SOURCE:“Cendrillon and the Ogre: Women in Fairy Tales and Sade,” in Romanic Review, Vol. 81, No. 1, January 1990, pp. 11-24.

In the essay below, de Dobay Rifelj analyzes the similarities in the ways Perrault and the Marquis de Sade viewed and represented women in their writings, finding the female characters passive and weak.

In Perrault's verse tale “Griselidis,” Griselda's husband, the king, has locked her in a dark room and removed all the jewels and finery she was given as queen. Her reaction is emblematic of the presentation of women in Perrault's tales

Par un pur mouvement de sa bonté suprême,           Il me choisit comme un enfant qu’il aime,                                         Et s’applique à me corriger. 

Aimons donc sa rigueur utilement cruelle,                     On n’est heureux qu’autant qu’on a souffert,                                         Aimons sa bonté paternelle                                         Et la main dont elle se sert. (34)(1) 

Such a representation of the suffering...