ESL Blogs

If you are a fan of Disney and like animations, you certainly know their famous productions such as Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast. They are two in lot of nice stories about princes, princesses and fairy tales for children. Don’t you get curious about how the girls’ lives are before they meet their princes, about their princes, the ways they meet each other and other interesting minor characters in every story? Let’s get into the dreaming world with them.  

To begin with how the girls’ life before they meet their princes. Cinderella – the main character in Cinderella's story, and Bella – the main one in Beauty and the Beast's story, are both motherless children and live with their fathers. The worst dates of Cinderella’s life begin when her father gets marriage twice after her mother died and she has to live with stepmother and 2 daughters of that woman. Cinderella has to become a servant without salary in her own house. She has to work hard all days and has no free time for herself. She has no friend and just able to make friends with birds, mice, and other animals which are always around her, talk and play with her and help her to do housework. Likewise Cinderella, Bella lives with her father who is a strange scientist and made fool by people in town, maybe because of that character Bella’s father doesn’t get marriage again, and Bella’s life is easier than Cinderella’s one. Bella has her own freedom life and friends in town where she can find many books in any bookstore or community library for her reading hobby. But, however their life are, they’re both nice girls who are loved by people around.

Next is about the princes and the ways our girls meet their princes. The second main character and be always needed in every animation of Disney is princes. In Cinderella’s story, the prince is quite like other charming princes in all romance fairy stories, such like he’s a manly handsome popular person and else…. He opens a party and invites all ladies in the country in order to find out a good girl who will become his wife in the future. He meets a beautiful girl who has a pair of crystal shoes. He falls in love with that nice girl at the first time but he can’t do or talk to her anything because the girl has to go home in hurry. The only thing that he can use to find out his girl is one-side shoe she dropped. Prince opens a contest in order to find out the girl whose foot fits with the crystal shoe and he can find his princess Cinderella in finally. In contrast with the charming prince in Cinderella’s story, the prince in Beauty and the Beast’s story is a Beast. In other word, he used to be a charming prince but not only he is conjured to become a lion but also everything and everyone who live in his castle are conjured into toys because of his selfishness. He’s cursed, his life is counting down days by days, and he will die if he can’t find out a truth love with anyone. One day, he meets a nice girl who comes to his castle in order to replace for her father and become a servant in his castle. He is attracted by her warming heart; he gets his self-confidence back and opened his heart to everyone a little by little. He finds out his truth love with Bella who loves him because of himself and his manner no matter what he is. They fight together to protect their happiness and they win in the end. Cinderella and Bella have different life and lifestyle; similarly, their princes have different characters too. But all of them are good people who want to love and to be loved in truth, so that, as routine of Disney style, they should have a happy ending at all.

In addition, beside the main characters, there are a lot of minor ones in every story. There are two kinds of minor characters, companion and enemy in both Cinderella’s story and Beauty and the Beast’s story. An interesting similarity between these two stories is the companions are not human. They’re also animals like birds, mice or toys like cups of tea, pot or carpet, and etc. Although they are not human but they have human’s personalities with their own emotions, feelings, actions…and without their helps, the main characters’ dreams may not become true. Mice and birds help Cinderella doing housework and become a beautiful carriage Cinderella uses for going to the party. They appear in almost important moments in Cinderella’s life as a magic. In the same way, toys characters protect the castle in which the Beast and Bella are in, when they are attacked by Gaston, who want to kill the Beast and get marriage with Bella and his fellows. They exist and nurture the love between Bella and the Beast. Animals and toys characters are small but their existences are as necessary as the main characters. Besides, the enemy characters’ existences are needed too, because the main characters’ personalities won’t be emphasized if there are no enemy ones. Enemy characters make the stories more and more attractive and dramatic.

In closing, no matter who they are, no matter what they do, no matter how they find each other, both Cinderella’s story and Beauty and the Beast’s story have the same style of Disney’s storytelling, nice girls meet their charming princes, they fight together to protect their love and their romantic stories will end with a happy wedding ceremony. Disney’s producers create unique characters and different situations in every story, so that, although the plots are almost same in a lot of animations, their productions are always welcome, especially by children over the world.