Amanda Fisher 

Professor Voisard 

Kylee Pastore 

FIQWS 10005 and 10105 

6 November 2022 

    Evil Stepmothers: Reality for Blended Families 

Many modern families consist of stepparents and stepchildren. The dynamic of a traditional family has become the outliner in society’s idea of families. The media of the present have made stepparents transition into their new family filled with prejudices. These media ideas are rooted in fairytales. During the time of these fairytales, the traditional family values were important to teach children. Unfortunately, these stories didn’t age with time. Families these days are most likely to be blended or nontraditional. The stereotypes that fairy tales displayed in society deeply affect the modern-day family. The harrowing stereotypes of evil stepmothers have a huge effect on the relationship between a stepmother and a stepchild. The stepmother stereotype in fairy tales such as Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Snow White negatively affect blended families by making them the scapegoat and showing that stepmothers look out for their biological children more. These key fairy tales have transformed into ways of life for many families. Children, especially stepchildren, take up these stories and create a perspective and an expectation for the day when they will be faced with the possibility of a stepmother. 

Most roles that women get to play in fairy tales or passive with little to no character development. So, when a woman does play an active role in fairy tales, its mostly in an evil sense. The stepmother stereotype in “Hansel and Gretel “negatively affects blended families by making them the scapegoat for the stepchildren. The biological relationship between a child and their mother makes it difficult to confront the reality of troubles with stepparents. In “Hansel and Gretal”, the stepmother comes up with the idea to leave her stepchildren in the woods to help her and her husband avoid starvation. The stepmother in “Hansel and Gretal “says, “I’ll tell you what, husband,” answered the woman, “early tomorrow morning we’ll take the children out into the thickest part of the wood. There we shall light a fire for them and give them each a piece of bread; then we’ll go on to our work and leave them alone. They won’t be able to find their way home, and we shall be rid of them” (Grimm 44). The stepmother in this story takes up the evil role of abandoning her stepchildren. This fairytale shows the reality of abandonment, but only puts that reality on stepmothers. In “Contesting the Myth of the ‘Wicked Stepmother: Narrative Analysis of an Online Stepfamily Support Group” by Allison Christian she states” Bettelheim’s (1977) work that suggests that one reason for the persistence of this stereotype may be due to the psychological needs it meets for children who are often actually angry with the mother who, because of divorce, is now ‘viewed as a different person’ (121). The stepmother becomes a figure to whom they may transfer this anger without endangering the relationship with their mother” (31). The Grimm version of “Hansel and Gretel” shows the cruelty used by the stepmother; this makes sure that the stepmother is easy to hate. In this story the stepmother gives the idea to the father to abandon the children because of the poverty they face. Abandonment is common today in modern society but back then it was better for the stepmother to take the blame and roles of bad parenting, than accept that the possibility of bad mothers exists in this form. The many emotions that a stepchild might feel for their mother get transferred onto the stepmothers because it might be easier for children to blame their stepmother than their biological parents. This puts unproportionate blame on stepmothers, while allowing an unhealthy relationship between a child and their mother. 

One of the world-renowned stories that shows the evil stepmother is Snow white. In “Snow White” the stepmother takes on a new version of cruelty than we’ve ever seen. Fueled by the standard of beauty and jealousness Snow White’s stepmother sends out a hunter to hunt and kill snow white. She even asks the Huntsman to retrieve her heart as proof. The stepmother stereotype in Snow white negatively influences blended families by making them the scapegoat for the stepchildren. In the Grimm version of Snow White, it states “And envy and pride like ill weeds grew in her heart higher every day, until she had no Peace Day or night. At last, she sent for a huntsman, and said, “Take the child out into the woods, so that I may set eyes on her no more. You must put her to death and bring me her heart for a token” (Grimm171). The story focuses on the standard of beauty and how the stepmother is competing with snow white over beauty. In “In the Shadow of a Fairy Tale” – The New York Times by Leslie Jamison she says “The figure of the stepmother effectively became a vessel for the emotional aspects of motherhood that were too ugly to attribute to mothers directly (ambivalence, jealousy, resentment) and those parts of a child’s experience of her mother (as cruel, aggressive, withholding) that were too difficult to situate directly in the biological parent-child dynamic” (Jamison,3). The stepmother took the place of the evil mother in many stories to transfer feelings of envy, jealousy and hatred from the mother to non-biotical maternal figure. At the time that these fairytales were written, a nuclear family was preferred an expected. Stories like Snow white push the envelope for “normal families” all the while putting prejudices on families outside that idea. 

“Cinderella” in most versions revolves around the horrible stepfamily treating Cinderella horribly. The evil stepmother stereotype in “Cinderella” negatively affects blended families by showing that stepmothers treat their biological children better. In the story Cinderella, the stepmother recognizes Cinderella beauty and sends her to be the house maid to try to get the better opportunities for her daughters. When the stepmother sees Cinderella beauty, she sent Cinderella to do the worse jobs to get her kids the best chance. For instance, in “Cinderella”, the stepmother says “here’s a knife, and if the slipper is still too tight for you, then cut off a piece of your foot. It will hurt a bit. But what does that matter? It will soon pass, and one of you will become queen.”” (Grimm75). So as mentioned in “Cinderella”, the stepmother sent Cinderella to do the worse jobs to make sure that her daughter had no competitions. When the prince presents the slipper to the family, the stepmother even suggests her own daughters mutilate themselves to secure her future. Furthermore, in “Who’s Wicked Now? The Stepmother as Fairy-Tale Heroine” by Christy Williams she states “With remarriage the second wife could easily find herself competing with her stepchildren for the very resources for which she married. Thus, cruelty to her husband’s biological children would be a way to ensure survival for her own biological children” (Williams260). The connection between biological children and their parents doesn’t only mean stepchildren and their biological mothers, it also applies to the stepmother and her own children Aswell. It also means stepmothers used their actions to look out for their children. This belief makes people expect stepmothers to cherish their biological children over their stepchildren. The idea that your parental figure is only looking out for their biological children would create a huge divide between stepmothers and stepchildren. 

The phrase “blood is thicker than water” suggests that a bond can’t hold much weight if it’s not a biological bond. The evil stepmother stereotype negatively affects blended families by showing that stepmothers treat their biological children better. In an analytical article about Cinderella and the behavior tropes within the story, the biological connection between the stepmother and their children is mentioned. In Bruno Bettelheim’s “The Uses of Enchantment” he states, “Cinderella is pushed down and degraded by her stepsisters; her interests are sacrificed to theirs by her (step)mother; she is expected to do the dirtiest work and although she performs it well, she receives no credit for it; only more is demanded of her” (237). Bettelheim further confirms the mistreatment that Cinderella got at the hands of her stepmother to secure her own children’s future. Furthermore, in “Shift from Wicked Stepmother to Stepmother in Eastern and Western Fairy Tales” by Geon Ho Bahn and Minha Hong they state that “Stories that included the following keywords fell under the “greed” category: poverty, wealth, labor, property, money, and wedding gift. These stories tended to feature a stepmother who abused an ex-wife’s child to pass the property on to herself or her own child. These stories featured a stepmother who mistreated an ex-wife’s child who was better looking or more talented than herself or her own children” (Bahn and Hong 3). In the previous stories mentioned the stepmother either greedy or jealous of the children of their husbands. The cruelty that those children receive is a result of stepmothers making sure that their children got the best out of the arrangement. Many people will ask why stepfathers aren’t subject to this stereotype or prejudice. In Allison Christian’s paper she addresses this question by saying that” Unlike stepfathers, stepmothers are ‘generally expected to fulfill the same role and functions as natural mothers without the benefit of the positive side of the ambivalent feelings—the deep and abiding love most children feel for their natural mothers’ (p. 122)” (31). The role of the mother carries more pressure in any type of family so when the stereotype is about stepfathers, they aren’t as affected by the evil stereotype. Most Villans in fairy tales also happen to be women. 

Modern day families are typically blended in some ways. That fear that you and many others have about new members coming into your family can be traced back to the fairytale representation of blended families. The forced idea of nuclear families in young children, all the while casting the villains as the stepmother influences the prejudice on younger children. The evil stepmother stereotype negatively affects blended families by making them the scapegoat and by showing that stepmothers in fairytales aim to treat biological kids better. 

                                                      Works Cited 

Bahn, Geon Ho, and Minha Hong. “Shift from Wicked Stepmother to Stepmother in Eastern and Western Fairy Tales.” Psychiatry investigation vol. 16,11 (2019): 836-842. doi:10.30773/pi.2019.0132  

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Vintage Books, 2010. 

Christian. “Contesting the Myth of the ’Wicked Stepmother: Narrative Analysis of an Online Stepfamily Support Group.” Western Journal of Communication, vol. 69, no. 1, 2004, pp. 27–47, https://doi.org/info:doi/. 

  Grimm, Jacob, et al. The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition. 1st ed., Princeton University Press, 2014. 

Jamison, Leslie. In the Shadow of a Fairy Tale – The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/magazine/in-the-shadow-of-a-fairy-tale.html. 

Williams, Christy. “Who’s Wicked Now?: The Stepmother as Fairy-Tale Heroine.” Marvels & Tales, vol. 24 no. 2, 2010, p. 255-271. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/402475.