is simply his way of allowing Cinderella who has been “left alone” to become “inventive” and “resourceful” as a “means of survival” (68). Instead of owning her resourcefulness, “illustrated perhaps by the metaphor of turning pumpkins into carriages” (68) and mice into horses, Perrault allows Cinderella to credit a fairy godmother for the magic that gets her to the ball.
According to Payson’s characterization, this fits Cinderella’s position. In a torn state of co-dependency and anger, Cinderella invents a fairy godmother rather than admit she takes action for herself. She thus doesn’t risk the disapproval of her step-sisters, who say she is a cinder clod worthy of ridicule at the ball. But Cinderella is transitioning, displaying narcissism as the children of NPD parents often do. This is shown by Perrault’s grandiose characterization, typical of NPD diagnostic criteria. Arriving at the ball, she isn’t just pretty or even very pretty, but is of such “superb beauty” that the music stops and everyone bestows rapt attention on her, “the unknown guest” (42). She is torn, though, which is demonstrated by her making her stepsisters “share with her the oranges and lemons which the king had given her” (42).
Depending on how one chooses to view Cinderella in the context of the NPD stepmother and her effect on her children, this sense of being torn either continues through her co-dependency, or ends, changing to full-blown NPD. Viewed as moving back into the co-dependent state of her childhood, bringing her stepsisters to the palace and having them married to the men of the court is seen as a way for their abuse toward her to continue, since Cinderella elevates their status to one they don’t deserve (just as her father does his second wife). However, viewing her as having taken on full NPD, her actions appear more cunning. She moves the stepsisters into “apartments in the palace” and marries them to men of a “high rank about the court” (45). Yet their rank will always be less than hers, since she has married the prince who will eventually become the king, making her the queen.
It is interesting to note that other Cinderella type stories also feature the theme of a narcissistic parent. In “Cap o’ Rushes,” the father is the NPD parent, for instance, displayed in the way he calls his daughters to see how much they love him. He glorifies two of them, yet finds the third girl’s answer lacking and kicks her out in what Payson says is “negative” or “positive” projection onto children. This is typical of an NPD parent. Despite her struggles, Cap o’ Rushes maintains her love for her father, devising a way to reveal herself to him, and embracing him in the end—which can be viewed as co-dependent.
The DSM-IV didn’t exist at the time the “Cinderella” stories originated, but as seen through mythology and folk tales, narcissists did. Just as the tales continue, one suspects that narcissism, by way of its perpetual nature within family dynamics, also will.
References
Payson, Eleanor D., The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists: Coping with the One-Way Relationship in Work, Love, and Family
Folk & Fairy Tales, Third Edition, Ed. Hallet, Martin and Karasek, Barbara, Ontario, Canada, Broadview Press, 2002
Sheri McGregor's writings appear in publications as diverse as The Washington Post and OzBike. Her happy ending novels were first published by Zebra Books in 1999 and 2001, and are still selling internationally. She also writes local hiking guides, espousing her love of the natural world and its healing powers to the human psyche. McGregor holds a BA in psychology, is working toward her MA in Human Behavior, and works as a life coach. Find out more about McGregor and her writing at www.SanDiegoHikes.com and www.SheriMcGregor.com