In Cinderella, her mother is dead, and although her father is present, he is absent once he marries her stepmother. Cinderella is a young, sweet, loving, and beautiful girl. We can only imagine what she is going through, given that she lost her mother. Her stepmother comes into her life and just ruins it or attempts to ruin it. The word stepmother alone has a negative connotation to it. This rhetoric is not only pushed in the real world but also reinforced in fairytales. The representation of stepmothers in fairytales compared to the representation of princesses plays a significant role in the characters and their behavior toward each other in Cinderella. Fairytales have a specific role for certain characters in all stories and these roles tend to always be recurrent in fairytales as well. These characteristics and portrayals usually impact the way each character behaves. I think that this rhetoric that is pushed not only in fairytales but in real life too, only makes the stereotype regarding stepmothers believed even more. Why are stepmothers represented this way? Stepmothers are always presented as evil because they are jealous of the princesses. In these stories, the stepmother is evil, ugly, and poor. Her daughter is not too far from her either. Cinderella, on the other hand, is very beautiful, young, comes from a rich family, and delightful. In fairy tales, she is constantly comparing her stepdaughters to Cinderella. She puts them in competition. In Cinderella it says, “ The stepsisters took away her clothes and dressed her in an old gray smock. ‘You look good in that !’ they said while mocking her and leading her to the kitchen, where the poor child had to do heavy work:she had to get up before dawn, carry the water into the house, make the fire, cook, and wash. Meanwhile, her sisters did everything imaginable to cause her grief and make her look ridiculous” (Grimm 70). This goes to show that the stepsisters are jealous of Cinderella. They make her feel and look ugly to make themselves feel good.

Furthermore Marianne Dainton, a professor, and specialist in interpersonal communication dives into two cross-cultural and transhistorical myths about stepmotherhood: the evil stepmother myth and the myth of rapid love. As well as how the prevalence of these stories has contributed to the stigma surrounding stepmothers. Her study examines stepmother beliefs, describes how these myths affect stepmothers’ lives, identifies, obstacles in identity management for stepmothers and proposes identity management alternatives for stepmothers to utilize (Dainton). Stepmothers act this certain way because they have trouble figuring out who or what their identity is. The princess makes them inferior or jealous so they begin projecting and acting upon their feelings.
Stepmothers tend to project because they are going through things that are already too much to handle. Larmo argues how fairytale characters’ behaviors may be motivated by a desire to protect themselves. People may act out of jealousy as a result of the feelings they are experiencing. However, because they are unable to express their emotions, they typically engage in destructive and dangerous behaviors. Some of their behaviors include attempting to kill their spouses’ daughters. The princesses in fairytales are most likely already experiencing emotions as a result of their moms’ deaths. Out of jealousy and sometimes sheer hatred, The cruel old stepmothers or elders characters in general try to project their emotions and feelings onto the other characters to feel better (Larmo). Stepmothers behaving this way can be a form of a mental survival technique. Survival mode is a chronic condition of stress and tiredness that can be triggered by a variety of factors, including traumatic experiences, burnout, or extended mourning. People deal with these issues in various ways, including projecting their frustrations on others.
Jones also discusses where these characters’ ugly behavior stems from. The wickedness and corruption that these people harbor on the inside are usually reflected in their unsightly outward appearances. Fairytale literature has long put high value on beauty. Though none of the versions of the story describe her step sisters as unattractive, Cinderella’s incredible beauty makes them appear repulsive in comparison. In these legends moral rectitude and physical beauty almost go hand in hand. However, few characters lose their appeal when put to the test. One thing that can result in the ugly behavior of the characters in these fairytales are their looks. (Jones) This in a sense ties into the idea of jealousy which is rooted in insecurities. The evil stepmother feels as if she is in competition with cinderella because she look better than her. There is a possibility that she does this to have a feeling of authority and a feeling of being and looking better than Cinderella. This is very ironic because Cinderella may not think like this about her stepmother or her stepsister. It is the stepmother who believes that Cinderella thinks she is better than the stepmother and her daughters. Therefore, she tries to be little her by making her do degrading things that will make her feel less than.

Additionally, the stepmothers in fairytales may act evil and ugly because they can possibly be trying to teach the princess life skills since they longer have their biological mothers in their life.They take on the mother role. Lyudmyla M. Kulakevych, a journalist, emphasizes the importance of the many depictions of characters in fairytales. The changeling theme, which appears constantly, reveals the girl’s connection to the other dimension. In fairy tales, the mother’s early death and the advent of an evil stepmother are governed by the girl’s crucial need to grow up independently; while the mother is kind, her excessive care impedes the young woman’s deeper growth and capacity to adapt to life’s obstacles. It has been demonstrated that the motif of the mother’s death transforms in Lawrence’s short story: a two-year-old child is entrusted wholly in the care of her father, who nurtures the girl in an amorous setting. Sometimes stepmothers are portrayed as nasty because they are attempting to educate the young girls different life skills than what they are accustomed to. (Lyudmyla)

Lastly, The wicked stepmother lacks the selflessness that traditional parenting requires. She represents parental wisdom withheld, as well as someone imprisoned in the family scenario who has no desire to sacrifice her own development or desires for the children she has been obliged to care for. Typically, the father is a well-established, moderately affluent individual, and that marriage symbolizes the future for her, while the children are merely a remnant of a deceased past (through their original mother). The evil stepmother has no intention of investing herself in the upbringing and education of the children. It is easy to see how power over oneself might lead to the practice of magic. When her daughters grow up to be more beautiful than she is, she will gladly kill or siphon off the lives and youth of the children before her in an attempt to maintain that dynamic of complete autonomy that appears so alien within a family setting.