by Tanada » Sun 22 Oct 2017, 10:27:12
Americans and at least the Canadians and British who I know personally love rags to riches stories because you can always imagine yourself in the starring role in your own mind.
Of course in the real world Cinderella most likely died of abuse before her 21st birthday instead of marrying a Prince. Even that ignores her biographical background as the daughter of a nobleman, not a peasant girl of lower class status. Yes dear friends, the Cinderella of the original story was born with a metal spoon in her mouth and a full set of dishes, not in a peasant hovel eating off a board with her fingers and a wooden spoon. Thus her Rags to Riches story, most commonly known to western English speaking people, is the story of a noble Lady raised to high rank after being mistreated. Much like the sanitized versions of Robin Hood where we gloss over the fact that Robin was a nobleman who got into a dispute with King John and who was pursued by the Sheriff, (analogous to an American Federal Marshal) appointed by King John to hunt him down for trial and execution.
Telling stories about rebelling or downtrodden nobles who win has fallen out of favor in the modern world so the nobility angle is glossed over, but it comes back to the old saying "It takes money to make money". My own father and two of his brothers in law invested in wildcat drilling in Michigan and between them funded three wells, all of which failed. When they ran out of money and had to quit the wildcatter found other investors and went on to drill a fourth dry hole, and then on his fifth struck oil and paid those investors off handsomely. I however did not grow up with oil money LOL, far from it. My father had to start over because he was broke as did one of my uncles in the partnership, the third was fortunate to live on the inherited family farm because he was married to my fathers oldest sister, but even he had to spend many years rebuilding his financial stake lost in the oil venture.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.