The Evil Lady Trope
It shouldn’t be a surprise when you read a fairy tale and there is a character that hates someone or everything throughout the story. It also shouldn’t be a surprise when that character is a lady that is described as old, heartless, and unattractive, as the evil lady trope is one that many writers have used to tell their stories for centuries.
In the Juniper Tree by Brother’s Grimm, the step-mother kills her husband’s son, and feeds the boy to him as a soup for dinner. The reader is left to wonder why this old lady killed an innocent child, due to the flatness that is presented throughout the story. Although the step-mother killed the boy, the boy returned as a bird and eventually got his revenge by killing the step-mother. That is usually how fairy tales that use an evil lady trope will unfold. At one point there will be a child being abused by an evil lady, old or young, and then that child will at some point get his or her revenge on that lady, and most of the time it is through magic.
Another example of a fairy tale where the evil lady trope can be found is Cinderella. A popular story all over the world that started as a fairy tale, which features an evil step mother who rejects and puts her most beautiful child to work as if she were a slave.
There are many versions of the fairy tale, but the German version “Aschenputtel” seems to be one where the step mother is the most cruel. The prince offers to marry anyone who would fit a glass slipper that he found. So the grandmother cut the toes off of one of her daughter’s and the heel off of her other daughter to attempt to get one of them married, but both attempts were failures. According to the step-mother, “Ash Girl” was too filthy to fit the shoe. Unfortunately for the step-mother, the shoe fits the “Ash Girl” perfectly and she gets married to the prince. At the end of the story, the step-mother has her eyes pecked out by birds on the wedding day. As you can see, there is a sign of revenge with the step-mother being killed by the birds.
The story of the Little Glass Slipper has been retold many times. It’s most famous version is Cinderella, which was made by Disney. The story was then made into a cartoon film that debuted in the 1950’s. In 2015 Disney released a live-action Cinderella film called “Cinderella”.
In 2019, “Ma”, a movie about a lady that targets and befriends a group of teenagers by allowing them to party in the basement of her home, but there are certain rules that they must follow. This movie uses the evil lady trope with the main character who lures the kids of those who wronged her in the past in her basement where she tortures them.
