| This study of Kurt Vonnegut's fiction traces the evolution of the author's use of the Cinderella myth and its message of feminine subservience. In the Cinderella tale the persecuted heroine traditionally enjoys gifts from a fairy godmother followed by a calamitous reversal of fortune wrought at the stroke of midnight. Rescue or rejuvenation are depicted through marriage to a wealthy prince.;Characters examined in this light include Beatrice Rumfoord in The Sirens of Titan (1959); Resi Noth in Mother Night (1961); Mona Monzano in Cat's Cradle (1963); Mary Kathleen O'Looney in Jailbird (1979); Celia Hoover in Deadeye Dick (1982); and Marilee Kemp in Bluebeard (1987).;Applying the Cinderella motif to Vonnegut's work illuminates the motivations and revelations of female characters who re-order their worlds through a refusal to accept conventional meanings. They reject the obligations of motherhood, abandon marriage, assume false or reclusive identities and seek to subvert the course society maps for them. Their varied responses demonstrate ways women may be degraded and transfigured by dehumanizing social expectations.;In anticipation of a Cinderella outcome, the reader is led to recognize the sad logic of fairy tale events re-cast in contemporary terms. Here characters refute the belief that goodness results in reward and instead experience profound dissatisfaction. It is this expectation and its contradiction that provides the fulcrum for analysis of Vonnegut's application of fairy tale language and thought.;This study further demonstrates ways Vonnegut's female characters enact and re-invent the Cinderella figure through parody, word play, regression, the breakdown of temporal organization, and gaming. Close study of the women themselves provides a framework for demonstrating the power of myth to represent and resist constrictive social roles, moving from depictions of women based on their physical attributes and focusing on inner worth, creativity and psychic wholeness. |
